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Day 140 - Visibility

When I was in college, my dad was doing the electrical work at the Byrne Dairy in Brockport, NY.

This was not weird. First and foremost, he's an electrician. If he had been a plumber, this would be weird, but he's not. He also worked on plenty of businesses around the area, and I'm fairly certain knew the electrical wiring in the houses of every close family member. What I'm saying is that it was normal for my dad to work on something and for me to experience it later.

Ok, I'm going to explain this poorly, but try to follow me. What ended up being weird about this one is that rather than the lights being installed in a normal line on the ceiling, this Byrne Dairy wanted them installed at an angle. Like, picture the first light on the ceiling making a right triangle with the corner, and then all the rest of the lights parallel from that one.

Actually, that's a pretty good description because that's exactly what needed to happen. The only problem was that my dad knows watts and whatnots, not angles and hypotenuses, so he called for back-up. Him and his helper knew they would eventually figure it out, but he also knew he could call someone who knew triangles and save everyone a headache.

It was my summer break, and I was being a bum on the living room floor before my shift at KB Toys later in the day. The house phone rings (I'm realizing now the number of things in this story that are dating me), and it's dad. Requesting mutual aid for triangles.

Anyway, in probably less than half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, the situation is fixed. He has his measurements, and I'm back home watching MTV. And now I can walk into this Byrne Dairy and say "You know, I helped with these lights."

I was reminded of this today as I realized that I've been asked a handful of times in the past 6 months about feedback on other's websites. Not only do I run the site for my husband's business (www.wnypmcs.com, in case you want to check it out), but I've also given the once over on three other sites. It is kind of cool to know that something I've helped with is out there for people to use.

I don't know why these instances feel different than what I was doing in my last two jobs, but it does. I used to sit through developer demonstrations all the time (and by that I mean, roughly once every 2-3 weeks). I didn't always have a lot to say on functionality or design, but I was there as part of the 50-100 other people on the call. I would watch, and then I would use the little applaud reaction in my meeting while pretending I wasn't multitasking.

And maybe that's it. Maybe this feels different because it is on a smaller scale. It feels more personal, like I'm an actual human being who is being asked their opinion and then having it respected. I'm being asked for my knowledge and expertise, and watching it be implemented.

And connecting these experiences today felt like a little lightbulb going off in my head 💡

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