> like I'd taint my career and be viewed as a failure My old boss said: "on the way to work in the morning, you should be whistling". I'm from The Netherlands,

> like I'd taint my career and be viewed as a failure My old boss said: "on the way to work in the morning, you should be whistling". I'm from The Netherlands, and I'm not sure if it translates well. But that's the point where I thought that I love engineering, stopped caring about what others may think, and put my management ambitions in the freezer. Five years further, and I'm slowly coming back to that decision, but in a much more natural way. I started freelancing, took on an apprentice, and slowly I'm getting more responsibilities. But in a natural way, not an all-or-nothing choice.