What turns a "fired up" professional into a "burned out" employee? If you ask a young engineer what is the role of engineering, you'll get an answer like "improving people's lives by solving real world problems." If you ask that same engineer the same question after they've been on the job for about fifteen years, you'll get a more mature perspective: "improving the company's profitability by increasing product quality or decreasing cost." Along with this change of perspective comes other, subtler changes. Younger engineers want to get ahead by demonstrating intense commitment to the job, willingness to put in long hours, and brilliant solutions to complex problems. Mature engineers want to stay on schedule and still have some time to be with their families. I can't speak for other professions, but this appears to be a widespread phenomenon.
I believe in the basic philosophy of the free enterprise system -- that individuals must be free to reap the fruits of their own labor; that the opportunity to achieve personal goals motivates the worker to produce; that the competent and the specially skilled deserve rewards commensurate with their performance. …
