Hurray! Hurray! Hurray! Today, after two and a half long years, I finally became a fully qualified engineer at work!It's been an uphill trek to this point. After years spent in school earning my chemical engineering degree and another year figuring out that I did NOT want to be an accountant, I was hired as a civilian engineer at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Since that day, my days have been full of hours and hours of classes and training, weeks of manual reading, months of following a mentor around (to the point that I earned the nickname "Baby Duck") on her projects. This past year I was finally given my own project for a little on-the-job training.
My last step to qualification was completing an Oral Board in front of 3 managers in my division. I had been prepping and stressing for the Board for two weeks and was definitely sweating bullets before and during the Board today. In the end, while it was tough, I did PASS!
With this achievement, I not only get a pay raise and a change in title ... I finally get a coveted white hard hat! While this might not seem like much to the general public, it truly is a sign in the Shipyard that I have arrived! That, and the fact that (as a co-worker so kindly pointed out today) I can no longer pull out the "I don't know - I'm new here" card.
Oh well! I'm still stoked about my gorgeous, shiny, new white hard hat! :)
3 comments:
But the pink hat would have been so girly and pretty...
I wonder if they would let you put pink polka dots on your new white hat...hmmm...
Congrats!
Way to go on the white hat. It sounds like a lot of hard work. I didn't know you were a chemical engineer. That's a tough degree.
Go cougars.
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