The best thing about my job is knowing that I am working on something that is really worthwhile. Although I am not a scientist, I really enjoy science and like the fact that I am working on a project that will teach us so much about Jupiter and the rest of the solar system. Of course, it's always best in the business not to have problems in the first place, but that in itself is a problem, and fortunately, on the Probe, we've done a very good job, and have had very few surprises. Some of the other projects I work on never get off the drawing board, and that's no fun at all. As a kid, I think the things that most helped to prepare me for this job were puzzles and problems.
Engineering is mostly problem solving.
And problem solving requires that you be able to logically breakdown a problem, understand it, and solve it piece by piece. I enjoyed all kinds of puzzles, and still do. Word puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, math puzzles. All of these were good for me. I remember solving math puzzles in the sixth grade, where we were given a sequence of numbers and asked what number should come next.