One of the pleasures of working for myself is that it allows me to experiment with some rather non-traditional approaches to the whole concept of ‘work’. In fact, looking back at some of my postings, here, here and here it’s clear that this is a recurring theme in my writing. I mention this because a number of years ago I instituted the policy of
Two idiotic mistakes and I quit.
What exactly is this you ask? Well over the years I have noticed that I have days in which rather than progressing on problems, I actually regress, often by huge amounts. I do stupid things such as apply power with the wrong polarity to a board, or I design a circuit that will evidently never work. If I make two of these bone headed mistakes in quick succession, I take it as a clear indicator that my head really isn’t where it needs to be – and I quit for the day.
Now, back when I was an employee, I simply had no choice other than to continue ‘working’, even though I knew full well that I’d be doing my employer a favor if I did nothing more than sit in the corner for the rest of the day. Today, I simply walk away and return to the problem the next day.
It would be an unusual manager who recognized that these days occur – and encouraged his staff to ‘quit’ when they did. I’m sure for many managers, this concept is too radical. However, if Engineers are indeed professionals, then we could do worse than adopt the abbreviated form of the Hippocratic oath given in the title to this posting.
