On Interns And The Future

 This past week I was asked to speak to the Summer Interns.

I was a bit of a last minute substitution:  the original speaker (a member of the Site Leadership Team, or LT) had something come up at the last minute and they needed a substitute.  One of my coworkers with whom I am friends (and manages the program) asked if I would be willing to speak.

Of course I said yes.  After all, I like my friend. Also, there was free lunch.

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The format was similar to "Meet the X" in years past when I was a student:  I sat in front of around 30 interns at a U shaped table, uncomfortably the focus of their attention.  Each of them went around and introduced themselves:  Name, major, college, year in school ("X" year student is now the norm, not "junior", "senior", etc.).  Then of course it was my turn:  name, rank, brief job history.

And then, open question time.

The questions were likely the sorts of ones you would expect to hear in these sorts of things:

- "What was one of your greatest challenges in your job?"

- "How did you get into the industry"

- "What do you recommend to help you succeed?" (No surprise here:  I recommended "Be nice" and "Be kind".)

- "What do you look for in a resume?"

- "Do you have any books you would recommend?" (Again, likely no surprises to readers here:  The Enchiridion (The Handbook) by the Stoic philosopher Epitctetus and Go Rin No Sho (A Book of Five Rings) by Miyamoto Musashi. I think at least one of the interns wrote the titles down.)

We also had a fascinating discussion about Iaijutsu.  I do not think I am actually supposed to use the term "Blood Throw" (Chibori) in a professional setting, but there you go.

I will say they were all very polite, well-mannered, and seemed to pay attention (very minimal phone checking that I could see).  

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Later in the week, they did their poster displays (to show what they had been working on in their time there).  Typically I do not go to these, but felt obligated as I had spoken to them.

Every one of the posters was great. There are a lot of smart young people out there ready to take on the world.  Lots of great and applicable projects to the work we are doing at our site (as an interesting side note, lots of use of Artificial Intelligence).  

The biggest thing that surprised a number of them that they did not expect to learn during these projects?  How important communication was and how many different stakeholders there were.

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I left both happy and sad.

I left happy because - contrary to what one may see on social media (I say that; I largely avoid the news now), not all young people are hating on the world and society.  Some really are trying to do good and useful things - and they seem like are ready to take on the world (as we all were, once upon a time).

I left sad because of the same future.

In Spring 2025, it is estimated that 1,028, 185 students graduated with a B.A. or B.S. Of those, STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) as well as business are among the top majors.  And while STEM jobs are growing in need (and apparently we are woefully behind in graduating them), we are also dealing in world where multiple countries are graduating STEM graduates (China, for 2025, produced 3.57 million STEM Graduates).  Add to that the burgeoning use of Artificial Intelligence which will automate a great many things, and I think it is going to be a tough job market in the future.

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I am grateful I had the opportunity to speak to them and see the work that they are doing.  It did fill me with a bit more confidence about the future and about the younger generation.  

Hopefully they, in turn, walked away with a little more appreciation that there is a world outside of a career and the things you have to take to get a degree.  

After all, no-one dies wishing they had just one more day at their job.

2026 Failure Day

Here at The FortyFive, besides all the standard holidays, we celebrate a few that are unique to this corner of the InterWeb.  One of them, instituted this year, is TB The Elder Day, the birthday (and commemoration) of my Father.  

The other is Failure Day.

Failure Day, as longer time readers may remember, commemorates 02 August 2005 when I and my business partner laid ourselves from the company we had started 16 months earlier.

After 10 years in the Biopharmaceutical industry, jobs mostly with long commutes (up to 120 miles roundtrip), I made the decision to set it all aside and go into commercial real estate with my friend of long standing.  He was doing well at it, so I was (of course) going to do well at it.  There was little standing between us and wealth beyond our dreams, and I planned (and lived) accordingly.

Until, of course, that fantasy came crashing down.

In the course of 16 months, I managed to burn through all the money I had set aside, buy a new house we could not really afford, and find out that I was really not that good in real estate.  By the the time the whole sorry story had played out, we had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in home equity, savings, and lost wages.

God was gracious in spite of my idiocy; within a month I found another job back in the biopharmaceutical industry (with a commute, of course).  And He "unburdened" us with a house we could not really afford by conveniently arranging a layoff and move across the country to New Home 2.0 (which saw us lose all of our equity but - thankfully - not owe anything else on the loan or sale).  And slowly - very slowly - we rebuilt our financial life.

Am I sorry I tried?  At some level, no.  I learned a lot about contracts and real estate finances and how investments work (even if my own investments were not well handled at the time).  And the confidence to at least try something new has stuck with me, even if the stakes are now much lower.

At other levels of course, yes.  The decision to leave the job I had at the time?  In retrospect, likely I would have been laid off within a year anyway (as happened to my former work colleagues), so maybe no.  The financial foolishness? That is 100% on me and was 100% the wrong decision.  I got greedy, got starry eyed, and did not listen to wise counsel (mostly TB The Elder, who kindly did not "remind" me of this when everything collapsed).  Even in my "I have a new job" phase, we could have made more responsible life choices that would not have left us so financially vulnerable.

And so, once a year, I celebrate failure.  Not just this failure but all the failures.  All the times that I tried something and it did not work out.  And remember those things I did not try and maybe should have - because you never know what might happen.

Over the years, a quote I read from Gouveneur Morris (1752-1816, a signer of The U.S. Constitution) in the book An Iron Will by Orison Swett Marden has stuck with me:  

"If I were to wipe out twenty acts, what should they be?  Should it be my business mistakes, my foolish acts (for I suppose all do foolish acts occasionally), my grievances?  No; for, after all, these are the very things by which I have profited.  So I finally concluded I should expunge, instead of my mistakes, my triumphs. I could not afford to dismiss the tonic of mortification, the refinement of sorrow; I needed every one."

I too, need the memory.  Because at some level, what are we without our failures?

Happy Failure Day.

End of July 2026 Garden Update

 End of July update of "How does my garden grow?"

Scattered among the leaves and sticks are (I hope) the small green starts of spinach:

Cherry tomatoes!  I now have more tomatoes on vines than I have had in total for the past 5 years:

The beans have done remarkably well. I thought I spaces them out enough; I need to go farther next year:

My onion seedlings are hanging in there:

Buckwheat.  I wish I had planted them with more sun; only a few have gotten tall:

Soybeans:

I have four patch of corn.  Interestingly, the one of the left was planted before the one on the right, yet has not done as well:

Another "planted later" patch that is by far the most advanced:

I am not sure what the plant with the white flowers is.  I have several; they were all volunteers.  My dearest hope is potatoes. It is kind of exciting to wait and see!

The beginnings of leeks:

I have already started planting and planning for Autumn and Winter.  I need to think about a better arrangement of things for Spring next year.  But for $45 a year and 8 hours of community service to the garden, this is one the best deals I have found in years.