The Human Element in Work and Borders

One of the main reasons I chose engineering was that I didn’t want to deal with people. The other reasons were creativity, problem-solving, and so on.

After I entered working life, I realized that the real problem was people. Even the most technical project had people as its biggest problem. Today, technology has developed even further, chatbots have entered our lives, but we still haven’t solved the human problem.

And the human being is looking for communication. Family relationships, school social life, friendships, everything is built around being accepted and creating a space for yourself where you are accepted. That is why artificial intelligence optimized to keep humans in interaction exploded so much. Being accepted is the greatest human need. Forget solving the human problem; we humanized artificial intelligence and brought it among us. We talk about it like an individual.

Over the years, the thought of wanting a human-free field naturally changed, but one thing did not change: the question of what I want to do.

It took 35 years to find the answer to that question. Usually, I became sure about what I did not want. What are my values, and what do I not want? Recently, the answer to what I do not want has also started giving clues about what I do want.

Engineering education gives a strange kind of confidence. I can solve everything. Every problem can be solved. The laws of physics? They can be solved too. It may take a few centuries, but with enough time, even that can be overcome. Working life, however, is different. Every problem can be solved, but who is going to bother? As experience increases, it becomes: every problem can be solved, but should it really be solved?

Still, an engineer wants nothing more than a good problem. Let it be complex enough. Let it be difficult. If you solve it, you get an ego and confidence as if you created the world. If you cannot solve it, time passes as if you are playing a game. Sometimes years pass and no result comes out. For people like me, who basically build life around passing time, it is perfect.

What does an electronics engineer want?

To be part of the developing world, to help push technology forward. Therefore: extremely complicated problems, cutting-edge products. The sectors where technology moves furthest ahead are medical, defense, and space. Medical is an interesting field. It is both the most primitive and the most advanced field. Finding the right place is not easy. It is relatively narrow. Space is also quite narrow, if we are talking about space in the sense that appears in your mind. Otherwise, the topic of space serves many fields, from communication to transportation, materials, and traffic.

Among these, the ideal field is defense.

One of my answers to the question “What do I not want in life?” is: working in the defense industry.

Today, for the seventh time in my life, I rejected someone who wanted to talk to me about a job in the defense industry. Four of these were preliminary talks, meaning people reached out to me saying a very exciting job in defense was waiting for me, and I immediately replied that I was not interested. One was an offer, which I gave up on when they told me who their biggest customers were. Two were first interviews, and again, when they gave sector details during the interview, I backed out.

Right now, in electronics engineering, the sector where you can earn the most money is defense. So why do I not want it?

Today, I said I was not interested for ethical reasons. Of course, the fact that I am relatively comfortable has an effect on this, but even when I was not comfortable, I rejected it. Would it have changed if I had stayed in Turkey? I do not think so. There, I had already entered the field I wanted: medical. Even at university, I preferred to stay away from defense-related projects.

Yes, absolutely for ethical reasons, I do not want to work in the defense industry at any point in my life. Today, I became sure of this once again.

To some, it may sound like a naive struggle. Or you may say, “Oh, come on.” I do not see it that way. In recent years, there is war everywhere. People are dying, people are being killed. The world has already seen destruction many times throughout history. For what?

To defend the homeland. But why is the homeland in danger? The answer is simple: people’s stupidity, greed, and ambition. Maybe it is not possible to escape from this, but it is possible not to be a direct part of it.

Who wins in wars? Those who sell weapons. It may sound like a simple statement, but that is the truth. When the Iran war broke out, if I had put my salary into defense industry stocks, today I would have earned the equivalent of half a year of work. I did not do it. Even though I knew this, I could not do it. Because if I had, then my empathy for the people who died, for the children, and for my friend whose phone call was cut off in the middle of a conversation and who could not hear from his family for three weeks, would have meant nothing.

As the atmosphere heats up, countries’ attitudes change. Defense investments are being made like never before in recent months. For an engineer, this means jobs, good money. Both dealing with cutting-edge technology and enjoying life. I know I could not enjoy it. Since I know that, I am clear on this issue. If I built a war drone, forget proudly talking about it; I would be ashamed to tell anyone what I do.

I do not know how much the person across from me cared, but today, for the first time, I wanted to specifically say “for ethical reasons” while stating that I was not interested. The issue is not only that it is called defense. It is also about who uses the thing being made, who will use it, and what it serves. Even the phrase “defense industry” is strange. “Defense infrastructure” or “defense investment” sounds better. When you say “defense industry,” it sounds like serving future wars. Industry produces, aims for profit, and sells. To whom does it sell? That is the issue.

Of course, I cannot live my life fully according to all my ethical values, but I am sure that the defense industry is a red line in my professional life.

This is one of the clearest answers I can give to the question of what I do not want. So what do I want?

In all my searching, I realized this: no matter how much I run away from people, my only desire is to be useful to people. I suppose the next question will be “the scope of being useful.”

Two weeks ago, I had another job rejection story. Rejecting jobs as a hobby. Sometimes I also attend interviews just for general knowledge.

People cannot find jobs, and I am rejecting them one by one. This time, the job was in insurance. An insurance company was building a management team.

They reached out to me based on my management experience, probably thinking, “He is an engineer, he probably needs a moderate amount of money.” They were not wrong either. Apart from my current job, I was thinking about what I could do freelance.

While I was thinking about whether I should try different things and create a side income, they appeared.

First, we spoke on the phone. The guy had clearly learned sales from books. He tried to persuade me with memorized sentences and cliché examples. I thought, what do I have to lose, let us talk until the offer stage, and then I will say no there.

He told me about himself, saying he did not want to work the classic 8-to-5, then he found this job and his life changed. When I said I was happy as an engineer but wanted to give different things a chance and was also looking for a bit of flexibility, he kept insisting with examples like, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you could pick up your child from school and eat together?” I do not have a child, and when I said, “But what you are describing is the exact opposite of flexibility,” he gave up. Then he gave examples from his own life again. Apparently, he works whenever he wants and does whatever he wants whenever he wants. When I asked, “Then why are you having a meeting with me at eight in the evening?” he mumbled something like, “Well, sometimes there are meetings,” but he said he really liked my attitude and invited me to the office.

A week later, I went to the office. We talked. Actually, it went positively. The only negative thing for me was that he beautified everything and gave typical vague sales answers. I said, “If there is sales, I am not in.” He said, “No, you are a lion, you are a tiger,” and that sales would not happen if I did not want it, and so on. I said okay, but I know. The moment I sign, he will make me sell insurance to my friends. His mumbling, and the fact that he said, “Still, you earn good money; I also tried it at the beginning,” were because of that. I have had friends I stopped seeing because they tried to sell me insurance and because every conversation turned into insurance. I know how it works.

Anyway, that was over too. He said, “I would like to work with you.” I said okay, that works for me too. There was no real flexibility or comfort, but I could try. I said I would not leave my job; would 8–10 hours a week be enough? He said yes.

Then came the next stage. Training. My favorite subject.

He said, “Do you have plans for the weekend? There is training. We planned it with food. We will be there all day, and in the evening we will have dinner too. Also, there is a successful team there; we will learn the job from them and meet them.” I said, “Wait there. Why should I give you my Saturday? You gather at 7–8 in the evening, the office is full of people, and then you take my weekend too with training and so on. Is this the flexible, super comfortable job you described? I am not even mentioning the heavy smell of sweat in the office.”

He said, “No, this is just once. At the beginning, it is like this,” and so on. Okay, that is understandable; especially if it is not people’s main job, there is no other time. But no, thanks, I will pass.

Still, I said, let us give it a chance. We registered for the training. Then a dress code appeared: “Business casual.” We were supposed to wear suits, on a Saturday, from morning until evening.

This may be another red line of mine. I will not do any job where you have to wear a suit. A shirt is fine, dressing a bit properly is fine, but not a suit. Even for a wedding, maybe, and I am not exactly a supporter of that either.

When he saw my face, he asked, “Did you not like that?” I said, “No, I do not like it.” He said, “Well, they call it business casual; it is not something very special.” Neither business nor casual. It is not comfortable. What kind of job is that?

To convince me, he talked about his house, his car, and the car club they go to. A “networking” environment where they show off to each other. Except for one of them, probably none of them has money; they probably all look at that one person’s car and the club’s cars together and hang around.

That was where I broke off. The environment he called “networking” was an environment where the exact type of people I never want to see in my life gather together.

Then I said, “This is not for me.” I had already come to the interview with sneakers, a sweatshirt, a beanie, and an earring. I had tied my bicycle in front of the office. From the very first moment, it was obvious that I did not belong in that environment. Still, I gave it a chance, but I had not expected it to be that bad. Still, it was an interesting experience.

Later, I thought about why I was so bothered by the suit. It feels like class distinction to me. Showing off and insecurity.

There is no problem with wearing it once or twice in ten years — though even that is meaningless in essence — but dressing that way for work, associating it with money, and thinking of yourself as a lord because of the costume you put on makes no sense to me. How can a job be measured by your clothing? How can clothing show prestige? Truly, we cannot get past the Stone Age.

And when he mentioned the car club, it became completely obvious that it was an environment where lifeless people compete with their egos. They have no entertainment other than competing over whose dick is bigger and making the world a less livable place.

If that were not the case, when he saw my attitude, he would not have told me how much he earns and what car his boss drives.

I do not know, I could not sell my soul for money. I understood that I could not be in the same environment as those people. This is not a stance against wealth. I have known rich people in my life, and none of them were like that. These are greedy people living with that dream. People with no stance in life. People who measure success and existence with money. Then they ask, how can a human being support so much evil, how can they turn a blind eye to the deaths of millions?

This is another red line of mine, I am sure of it. And anyway, I have never liked insurance agents. It feels like legal fraud to me.

Anyway, just a random chain of memories. Monarchists are a separate problem, peasants are another. Best of all are still aliens.