As an engineer I have the mental facilities to do just about anything. Doctor? Piece of cake. Those guys do not generally have good problem solving skills. Nurse? Well not a very pretty one but I can change an adult diaper in a pinch. Accountant? Come on please I can run a spreadsheet. You think you have something I can not do? Your name better be Feynman or Lederman. Politician? How hard is it to learn how to tell people want they want to hear? Ok well I suspect I'll never be a part of the Bolshoi.
So being this renaissance man it was hard for me to come to an understanding of "employee". Why not just do it yourself and avoid the headache? Here is my best explanation thus far:
A job is a think the someone gives you to do when they absolutely can not avoid doing it themselves. Now you might say well I am an IC design engineer so what are you going to do? Design a chip yourself? Well no but many times I can avoid needing the chip at all! In fact if you manage to stay in business very long you get very skilled at just this sort of problem.
So if you have a job or are looking for one remember this. An employee is just a another big issue to handle. A headache of sorts often as not. So you better be good at what you do. And I will be hiring my ballerina dancers you can be sure of that!
Added note: Once you have sold about 500 of your first engineered product you will find you start getting some heaving pinging from your customer base. This is because naturally you did the minimum amount of work to get the item on market and get revenue streaming. Your customer base then has sufficient numbers of non-timid people who will speak up and moan about product issues. It hurts but that's when you know you are winning. Hang in there!
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