How are these related?

This post has a few tips on how to view engineering careers, avoid setbacks, and moderate the pain you feel as a sports fan when your team goes through punishing defeats or losing streaks. If we change the way we view progress and teams – using Badger Football at a metaphor – we can all get ahead and along better.

badger_offensive_linemen_blocking_for_melvin_gordon_iii-wikimedia

95 yards: “just more room to work” (Wikimedia)

For those who don’t follow football, or the Wisconsin Badgers in particular, let me describe a perception of their style since the mid 1990s. In sharp contrast to their performance during my undergraduate career (at which time they were laughably bad), they have for the last two decades been a team that, for the most part, will:

  1. Control both lines of scrimmage with solid offensive and defensive lines
  2. Pound the ball on the ground
  3. Pound the ball on the ground
  4. Pound the ball on the ground
  5. Repeat

They may throw a pass now and again. That certainly was the case when they had the fantastic Russell Wilson. But generally they seem to make do with solid (at best), game-manager quarterbacks whose job is not to lose the game, and let the team and fundamentals do the work.

Statistics of past games give some reflection of what can be done when the team clicks. In the 1999 Rose Bowl, the punishing Ron Dayne behind his road grader line ran for 246 yards and four touchdowns, averaging nine yards a carry. 343 total team rushing yards. Line up, go straight at the other team, wear them out, wear them down. They know you are coming, and they can’t do anything about it. Fans of Emmitt Smith or Jerome Bettis have seen plenty of those games.

Now, my preference for this style goes far beyond a particular team. The key is to identify the attributes that you respect, and then to the degree teams reflect that, they deserve your respect. The keys for me: good coaching, good O- and D-lines, a punishing running game that can dominate an opponent,  a non-flashy passing game that does just enough, and players with good character. Deciding you want to back teams that reflect these principles (or whatever you prefer) saves you a great deal of misdirected and undeserved grief.

For example, the 1980s Packers were fairly woeful teams, average at best. Poor talented and oft-punished Lynn Dickey. The team they lost to regularly was the hated Bears, who could absolutely smother opponents on both offense and defense. For years all the losses pained me, but now I realize that it is the principles that deserve our support, not the jerseys. If the teams you think deserve your allegiance don’t express the fundamental principles you respect, it’s on them to change. Showing appreciation for other teams that obey sound principles lets us get along better as Americans, even if by birth location I’m not a Bears, Crimson Tide, or Cubs fan.

How does this relate to an engineering career?

There are of course notable exceptions for those innovative and brilliant tech entrepreneurs who come across the product or service that makes a killing in a short time, like Kurt Warner and his team’s brilliance. I admire them, though I’m not similarly gifted. But for the vast majority of us engineers, we:

  1. Work hard and understand fundamentals
  2. Pound the ball on the ground
  3. Pound the ball on the ground
  4. Pound the ball on the ground
  5. Repeat

If you are not suited for an engineering career (akin to not being suited for the physical punishment of an offensive lineman or running back), I advise you to not get anywhere near the field. If your parents think it is a good idea for reason X or Y but you cringe at the math, physics, or long hours – please don’t pursue it; you’ll just be unhappy. There’s no shame in doing something else that better fits your aptitudes.

If you are fit for engineering, however, you can make great strides for your career and the world simply by keeping your head down and pounding the ball. Who is your ‘opposition’ in this case?

Your Opponents

Who are these opponents, who deserve to be punished, Badger-football, smash-mouth style? These are the stressors every person and their family face – anxiety, debt,  giving undue weight to opinions of others, insecurity, struggling to find meaning in your pursuits, etc. How can the ground game of an engineering career effectively attack these?

  • Steady Progress: a football team that could grind out four yards per carry would Never. Lose.  A Game. For the same reason, if you as a young engineer can come out and earn $70k+ a year, save 15-25%+ or so a year (try to max out that 401k), sock that away in index funds – you will assuredly become financially independent, far sooner than most. Much like the Badgers or I have done occasionally, you can mix it up a bit, drop back, try to throw the deep ball on some get rich scheme. You will likely get sacked or throw into a pick-six. Don’t. Just Pound the Ball.
  • Punish Debt. Debt is a tackle for loss, sack, a sapping drain on your energy and progress. It is an enemy to your numbers, but also your less quantitative but more important peace of mind. You have the ability even during school to make a reasonable income at internships or side jobs, and you certainly will be sought after following graduation, unlike co-students that may take years to find a job, or a decade to pay off their student loans. A football team that controls the line of scrimmage is always imposing their will on the opponents, not vice versa. Punch debt in the face like Marshawn Lynch would greet a 185 pound cornerback.
  • Avoiding Approbation: Complex passing games are exciting. New BMWs are flashy. Jobs in financial engineering making six figures in the City are alluring. Acting on a hot tip on a stock is tempting. But who are you trying to impress? You’re an engineer. You wear flannel. You drive an old pickup truck. You make four yards a carry and contribute to the team, down after down. Maybe you will break a big one down the middle. You will get to where you want to be. No need to pay attention to what others think or act to satisfy them.
  •  Job Security: Finding cleaner, more economical energy? Upgrading aging infrastructure? Providing clean water? These sound familiar? The specialized skills of engineers have been in demand for thousands of years, like big lineman with a sense for the game will always be sought after prospects. Until we solve all of those issues for the world for all peoples, these talents will be needed.
  • Delivering Meaning Incrementally: it would find it difficult to work in an area that does not translate into tangible benefits for people. Wealth that would come from duping people’s lack of statistical (casinos), scientific (lame nutrition products), or financial (lame financial products) knowledge would be shameful and empty. With our engineering teams we methodically create products that enhances lives, help configure more sustainable societies, and bring some measure of rationality into the public discourse.  This does not happen overnight via flashy speeches, over the top marketing promises, or impressing people with your Italian suits. It comes through precise, deliberate, innovative, collaborative,  and long effort – four yards a carry.  If you can see the meaning and benefit to society imbued in your work, however minute your drawing or calculation may appear at the time, however slow or painful the execution, take pride in that contribution.

Summary

Solid but unspectacular, obey the fundamentals, four yards a carry. It really doesn’t need to be more complicated, and if you have even more success than that, great, then that gives you other degrees of freedom to be even more productive and charitable with your efforts. Along those lines, here’s a quote from Badger and renowned discipline of Vince Lombardi (…probably).

Continuous, calm, powerful use of the will shakes the forces of creation and brings a response from the infinite.

– Paramahansa Yogananda