Not So Typical Day in the Life of an Engineer

I was browsing past someone else's blog and saw they had posted a "day in the life of" kind of post.  It's been a long time since I've done that, so here's what I did today.  This is actually not a completely typical day.  Usually I do a little bit more work than I did today.

6:35 AM  Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.
6:44 AM  Alarm goes off.  Hit snooze.
6:49 AM  Get out of bed before alarm goes off again and turn off alarm.
6:50 AM  Start Phase 1 of morning routine - going to the bathroom (which this morning included adjusting the flush chain length because it came unhooked yesterday), hair-doing, getting dressed, changing dressing of my finger splint, finger exercises.
7:20 AM  Pray.  (Unfortunately, most of the time is spent getting the door shut.)
7:35 AM  Start Phase 2 of morning routine - drinking a glass of juice while reading my bible, washing blueberries to take to work, checking my phone for interesting messages (one from Ananias), see who took their turn in Words With Friends (using my phone), brushing my teeth.
7:50 AM  Leave for work.
7:57 AM  Arrive at work parking lot.
7:58 AM  Walk into work and power up computer.  Assess level of tar smelliness (they're still working on the roof, and pretty much most of the week our cube area has been almost uninhabitable for at least part of the day every day because of the strong smells).
8:07 AM  Log into computer.
8:08 AM  While computer finishes booting, take oatmeal and blueberries in a mug to break area for breakfast preparation.  Also fill water mug at this time.
8:11 AM  Open e-mail and start work.
8:45 AM  Finish checking and answering most new e-mails with a few non-urgent ones unread.
8:46 AM  Discuss a few things with one of my co-workers (Ganesh) about a board I designed where he will be making some LED changes.  Discuss design change options and what needs to be considered in the design analysis.  Also discuss status of conductive foam issue that he and another co-worker (Rickshaw) are investigating.
9:00 AM  Look at my calendar and to-do list to try to prioritize tasks for the day.
9:05 AM  Print off something about FIRST robotics to take to a co-worker at training at lunch today.
9:06 AM  Work on updating the microprocessor selection pugh matrix we've been working on this week with data gathered over the last 3 days.
9:15 AM  Get interrupted with various questions and other stuff I can't remember.  Wash oatmeal mug.  Answer a few other e-mails while still trying to do a little work on the pugh matrix.
9:25 AM  Help a co-worker determine (over instant message) if he has a part of the ECAD software installed.  He doesn't - do this final determination as I.......
9:32 AM  Call into my project's weekly meeting.  Three other people have joined, and one other person will not be joining today.
9:37 AM  Hunt down my project leader so he will call into the weekly meeting.
9:38 AM  Continue with weekly meeting now that project leader called in.
9:50 AM  Finish weekly meeting.  Not a lot to talk about since we've been talking frequently for this micro selection thing.  But, we did discuss a little bit the change in project scope and funding, which is why I hunted down the project leader in the first place.
9:51 AM  Start packing up to go over to a different building for some LabView training.
9:52 AM  Boss stops in and says we need to clean up our cube area because someone with crutches will be in the area later this week.  OK......we'll do that.  Even though we know he's just using this as an excuse to tell us to clean up because really, that person on crutches doesn't normally come into our cubicle.  Discuss with cube-mates if we can just put a "No Crutches" sign outside the cube just like the lab has a "No Pacemakers" sign outside its door.
9:55 AM  During walk to parking lot, have a discussion with my project leader about my weekly highlights and how I should tone down some of my wording to create less of a stir with some of our process partners.  OK, not a problem.  If my highlights from the last couple weeks are causing a stir, then that pretty much means I accomplished what I wanted to with that already.
10:00 AM  Drive to other building for training.
10:07 AM  Arrive to other building just a few minutes late for training - they haven't gotten far yet, so I didn't miss much.
10:10 AM  LabView training as part of being a FIRST Robotics mentor.  Not completely work related, but somewhat related.  And, my company supports its employees being mentors, so that's nice.
12:10 PM  Free pizza from Domino's for lunch as part of the training.  Training continued through lunch.
12:45 PM  Do finger exercises during training.
1:40 PM  Discuss some robotics administrative stuff with a fellow team mentor.
1:50 PM  Leave training slightly early to drive back to my building.
1:58 PM  Arrive back at home base cubicle.  It's pretty smelly today, but not as bad as Monday and Tuesday. n Just barely tolerable.  If I die from lung cacer in the next year, you'll know what it's from.
1:59 PM  Run to bathroom quick before next meeting.
2:05 PM  Call into conference call to discuss microprocessor selection - a continuation of three other meetings we've had on this with another meeting scheduled for tomorrow.  Microprocessor selection is a big deal and sometimes very controversial, so it must be approached carefully and thoughtfully.
2:08 PM  Decide one of the key engineers won't be able to join the call (we aren't able to contact him and he's in Brazil in a separate building from the other Brazilian on the phone, so we can't stop by his desk to see what is going on).
2:10 PM  Continue with a little bit of microprocessor selection discussion doing what we can, but we know we won't make much progress today.
2:30 PM  End microprocessor selection meeting early.
2:31 PM  Check e-mail (first time since about 9:30 this morning).  There's an entire page of new e-mails!
2:32 PM  Read and respond to e-mails as appropriate.  Also schedule a meeting for next week related to finalizing the power supply specification on my project.
3:20 PM  Go and talk to a co-worker about some power supply investigation he's doing since we are losing some of our power supply design support until January 2013 when additional funding and resources are available.
3:25 PM  Talk to a couple co-workers in the hall about miscellaneous stuff.
3:30 PM  Another conference call starts.... this one with one of our suppliers to discuss functional testers, data they sent for the tester, next steps, process controls on one of the assembly processes, what they need from us, some pictures they're going to send us about a design concern, etc.
4:00 PM  End call with supplier and start clean-up of cubicle.
4:10 PM  As part of clean-up, discuss with project leader whether we need to analyze some circuit boards or scrap them.  They were in a couple boxes in my cube that needed to be cleaned up.
4:15 PM  Continue with clean-up, which includes a lot of disassembling circuit boards from plastics so that both the circuit board and the plastics can be put into the appropriate recycling bins.
5:30 PM  Krix stops by just as I'm finishing the disassembling and asks if I can look at a PSPICE simulation she's doing that's not behaving correctly.
5:31 PM  Go to Krix's desk to try to troubleshoot her simulation.  We're stumped - can't figure out why it's not doing what it should when it's a fairly basic full bridge rectifier circuit.  Try a few different things with no luck.
6:00 PM  Krix calls it a day - still can't figure out what the deal is with the simulation.
6:05 PM  Go back to cube and do a couple small clean-up things.  Didn't quite get everything cleaned up, so I'll probably do a little bit more at the end of the day tomorrow on that.
6:10 PM  Go back to working on computer.  Check and respond to e-mail, reschedule a meeting that is interfering with one of my vacation days, update the pugh matrix a little bit more.
6:30 PM  Look at the time!  Start closing files, applications, etc. to prepare for shutting down.
6:35 PM  Check e-mail and facebook quick.  Feel guilty about not getting a chance to talk to co-workers so I can answer Windy's e-mailed question on appliances.  Quite a bit of activity today on facebook it looks like with lots of kids going back to school.  I'll have to check that in more detail after B.S.
6:40 PM  Leave work (do finger exercises while walking to parking lot).
6:45 PM  Arrive home.
6:50 PM  Set up chairs for B.S., change clothes, put away clean dishes in dishrack, put dirty dishes in dishwasher, pick up dirty clothes from bathroom floor, eat some peanuts for a snack, and generally just relax for a couple minutes while checking who else played in Words with Friends today.
7:15 PM  Sit down for B.S.
7:30 PM  B.S.
8:30 PM  All B.S. people leave and chairs are put away - pull out leftovers from the fridge for supper.  Bratwurst, yellow squash, potatoes, orange juice, and a granola bar.  Do finger exercises while waiting for food to heat in microwave.
8:40 PM  In the process of pouring orange juice, spill it all over my hand (including the finger with the splint).
8:45 PM  Change dressing on splint (I was going to have to anyway to take my shower later in the evening).
8:55 PM  Sit down to eat supper while surfing the web (facebook, e-mail, checking blogs, writing this post).
10:05 PM  Look at the time!  Begin evening prepare-for-bed routine.
10:10 PM  Nightly bathroom routine - using the toilet, showering, flossing, brushing, taking vitamins.
10:40 PM  Sit down at computer to type a few more things.
11:15 PM  Play Words with Friends.
~11:30 PM  Do evening splint cleaning and dressing change routine.  Do finger exercises.
~11:45 PM  Read bible and pray (for not as long as I should).
~11:59 PM?  Turn off the light to go to sleep.