Thoughts: Showing Off

One of my colleagues from my day job recently stumbled on this blog and called me up. "You do poetry?" he said. "Who knew?". It was an astonishment to him because he sees me in a technical context day in and day out.

It occured to me after that conversation, that most of my regular readers see just my poetry and photography, and just as my colleague never knew about my poetry, readers here never see the other side of what I do day in and day out.

I manage a group of people in Washington DC who design and build TV facilities - control rooms, studios, edit rooms - that kind of thing. It's the kind of job where I get to wear a lot of hats. At times I am an engineer, a designer, a salesman, a project manager and sometimes a manager. I also do marketing for the company, Diversified Systems.

I love my work and I love being part of a group of such skilled people, and building such wonderful facilities. So I am "showing off" a little here, one of our most recent projects - The Speed Channel, down in Charlotte, NC, which we built for Fox. We also recently did the Larry King show facility for CNN/LA, are working on CNN/DC's capitol fiber hub where all the press for the U. S. capital taps into, as well as the new facility for the Conan O'Brien Show. Fun stuff.

We do tend to peg people as single dimensional, in whatever role we see them in most often. But must of us are far more than that. I am constantly surprised at all the things that the people who work with me do - play in bands, work in the military, go to school, contribute time to charities and passions. It's amazing the depth of nearly everyone we meet, if we just take the time to find out.

Recently, I have begun to ask people I interface at work with what they do besides work, and I am constantly surprised, and learning more, helps me see them more as people than the job they do for me. It's a good excercise, and one the people you are asking appreciate too. Try it!

These pictures are from The Speed Channel. You can click on them for a larger view.

Tom