Hi i’m griff, here’s where i begin
10 years after graduating College as a Mechanical Engineer, and 7 years being in the automotive brake industry, I finally made the jump to become a full time thru-hiker. It seems as though the stars have aligned, no kids, most of the finances are in order, and I’m still physically strong enough to take advantage of this opportunity. 2200 miles of the Appalachian Trial lay before me come March 26th. From Georgia to Maine. I want to take a second and thank everyone who has been supportive in this journey. I’d also like to apologize for my ramblings from a mad man. I went to school for numbers and that’s the argument I’m sticking with. This dream started roughly around 2012, after I gained the freshman 15 almost all six years of college, and took up a habit of smoking. I’ve always been a fan of the outdoors and the Bear Grylls style survival genre. So how could it not be a good idea to live in the woods for a month or two and clean up my act. Around that time I also discovered backpacking, and after a few rough trips with too much on my back. I learned how to lighten my load. Hearing about the AT in passing sparked the fuse that has become one of the major players on my bucket list. It’s time for the main event, and I plan to give ‘er hell.
7 years in the brake industry
In Feb of 2015 I was in need of some work. My Career wasn’t going quite as planned, and just about any engineering work would do. A headhunter called and said there was work in Etown KY, this place made car brakes. After my interview with Mr. Crunkleton, yeah that’s right a real dude named Crunkleton, I was off to the races. I learned a lot in my tenure there. G-code for Fanuc & Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi PLC & Touchscreens, and even Fanuc Robots. My main focus was machining, nothing like shearing metal from other pieces of metal with extremely sharp and fast moving tools. I feel like the technical side of the job comes naturally to me, it’s the other things I learned there that smartened me up. I learned what it feels like to be in the trenches with your brothers, I’m not claiming to know what it feels like to be in the service, but I do what it’s like in the middle of a shit show and the peeps of a certain level have each others back. I felt very tight with the engineering team whose boots were on the floor. We helped each other out as much as possible, and I can’t think of one time anyone went home when the dial was cranked to 11. I learned honesty is not the best policy in a corporate setting. When the groups of a corporation become tribal and play an extreme game of hot potato, things fall apart. No one wants to be the one to explain why things went wrong to the bigwigs in their time consuming meetings. I learned that promises aren’t always kept, and things said behind closed doors are sometimes just vibrations in the air. And behind that door, if your quiet enough, you can physically hear your ego being stroked. It’s funny how when times were good I was told “we’ll give you plenty of rope to hang yourself”, and when times are rough I heard “please don’t go anywhere we really need you.” I lost some faith and trust along the way, but there was a positive side to this company. It’s the people that kept me around. The bonding and jokes in the smoke hole. The one line inside jokes, and the little details about people making you want to learn more about them. The amount of interest people had in me and what I’m going through. Every one of these folks have a story, and if you get a change to eat lunch with them take it. If it wasn’t for the people I would’ve went elsewhere years ago. I want to thank everyone who helped me along the way, and I wanna say I’m glad to have met those folks on that tree in the breakroom. Thank you all.
MadMan Ramblings
So a saying I learned a few weeks ago is really burning me. “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.” What the Hell? So the way I mow my lawn is the same way I shave my face, with a briggs and stratton? Now I get if someone’s car is dirty mess, their house probably is too. To say that someone not motivated to do nearly useless paper pushing work is the same as pushing useful paperwork. Lets be honest no one likes doing paperwork, but to judge someone on this meter, that’s ridiculous. A man wants to see the fruit of his labor, not plant seeds and then check on them in a year to see if they’re still there. You have to have purpose in your craft, you might as well tell me to dig a hole then after lunch fill it in. No progress is made, nothing gets better, why show up and do it again the next day. I’m sorry if what you need is a blind faithful soldier in your cooperate world, that’s probably not gonna be me. If you want someone who wants to change the old ways, have the heart of a teacher, and wants to see progress, I might be your guy. I’m learning how there’s a sweet spot somewhere between bragging, confidence, humility and silence. Again these are my ramblings. I believe I’m good at what I do, and I can be better. My thought process of everything can be improved has even gotten me into trouble on occasion. Now for my down falls, I don’t have the attitude and the discipline to be a soldier. That’s why I’m going on this trail, no ones gonna hike it for me. I have roughly 180 days to knock out 2200 miles. For those who say that management is not a natural step in the life cycle of an engineer, you can take your opinion down to bowling green, walk it up those steps and place it ever so gently under the wheels of my team’s Mini Baja. The great Lenoir told me about that natural progression over 10 years ago and it’s stuck with me. It only makes sense to lead after you follow for so long. Bottom line, I’m happy I did those 7 years, I learned a good amount both good and bad. Will I go back? That’s a hard question to answer. It’s a long drive everyday, I feel like I’ve built a not so favorable rapport with the current regime, and the compensation will not be in line with the amount of time served. But dammit I like the work and the people. Engineers are gonna be in demand come Oct/Nov, and I don’t believe my old company would be willing to put in enough of a competitive bid to get me to come back. With that said, the choice is yours.