Why I Started This Blog
I started this blog for sharing my ideas, observations and rants to:- Other office professionals in a managerial position
- People who are making an effort to climb the ladder to a managerial position
- Sole Proprietors
- People like me, who work full time and try to run a side business from home.
What This Blog Is All About
I'm really nothing special or an expert on anything. I'm just like a like of people these days, doing too much and trying to do it all at once. I'm constantly trying to improve the way I run my professional life and make it more efficient and enjoyable. Since I've discovered I enjoy blogging, this just seemed like a nature step. I'll post my tips, rants, and random thoughts on a host of professional topics from setting up a home office & office gadgets to 5S practices & time management. I am not going to quit my day job and become a blogger for a living, giving advice for professionals. I'm too realistic to think I can do something like that.A Little About Me
I live in a small town in Northwestern Wisconsin that's a few miles from the Minnesota boarder, where I work at a small machine shop that is in the defense industry. I've been working there since 2007 as a Project Engineer and a Estimator. Before that I was employed in the mold making industry since 1996; where I've done everything from entry level manual machining & driving the company truck, to positions in engineering and management. |
| A comic a new coworker gave me when I left the Plastic Injection Mold Industry to work for a Defense Contractor. |
In 2006, I started my own business, West Marshland Tool Design, where I specialize in designing plastic injection molds for the plastic molding industry. I currently do this "part time" from home during nights and weekends. Like this blog, it is more of a hobby than a revenue stream. But I am slowly growing it, and my decide to go "all in" and have that be my full time career.
In 2012, I started to take some business classes at a local technical college. Currently I'm enrolled in a certificate program for Entrepreneurship. Once I complete that, I will take a few more accounting classes and also have a certificate for Accounting as well. I figure with my experience and my degree in Design Engineering, I should be a fairly well rounded professional. And I will either shoot up the company ladder at my current employer, or I'll have the confidence to grow my little home business into a successful sole proprietorship. Either way, I'll be better off than I am right now; and that's every human beings overall goal: to be better tomorrow.
With working full time as a project engineer and estimator at a defense contractor, part time as a designer & owner of a sole proprietorship and going to school part time; I have a bit of useful experience in the professional & technical work environments and time management. Plus I'm a big geek, who loves gadgets. So hopefully you'll find this blog useful and entertaining.
So, What's With The Name?
I know Curmudgeon's Office is a pretty odd name for a blog, or anything else for that matter. But it seemed a fitting name since it has grown from my personally blog, Too Young To Be A Curmudgeon. The story behind that name is I'm not exactly a people person. I blame that part of my personality on my Norwegian ancestry. Once, after a rather comical rant I had at work, my boss shook his head and said "Shane, you're too young to be a curmudgeon." We all chuckled and I replied "You're probably right, yet here I am."Since it is a pretty rememberable phrase that describes me well, I figured it would make a great name for a blog.
