Typical Day
Polly Murr wakes up at 6:30AM. After brewing a cup of coffee (mug—ceramic; coffee—organic compounds; coffee maker—plastic, glass, metal), she dresses for the day in her relatively standard uniform of grey top, black pants, and a beaded necklace. Polly selects a plastic container of yogurt, empties it into a bowl, and sprinkles some granola and banana slices over the top.
Fearing coffee breath, Polly brushes her teeth. She briefly considers whether there's a more efficient way to design the toothbrush, perhaps with bristles that change color when plaque is present. It's the curse of materials engineers—she never goes more than five minutes without thinking about how something is made or how it can be improved.
Polly is in her car by 7:00AM, sharp. Leaving even five minutes later would add an additional twenty minutes to her commute. As it is, she arrives at work at precisely 7:30AM. By 8:00AM, she's catching up on her email and sipping on her second coffee of the day. Who even cares about coffee breath? Probably no one. Hopefully.
The coffee addiction began years ago when she was an engineering student and spending every caffeine-fueled night working through her problem sets. After getting her bachelor's in metallurgical engineering, Polly worked for a couple years at a small steel manufacturer. And hated it. Both the hours and pay were less than she'd have liked.
Polly ditched that gig, returned to school to get her master's, and interned with Cessna Aircraft. Now she's much happier as a senior engineer at Cessna. She'd rather live in a place with a little more excitement than Wichita, Kansas, usually provides, but that's where the job was.
At 9:00AM, Polly gathers a few of her papers together for a team meeting with the rest of the Cessna 750 engineers. As senior engineer, Polly takes her seat at the head of the table.
"Alright, gentlemen, first order of business: who wants to take on the aluminum particulates report?" Her field is pretty much always pursued by men. Though more women are beginning to join the ranks, Polly spent the 1990s as the only woman at conferences, dinner meetings, company parties...she's mostly used to it by now.
Her team, suddenly so very interested in their fingernails, evades her gaze.
"Anyone? Come on, guys. It'll be a team effort, I promise. I just need someone's name to send to corporate."
Finally, an engineer in a blue sweater raises his hand.
"Adam, perfect. Thank you."
The meeting wraps up by 10:30AM. Having ensured that everyone's projects are right on track, Polly is on to the next meeting: a teleconference with NASA and a handful of Cessna's employees who work remotely in Research and Development.
When the meeting finishes around 12:00PM, Polly laces up her sneakers for a lunchtime power-walk. She hates being at the desk all day and believes she's a more creative thinker when she adds a little physical activity into her day. Roughly forty minutes later, she's back at the office, her mind cleared and ready for the second half of the day.
For lunch, she microwaves some lentil soup in the company kitchen, which she enjoys while looking over the Wichita Weekly newsletter. Nothing seems particularly noteworthy (typical Wichita), and by 1:00PM Polly is back in her office.
She spends the next hour reviewing some test results of a new kind of steel they're piloting. Polly grimaces. The results don't look good. Mechanically, the tensile strength is weak, though its creep strength is respectable. Heat capacity is acceptable, and thermal conductivity looks okay too. Corrosion behavior, though, is looking troublesome.
"Well, we can't have that," Polly mutters to herself as she enters the results. She drafts a note at the bottom, something to the effect that failed products are nonetheless a "good indicator of what materials may work instead."
Feeling a little frustrated, Polly decides to switch tasks. Looking at the clock, she sees she has only two hours left until she leaves the office at 5:00PM. Having been in meetings all morning, Polly is feeling a little "peopled-out." She decides to spend the remainder of the afternoon working on the titanium laminates report.
She's been putting it off for a week now in favor of data-crunching and some lab work. English has never been her thing, and writing her laminates reports always makes her feel like she's back in her high school English class.
"As demonstrated in the table below," Polly begins to type. Then she's not so sure. Demonstrated? Illustrated? Figurized?
She shakes her head. "No, that's not even a word. Come on, Polly, you can do this."
Polly puts fingers to keyboard and tries again. This time, she tells herself not to over-think things. Cessna's copy editor can look it over; that's what they pay him for anyway.
At 4:55PM, Polly begins watching the clock. She won't let herself pack up until 5:00PM, but she can't resist keeping just one little eye on the clock. The clock blinks 17:00 (she keeps military time for added mathematical precision), and within seconds her satchel is packed up, her computer logged off, and put to sleep. She glances once at the still unfinished particulates report as she flicks off the light switch. Oh well, it'll still be there tomorrow.