Work Stories: Episode 9: Invisible Lines



Previously on Work Stories, I told a tale of a face that had appeared on a pane of glass that I needed to clean.  This was interesting to me, but you may have needed to be there to fully understand the wonder of that moment.  This week, I move onto something that is not so visual.  I move onto math.

The first part of this story takes me back to high school.  High school is where I learned all my math stuff.  Addition, subtraction...that basic stuff was elementary school, but the meaty math came in high school.  High school brought me multiple variable algebra.  High school brought me functions.  High school brought me calculus.  And high school brought me vectors, the bane of my existence.

I could easily get 90% or higher in my math classes throughout high school.  I was never bad at math (until university, but that doesn’t matter in this story).  I understood every concept that was taught to me, and didn’t have to do much in terms of homework.  That is, until I got to vectors in grade 12.

Vectors are something that I just couldn’t wrap my head around.  There were arrows, they went in different directions, and the sides added up.  Only, they didn’t because of Pythagorean Theorem.  It was confusing to me then, but not so much now.  Because I figured it out one day while I was at work.

This was high school, so I was working at the hotel that you’ve already heard about.  Most of my workdays there were spent in the parking lot.  A lot of my time doing that involved listening to music, reading, or staring out into nothingness, all while waiting for someone to drive up and ask to park.  It wasn’t tough, but it could get mighty boring sometimes.

One day, while I was staring across the street at another parking lot, everything about vectors clicked into place for me.  I saw three cars.  I imagined the arrows.  I figured out the vectors stuff that I couldn’t quite understand before.  Tip to tail, tail to tip, tail to tail...it all made sense.  I had the power.

Sometimes things need some time to sink into your mind.  You need to stew on something in order to comprehend what you need to know.  Not everything comes to you right away.  This was one of those cases, and I will forever be astonished by how it took a specific thing that I saw in order for it to click.  The mind works in mysterious ways.

That’s it for this week’s work story.  It might not be exciting, but I’m sharing it because I want to be more open with you people.  There wasn’t much to it actually being a work story, other than the pieces came together at work.  That’s enough for me.  I’ll be back next week with something that I promise will be better.  Until then, make sure to wash your armpits.

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