Friday, January 27, 2012

They Pay You For That!?

I am an electrical engineer. We come in many different flavors but my particular specialty is electronic circuit design. Lately, at work, I have been designing a new circuit and have been working on the schematics. At dinner last night, I was telling my wife that I have a review coming up next week and I was a little frustrated that at work that day, a change had been made to the requirements meaning that I had to update the schematics.

My six year old daughter looked at me and asked, "What's a meschatic?"

I explained, "A schematic is a drawing of an electrical circuit. It tells people how to make it so that electricity goes the way we want and does what we want it to do."

I pointed at the light above us. "This light is an electric circuit. So is the computer. Some circuits are simple like this light and some are complex like the computer. I make complex ones that go in missiles."

She looked at me with wonder in her eyes. "You draw all day at work!?"

Yes. Yes I do.

4 comments:

Crapos said...

I just want to say that Neil is altering this conversation a bit for dramatic purposes. Sadie did NOT say meschatic, she said schematic. She's much to smart for such nonsense.
And the "You draw all day!" was not said in wonder so much as in incredulity.

Katie said...

Haha! That's pretty awesome. I used to think that dad played with magnets all day. It's funny to see what our kids think we do.

Alan C said...

Those were the good old days of drawing schematics and playing with magnets. Now I manage the people that draw schematics and create drawings while I explain to the CEO and customers why everything is taking so long. I kept playing with magnets for myself.

Karen C. said...

You draw all day? What a lucky duck you are. I'm pretty sure Sadie is the smartest girl in the world.