Theology of (my) Work

I heard a talk at Urbana called "Theology of Work" and it discussed God's plan for work and how we serve God in our work and how we can follow God just as radically as engineers as pastors.  Good talk - except - when asked, the speaker concluded that there was no place in Christendom, or anyway for Christians to justify using their talents for fashion design or, specific to my question, for footwear development.  He didn't realize it, because really it was a question he'd never thought about, but his whole talk previous to that had actually supported such work by Christians.  I want to use this space below to explain how I my work as a footwear developer can be in God's perfect will for my life.  I will talk very specific to my case, but many of the principles can be broadly applied.
THEOLOGY OF WORK:
- We were built to create value (this is what the speaker used to bash fashion - no value added)
- Work for the common good (this is where sustainability comes in)
- Work in community
- Relate to God through act of working
Those were the 4 main points from the talk and I didn't write verses for them because I didn't think it was that controversial at the time.  After the fall, the first point was expanded from simply creating value, to also restoring and fixing the broken.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
When picking where I should work, there are 3 things to look at (which I had thought of months before on my own...):
- What does this world need to look more like heaven?
- What are my gifts and skills?
- What are my dreams and desires?
The common answer to those 3 questions is a good place for you to start looking, but definitely not the be all end all.
Now that we're through the background, here are my specific thoughts.
THEOLOGY OF FOOTWEAR DEVELOPMENT:
Working as a footwear developer definitely fits in with my skills and my passion.  The harder questions are, "how does this help people?" and, "does it need to help people?" and, "does it create value?"
God created us.  His creation was "good."  His creation was beautiful.  I won't go into this, but I think being beautiful is in and of itself already justification enough for something to exist and have value, even if that was all it was good for.  Captivating by John and Stasi Eldrege discusses this in depth.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that proper Christianity is not dualistic.  We sometimes operate under the assumption that the physical is bad and that the spiritual is good.  Not true.  God created a physical universe and it was good.  Just because an item seems purely material with no intrinsic, spiritual benefits says nothing to how good or bad the item is.
When God created this beautiful creation, he made animals in all sort of bright colors to attract mates.  For millennia, cultures around the world have recognized different visual cues or appearances as admirable.  Many of the aspect of our appearance that we control are simply ways to express outwardly, different things about how we are inwardly.  It is really amazing and cool that we are able to make these associations and effectively communicate simply with a new look.  Modern shoes are an excellent way to express things about yourself.  This is even easier now with brand image.  I can express things about what lifestyle I value simply by wearing PUMA red racing shoes in contrast to the newest Nike Jordans.  These things are all good.  Yes, they can all be distorted, and used for evil.  Just because something can be used for evil, does not make the thing bad.  Let's follow up on that.
One of my biggest concerns with footwear is the obsession people make it.  Materialism takes over us and we make idols from our footwear, especially expensive footwear.  Take a look at this music video from Macklemore that covers this topic.  Brilliantly done.  This is seriously wrong.  This world is a mess.  Footwear companies rise and stand on the sinful obsessions of the consumers.  This is an incomplete thought though.  Your obsession may be sinful, but you can enjoy footwear without sinning.  The company doesn't make that distinction though, that's up to you.  Not only can you enjoy the product without sinning; many use the product and need the product, and don't even think about or care about the product.  We all wear shoes.  Moving past those people though, the real problem is when  your obsessive desire pulls your finances, or your thoughts away from where God wants them to be.  From my personal experience, there are times when God says, "Ryan, go ahead.  That's a nice pair of shoes, and you'll appreciate them.  I know your heart is in the right place.  Go ahead and buy them."  There are also a lot of times when I'd like to get a pair and God says, "no Ryan, I'd rather you didn't invest in those.  I have other plans right now."  Submitting our material possessions to God is a good litmus test of his importance in our lives.  There have been times when I was ready to by an $80 pair of shoes and God stops me saying, "nope Ryan, not this time, but since you're so ready to part with that money, why don't you give it to support this missionary?"  I've been able to pull back and do what God said.  Every time this happens I know, that at least for that day, God has the number 1 place in my life.  As long as God has the first place in my life, I can work with shoes.  When those positions get reversed, I had best get as far away from shoes as possible.
SIDE NOTES:
- The footwear world is a small world that I can reach while many other Christians can't.
- Performance footwear helps people to stay active and take care of their bodies (which God values).
- Many footwear companies manufacture and sell their products globally, allowing me to make a global impact, hopefully for Christ.
- A "normal" job is an opportunity to make lots of money and give lots of money.  There's a lot of needs and I want to help the church meet those needs.  The question is: am I doing this job for God or for me?  Answer that honestly.
CONCLUSION:
This was a little scattered - accurately reflecting what it looked like in my head before it spilled out.  Working is good.  Shoes are good.  Beauty is good.  Quality is good.  Many of these things have been corrupted and make bad, but God can redeem all things.  Christians in every sector can make this happen through trust and obedience to God.  We simply cannot use a career as a copout to living a typical life.  We are still called by God.  Dependent on him.  Live his will, and his life, not mine.
That's all.

Nike Flyknit

So I realize that I work at PUMA but I can't help but recognize genius when I see it, this time from Nike.


This shoe is knitted, which means they can put more fabric exactly where it is needed and take it out where it's not.  It doesn't need lining.  The laces are wired directly to the outsole.  I imagine the materials are super cheap but super quality, and since you are not cutting the shapes out of a roll of fabric there is practically no left over scraps aside from a few inches of string.  They are coming out in July in time for the London olympic games and I can't wait to try on a pair.

Go here for nike's version.  There is another video and more thorough comments.


On a side less important note, it also looks sweet so they will be integrating the technique into their lifestyle shoes too.

A Moment of Excitement

So this was really cool.  I don’t have any other good adjectives right now so be content with that and let’s move into the crux of the issue.

After 3 full weeks I had begun to wonder about the technology involved in shoes that PUMA makes.  When you read footwear catalogues, particularly in soccer, a pastime I frequented much in my high school days, there are always these little blurbs next to each shoe, “made with power frame technology for more powerful shots!” etc. etc.  So after being here a bit I began wondering who is responsible for those tidbits of selling power.  I’ve seen most of the process and haven’t seen a whole lot of science.  It’s just kinda whateva looks right.  That actually works too.  Why?  because adidas and Nike research and make shoes and so we know what a good shoe looks like, so why actually research?  Well, to be ahead.  PUMA has always, in recent history, been ahead in style but behind in technology.  I hadn’t really noticed that before, but now looking back, I suppose I new it all along and as it became more apparent I decided to just enjoy the aesthetic design side of things, which has been going well I must say.  But anyways, that’s not the direction this story is going.  Let me introduce you to another intern who got here two months before me.  Mechanical engineer from Canada.  Let’s call her Kate for privacy’s sake.  Kate went through basically the same thing I did, except not having much design interest, and loving biomechanics, hunted down the two people that do technology, and said, “I want to make a shoe that is biomechanically advanced!”  They thought to themselves shortly, discussed with some important people and decided it wasn’t a bad idea after all!

While all that went down I was taking finals, going to weddings, packing, and all manor of things that needed to be done.  Now that I’m here and poking my head around I ran into this project, still in it’s infancy, and after getting a few more go-aheads from my department, will hopefully be involved in developing some really awesome stuff.  It’s kinda hard to explain without being too specific but here is why this is so cool.

For quite some time I’ve wanted to be the guy who was the link between the design and the engineering.  I arrive at PUMA, and it turns out that that is exactly what they are in desperate need of.  The technology and design people don’t really know anything about each other or how to integrate their work together into masterful shoes.  The work I expect to begin doing would basically include bridging that gap myself, along with Kate.  Now I’m hoping that the work we do, which is starting as just a sort of side project because we asked, would turn into something so valuable to the company that they decide to make this gap bridger thing a full time gig, and of course that they are so enthralled in my work that they beg me to take the spot.  This would be so terrific, and so awesome, that I suddenly find myself terrified.  I know that if this doesn’t happen that there are certainly other good alternatives, but I don’t know what they are right now so they might as well not exist as far as my excitement and terror are concerned.  This seems like a once in a lifetime chance to make something awesome happen that could have such a lasting impact on the next 50 odd years, and it’s suddenly upon me.  Time to make the most of it.  I don’t want to look back and regret how I blew a marvelous chance.  So here goes, say a prayer for me.  I’m diving in.

Hope that makes sense.

Yes.

That's all for now.

I need to think more about how this affects my life and what my priorities are, but what you just read is the immediate flood of thoughts responding to the issue.  More on this throughout the year.

The Work Experience (in a vague, not allowed to tell you anything secret sort of way)

Working at PUMA has been a really cool experience, or, well it’s shaping up to be one.  The first week and a half my boss was on vacation so it was really slow and I spent time reading stuff, surfing shoes on the internet and getting familiar with materials to kill time.  I did learn some important things, but mostly the tedious parts.  Let me explain what my department does and how I fit in in boring ways at first and then in the cool ways that I’m starting to get involved.  So some group at PUMA makes a shoe design and starts selling these awesome stylish PUMA shoes.  The a company that sells shoes in the states for example says, “Wow, those are great! but Americans prefer obnoxious colors so could we get that shoe in orange with a green stripe?”  My department is the one that says, “sure, let’s change the colors in the design description document, get the designers to update the design, and then we’ll get them to you.”  That’s pretty routine and pretty boring...  The fun part is when they request all new materials along with the colors.  Then we have all sorts of design challenges to sort through.  We get a prototype made and check it out to see what works and what doesn’t.  We suggest changes, run them by the customer, and go through the next round of samples until we’ve got a shoe that passes all our tests, looks awesome, and the customer likes.  That’s problem solving related to both structure and design and I think it is terrific.

I’m just starting to get involved in the fun problem solving side of things.  Additionally, I spent a lot of the day yesterday honing my adobe illustrator skills.  The designers were overloaded and so I got to do some of the design updating.  Rendering tweed fabric was a blast.

On an unrelated note, I went rock climbing today with some people from work.  The first few climbs were fun, the last was terrifying.  The rocks jutted out at the top which was where the rope was attached.  The last part was really difficult and I needed to rest so I sat back in the harness forgetting that because rope jutted out, that sent me swinging back 6 feet from the wall... well out of reach.  I was swinging from a rope 90 feet off the ground.  My only consolation was that if I fell it was instant death and wouldn't be a drawn out painful experience.  I hear that after a while you learn to trust the rope more.  It was a good rope and I made it safely to the ground.


By the way, this is why rock climbing is awesome, also on [ http://jwitwer.blogspot.com/ ]

Welcome to PUMA

So I reckon it’s about time to talk about PUMA.  First impressions, very classy, stylishly designed buildings.  Bold, but not obnoxious.  Lot’s of red, white, and dark grey.  Everything clean.  I can’t just take pictures everywhere for secrecy’s sake, but I’ll get some up over the next few days.  There are two main buildings in Herzo.  I’m in the one on the edge of town that is larger, and conveniently attached to the PUMA store and Factory outlet store which I just visited today finally.  I do have a discount, but I won’t have money till my paycheck comes at the end of the month so I’ll just have to wait.  Difficult I must say!

Second impressions, at my desk and explored the nearby rooms, it was overwhelming how many shoes were everywhere.  Boxes of shoes and prototypes.  Shelves labeled country after country after season after year after category of shoes at different stages in development.  I’m sure there are over $100,000 worth of shoes on my floor of the building when you consider that most of them are prototypes.  That basically just means only 3 pairs were made for testing etc, and since they aren’t at the stage of being mass produced yet, they cost a fair penny to make.

As I was walked around the office and introduced to people, it was amazing to see that the daily work of such a small group of people (relatively) could be recognized and known by so many millions.  I mean, I would say there are at least 1,000 pair of PUMA’s at the RIT campus alone, and I’ve met the people already who have designed over half of them as well as the however many million other pairs around the world.  The downside to all of this is, that to run such a big system so well, there is loads of bookkeeping and database organizing etc...  That’s what I’ve been learning this week.  There is a lot of dry, necessary, background understanding required before you can do anything interesting.  My boss is on vacation this week and his boss is sick, but when one of them gets back, I can expect to learn more about what will be expected of me over the next 12 months.  I don’t expect to really know anything until next week.

Here’s something cool.  I guess in Germany you’re supposed to work 39 hour weeks, but PUMA says, “no, let’s do 40, but we’ll save up those extra hours you’ve worked and give you extra time off at Christmas.”  That way, everyone has off from Christmas to New Years, without even using vacation time!  

Living Quarters

So here is where I live.  It’s quite comfortable I find.  Not everything is in good taste, but it is almost all good quality.  There is a huge grandfather clock too, although we don’t run it because the bells would chime through the whole night.  There is a beautiful original painting on top of the wardrobe (pictured).  The center of the wardrobe has three shelves fronted by glass - the optimal location to showpiece my shoes.  On top is also a radio that would have been terrific back in the day.  It has preset channels, can adjust the highs and lows, gets FM and AM plus 2 other frequency ranges, that I don’t know the names of.  There are also lace curtains, which bothered me at first because they offer zero privacy.  I found that peculiar because Germans are super into their privacy (in order for google to bring ‘street view’ to Germany they had to provide individuals with the option to blur out their houses!).  Well, the landlord was showing me some things and pointed out the steel shutters that can be lowered like blinds on the outside so that even in broad daylight I cannot see my hand in front of my face (with the lights off of course).  The only things really missing?  internet and dryer.  I’ll manage just fine without those I think though

Other bigger picture details, I live in a house on the edge of town.  The house used to belong to a grandmother with two daughters and a son.  Daughter 1 grew up and moved north to Bremen for work I believe.  She had a daughter named Muriel.  Daughter 2 bought half of the duplex next door to her mother.  Grandmother’s son, Reinhard, moved into the other half of the duplex with his wife and son.  Daughter 1 came into possession of her mother’s house, presumably upon her death, but still lives far away.  She rents out half of the rooms to her brother Reinhard, and half to her daughter Muriel, who just moved in 2 days before I did.  Reinhard wanted the house for his office because of the 30 yard commute to work.  He doesn’t need all the space though so he is subletting one of the rooms to me, plus bathroom and kitchen access thankfully.  Before Muriel came, Reinhard had been renting the whole house would would sublet to 4 interns/students at a time.

Oh and I almost forgot, they like spiders in the corners because they keep down the fly and mosquito populations? yes, that’s what he said.  I always thought screens were a better solution for that but... they don’t believe in screens here.  They do believe in fresh air though so the windows are all open year around.  I don’t have any spiders in my room so I’m not too concerned.

 Black and gold - duvet and sheets (I can store things in the box spring).

 Painting, wardrobe, shoes, radio.

The view kneeling on my bed.

Inspired

This article was what set me on the path to being an engineer at PUMA. Open picture in a new tab, then click to zoom in and read away!