"What is it you do again?"

I work in the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) industry. My company, Mentor Graphics produces the software tools for design, simulation and verification of electronic circuit boards, all the way down to the tiniest of computer chips. Officially I support and consult for the Deep Sub Micron design and verification group. You can see why I usually just say "I work with computers." I telecommute from the attic office in my house. Since I work with companies across North America as well as the Pacific Rim and part of Europe it really doesn't matter where I sit. As long as I get the job done. Yesterday was one of those days where things just couldn't get done without me physically being there. I caught a morning flight to DFW, was pleasantly surprised that my "compact" rental was a Chrysler Crossfire, and was at the company's offices in a Dallas suburb by 11AM. One of the perks of the job is getting to see high tech gizmos in development well before even Wired Magazine hears about them. This particular company which I cannot name, is a well-funded startup developing a gizmo which I cannot tell you about for the consumer electronics industry. As with most things in the EDA industry its all top-secret and we're bound by non-disclosure agreements. But it's pretty cool! Anyway, my day was spent not moving from the keyboard. Anxious engineers watched over my shoulder as I typed, corrected, compiled, ran programs, moved files, etc. Finally with 20 minutes to spare before I had to leave to catch my flight back to KC, everything fell into place. We all watched anxiously (especially me) as I clicked "GO" and waited for the software to tell us if my trip was worth it. "Compiling, compiling, compiling. Parsing, parsing. Running, running. More compiling. More parsing. Run complete." Success! Disaster averted. The engineers are back up and running. They can now meet their deadline. And I got a plane ride, a test drive of a very cool sports car, and a glimpse into tomorrow's technology. All in a day's work. Aren't you glad you asked? ;-)