...and They Cry Themselves To Sleep

As one of the only experienced engineers left in our group, I am tasked with checking a lot of calculations completed by the other engineers. Their work ranges from respectable to awful, but each man gets better with each attempt. I am known for being excruciatingly thorough and rather glib in my written comments against these calculations. My "to the point" can be taken by those whose work is being evaluated as "blackest evil". Two engineers in our group were discussing this with me recently along with the whole idea of what it means to reach the point of having learned to be an engineer. One said to the other "you haven't become an engineer until you've had Stew check one of you calculations... and you cried yourself to sleep every night for weeks." So true! It's unpleasant to have every last aspect of something you've done overturned and scrutinized, every assumption questioned and probed for accuracy. I've endured the process myself and continue to each time I submit my own work to superiors. And this is strictly applied to work and engineering analysis. So much more so when we are forced to actually examine ourselves and question our own actions and motives in things that truly matter, like marriage and parenting and faith.
I was planning on writing the paragraph above for a few days before I finally got around to it today. Prior to that, I came into work this morning to discover this fictional "to-do" item on a sticky note left at the desk of an engineer whose calculation I am currently checking. I love it.