Being a professional

Sometimes I feel like things are going really well. Monday, for example, I went back up to Piedras de Afilar and Planes to check the elevations of a few locations along the projected water system line and to talk to the foreman about the progress of construction. The first task was simple, involving my PC-issue GPS/altimeter and an easy 2-mile hike up to the dam site. Reading a handheld instrument panel happens to be a specialty of mine, being a skill I acquired in college and one that I have used in every job I have had since. But talking to a foreman and supervising construction? Just because everyone here calls me by the title Engineer doesn’t mean that I now am one. And nine months in the SANAA office has yet to give me experience in building anything.

But the tiny bit of experience I have gotten from watching the other engineers manage water projects was going to have to do. After checking the elevation of the water source (a spring) with the altimeter, I found the foreman perched on a steep slope a few hundred feet downstream, observing a test flow of water through the newly installed PVC pipes with a community member. We began to discuss his progress. He proceeded to ask me detailed questions about the projected layout of the entire water system, which I was able to answer because I actually do understand the design. Discussing construction materials is another story, but with the help of Marvin, a technical person from the office who had accompanied me on the visit, I managed to talk pipes and reductores and other accessories that I only know the names of in Spanish with the foreman for over an hour. Finally I jotted down a list of the materials that he said he was missing and headed back to the truck with Marvin. As we bounced along the rocky dirt track back down the mountain, I found myself filled with pleasant surprise that for the first time I had been to a community without the company of another engineer, and that during the entire visit I had been treated as the person in charge. I had also just convinced an experienced foreman that I knew what I was doing, so maybe I do really know what I’m doing after all!

Fast forward to today in the Biblioteca Digital. The instructors had their end-of-the-month meeting on Monday night, without inviting me and without taking into account any of the suggestions I had described to each of them in person and written down for us to discuss. As I talk to them one by one over the course of the afternoon, they all express frustration with other members of the group: so-and-so hasn’t been showing up, so-and-so is claiming to have worked overtime even though we don’t have money to pay overtime, so-and-so hasn’t finished their part of the plan for the course we’re going to start teaching on Monday. As far as I can see, all of these problems have arisen from the fact that the instructors haven’t bothered to take into account the suggestions that I so carefully elaborated for them. As much as I try very hard not to be their boss in the sense of defining how they spend every minute of their working hours, I do try very hard to provide the overall guidance that they seem to look to me for, mainly in the form of encouraging teamwork and communication. But while asking for my advice, they also resist it, even though since I’ve been working with them they’ve seen the most money enter the BD and have been the best paid since the project began. So much for convincing anyone that I know what I’m doing.