A comfortable place

last year when I was having a tough time in m career, I posted this blog post about some co-workers at the time who were being decidedly competitive with me on the job.
Its funny how much things can change in a year's time. I'm working in a completely different environment now. I have finally found a place where I don't feel like I have to know everything. I don;t feel like I have someone chomping at the bit to prove me wrong. As a matter of fact, I've been experiencing a bit of the opposite effect. I feel like I can actually admit that there are people better than me.
The thing about this trade is that even within the HVAC business, there are specialties. At one time, you were just an HVAC guy, and you could reasonably be expected to work on anything and everything in the field. These days, like many other industries, HVAC techs are getting to the point where they can't know everything in the field. There are rooftop guys, and chiller guys, and data center guys... and now VRV (variable refrigerant volume) specialists, and start-up techs- there are so many technologies out there that it would be impossible to know everything.
So, I'm finding that at this company, these guys have become comfortable with sharing knowledge with each other, and admitting they don't know everything- and i have to admit that it's kinda nice. We have a design engineer in the office so I don't feel like I'm up against the wall for system layout and design. We have a guy who is really good on refrigeration and knows "vapor-compression" really well. We have a guy who knows controls well, and a couple of rooftop guys, who I'll admit know more about Trane rooftops than I do.
I have always been a "whole industry" kind of guy, so I never really focused on any one particular brand or type of system- and I'm finding that as I get older, my patience for learning new stuff is waning, so I'm probably never going to be a "specialist" on any one particular aspect of this business. I have a state master license, I know my stuff, and for once I'm starting to feel like I'm good with what I know, and I have some guys I can call if I run into something which I'm not familiar.