A New Hope

Obviously I am a Star Wars fan, hence the title.
I thought about the time spent at office, and I've come to realize that I am not an expert in any field. In seven years, I know a little bit of everything, but am not an expert in any particular field. Not Good!
Being an Instrumentation engineer, I have given up hope of gaining expertise in that particular field. The reason being that I have no avenues to get my hands dirty. If one needs to become an expert, one has to gets his hands dirty. So what can I do?
I have a computer in front of me, so why not start coding and automating stuff. Automation is not just  for a plant, one can automate other stuff and add transparency to the system.
There are people who will tell me that numerous people are doing this, why should you do this too. You are an Instrumentation engineer and so on so forth. But I got to do something, and it is the best thing one can do, when the only resource available is a computer.
If all else fails....Code!

When everything goes south

In my previous post I mentioned that I had to attend an interview to get promoted to the next grade. In between the last interview and the recent interview, the promotion rules got modified. A new option was added, which could postpone the promotion by a year.
As luck would have it, I attended the interview and have now got a delayed promotion.
I studied a lot, but there were questions that I could never answer. The composition of thermocouples is not something that I am prepared to commit to my memory. You open a book its available.
I happen to work in the area of simulation and software etc. However, just a day before the interview, I have to wear the mask of an Instrumentation engineer. Thats bad!
Unlike last time, I am not very disappointed. People who are 2 years junior to me would become my peers. My batchmates would either become a year senior or two years senior.  All that doesn't matter, as long as the job is satisfactory. I wish I could say that.
As these promotions are the metric through which one can climb the ladder, and with what has happened, my ladder will be quite short.
I somehow feel at peace and yet there an urgency to jump ship.
I'll have to work towards that.
Obviously, twice in a row is a message of incompatibility. I can't just leave. I have responsibilities.
I have to be an expert in a field and maintain my market value.
As far as Instrumentation is concerned, I think the field is saturated and it is more of managerial work. We don't develop Instruments, we use them.
I am still working on my escape route but who knows, in the end I will be languishing in the same organisation and would be describing my next promotion interview after 6 years.
To quote Andy Dufrense, ' Hope is a good thing and good things don't die'.
I hope that I will enjoy my job, I hope that things will work out, I hope that I'll sleep content, and wake up happy.
I'll work towards that.