IEEE Power Engineering Society
Panos E. Papamichalis · IEEE Power Engineering Review · 2001
Tom was good as an engineer and researcher, and he knew it. He was proud of his analytical and problem-solving abilities (under his facade of humility), and that is why he had chosen to focus on signal processing. And, of course, he was quite ambitious. Tom’s dream was to distinguish himself in his profession. He enjoyed the technical part of his work, no question about it, but what would be wrong with combining this fun with some admiration from his colleagues? Take, for instance, the president of his Society. The President’s Column usually bored him to death, but wouldn’t it be nice to have his picture in the magazine like the president? Tom felt that it must be quite powerful to be president of the Society. But how do you go about becoming more prominent in the eyes of your peers? Tom’s break came. He was approached by an officer of the local IEEE Section, who was looking for someone to spearhead the creation of a local Chapter of the Society. That would certainly put the spotlight on him. Just imagine, “cofounder of the local Chapter….” And it would certainly look good on his resume. Tom accepted immediately and started working hard. He and his covolunteers had to do all sorts of things: they had to contact IEEE for information and paperwork, approach other local Society members for signatures, and, after securing the approval for the new Chapter, spend quite a long time making plans for the activities of the Chapter. They had to invite speakers, prepare the announcements, and do the mailing. When the presentation time came, they had to host the speakers and make sure that all the logistics were taken care of. Tom was a proud man, and he worked diligently to make sure that everything was done properly. Yes, his colleagues were coming to him now to ask questions, offer suggestions, volunteer, or even complain about the program. This was the spotlight, right? But Tom also started discovering some other interesting things. During the long hours of planning and work with his covolunteers, he developed friendships with some very nice people. Before, he had some casual conversations with them, but now he was finding that they were wittier than he had thought; they had some very interesting technical insights that occasionally raised his eyebrows; and they gave him ideas on how to do his job more effectively. When he attended the Society’s annual international conference, these colleagues introduced him to other people, sometimes famous authors of papers and books that he was using as references. He hadn’t known about this perk of volunteering. On occasion, he would come across someone on his volun