Career guidance - help needed.

[MechanicalAnimal]

Hello all... I need a bit of serious advice from all you smart and experienced people out there...

The matter is, I've grown unhappy with my current job. Let me give you a little background: I'm a rookie 1 year out of college. During college I worked - in and out - at my mother's firm (grain dryers / agricultural equipment). The firm is small, but has a whole deal (design+production.
What kept me at bay is it's very unattractive location and the fact that if I get an employment there, it'll be for life. (I plan to return to it eventually, but not just yet).

After I graduated, I took up an associate position at an institute at my college to work on a certain research study that's gotten me interested. It seemed a serious engineering job, and I mainly took it up for the knowledge I was to acquire during work. This was mostly in regard to advanced CAD/CAE and fluid flow modelling softwares, which are new in my country's industry and the people who can use them are rare and far in between.
However, it turned out the study is more of a pro-forma joke, at least from our side, and even if I have acquired a great deal of knowledge, it all came down to help files and tutorials as no one is taking time to teach us anything.
Also, it's college atmosphere: 4-5 hours of work with frequent net surfing pauses, but you have to be present for 8 hours. The assigments I get are more of a "give what you give", they're vaguely if at all defined and there's no telling if the job I've done is good or bad.
The salary is good, so that's not the issue.
In addition, I signed up for the grad school phd study which is turning into a lark I think; hardly what I've expected knowledge-wise.
My contract is expiring soon, but the boss wants to prolong it. I feel like the job is at present a waste of time. I'm not learning anything new or doing anything useful for myself or the project. Also, even if it's industry-related and not curriculum-related work, it doesn't count as "engineering work" so I might as well be working as a waitress as far as people giving out engineering liscences are concerned.

So... I'm stuck on what to do?
Should I grind my teeth and stick around for a while longer, and make sure my current impression is correct?
Should I return to my mother's firm and make up for the wasted time?
Or should I seek out a proper engineering job at some other, serious firm and see if I can learn more useful stuff/get more experience before I return to "my" firm?
I am also unsure about the phd study. But I can do that no matter which of the upper 3 I choose.

Sorry for a very long post, but I'm very confused here...

 

[Beggar]

Or should I seek out a proper engineering job at some other, serious firm and see if I can learn more useful stuff/get more experience before I return to "my" firm?

I'd highly recommend you get some experience at another company before you join your family's business. You will be better for it and so will your company. Family businesses can often end up short sighted because of lack of external exposure and experience.

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How much do YOU owe?

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

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[ajack1]

The land of milk and honey does not exist, or at least if it does I have not found it, there will be good and bad in every job. Try re-reading what you wrote but look for positives.

“However, it turned out the study is more of a pro-forma joke, at least from our side, and even if I have acquired a great deal of knowledge, it all came down to help files and tutorials as no one is taking time to teach us anything.”

Very few companies have the time and man power to give one on one tuition, is acquiring a great deal of knowledge in a specialised field and getting well paid for it really that bad?

“Also, it's college atmosphere: 4-5 hours of work with frequent net surfing pauses, but you have to be present for 8 hours. The assignments I get are more of a "give what you give", they're vaguely if at all defined and there's no telling if the job I've done is good or bad.”

Well the fact that your boss wants you to stay would imply that he thinks you are doing a good job, as for praise rightly or wrongly no news is good news most of time, you only get feed back when things go wrong. Only “having” to work 4-5 hours a day gives you a great opportunity to use the spare time to develop your skills, if you so choose.

All in all I would say there are many worse places you could be.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I agree fully with ajack1. Planned one-on-one tuition just doesn't happen in real life. Think yourslef lucky that you have access to the help files and tutorials. Generally they are only available to software licensees. Don't underestimate yourself either - you may now actually know more about some of the areas than those from whom you were expecting training.

 

[MedicineEng]

This is a wonderful opportunity for you to start thinking in your own business: light workload (availabe time) and good pay (avaialble income).

 

[MechanicalAnimal]

Thank you for all your replies! I highly appreciate your opinions... it's true that I may be making a wrong estimate about my current job, I'm new and inexperient and that's why I posted here...

"I'd highly recommend you get some experience at another company before you join your family's business. You will be better for it and so will your company. Family businesses can often end up short sighted because of lack of external exposure and experience."

My thinking exactly! That's why I didn't go there first off. Do you think, I should try and stick around the same/simmillar industry?

"Try re-reading what you wrote but look for positives."

Thanks... I did, and I'm trying to take this stuff the positive way. It's just that:

"Very few companies have the time and man power to give one on one tuition, is acquiring a great deal of knowledge in a specialised field and getting well paid for it really that bad?"

I'm aware of that, but it's a college, you'd think education wouldn't be so difficult to come by... I don't expect someone to take me by the hand, but it'd be nice to get some feedback here and there. At least in the manner of a colleague saying "I have this bit finished" BEFORE I spend 3 weeks doing it all over again.



"Well the fact that your boss wants you to stay would imply that he thinks you are doing a good job, as for praise rightly or wrongly no news is good news most of time, you only get feed back when things go wrong."

My boss didn't look into my work in past 4 months. How can he know? And he didn't look at it because the final result doesn't seem to be relevant at all... Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems so.

"Think yourslef lucky that you have access to the help files and tutorials. Generally they are only available to software licensees."
No, they're available to everyone who installs uTorrent and eMule.

"Only “having” to work 4-5 hours a day gives you a great opportunity to use the spare time to develop your skills, if you so choose."
Not really. I have to participate in "social" and "academical" events of type "sit at the coffee table and listen to how we used to program in assembler". Also, I'm the type that wants to really work, not waste my time. When I have something done, I'd like someone to look at it and say "here is what you did wrong, go fix it".

I guess all of this is in the line of work, when you work at a college... But it seems to me that everything here is geared up to doing the least amount of work possible. I figure I should stick around for maybe 6 more months (in order to finish the current project), and then move on... However I cannot escape the thought on missing out on a real work experience in a real firm..

 

[kchayfie]

My preference if I was in your position would be to get some experience in a related industry to your family firm. Try to get a job at a supplier or a client or (perhaps not such a good idea) a competitor's company. That way, you'll have a better understanding of how things work when you go back to work for the family and you'll have a better relationship with the client/supplier (assuming you leave on good terms!) because you'll understand their position in the negotiation. Along with that you'll have different ideas on how a business is run so you can copy the things they do well and recognise the bits your family have been doing right all these years.

You don't appear to be taking much from the work at the college so staying probably won't provide any real benefit other than a regular paycheck. And you'll probably get even more frustrated and end up bitter and twisted and it'll spoil things when you finally return to the family firm anyway!

 

[PSE]

One of the largest transitions from college life to professional life is the change from having ready access to information/guidance to being fully on your own. Even though you are in a collegiate environment, you are finding that it is necessary to get the information you need on your own initiative. It is no longer provided for you. Such will likely (at least from my experiences) be the case with any employer. Develop the skill of actively seeking the information you need. It is a vital skill to have.

Regarding the family business mentioned in your initial posting, are you expecting (or are you expected) to eventually take it over and run it? If so, take a look at the industry the business serves and learn as much as you can about it. Other ropes you may have to learn are not associated with engineering practice. Business skills and potentially marketing/sales skills come to mind.

First and foremost, decide what it is you want to do and how you envision your career to evolve. It may not necessarily be the same thing as what the family expects you to do. Spend the available time you have developing your plan and make the most of the opportunities that exist around you.

Regards,

 

[MikeHalloran]

<the study is more of a pro-forma joke>
Research projects often spin out of control. Sometimes because it's research and by definition no one knows where it's going to go. Sometimes it's because the leaders lose sight of where they're trying to go, or fail to keep track of where they are.

<help files and tutorials>
For the rest of your life, you have to teach yourself, or pay someone to do it.

<vaguely if at all defined>
The person who wrote the spec and the contract didn't know all the details of what to do and how to do it. That's why you have a job.

<good or bad.>
For the rest of your life, you have to evaluate your own situation (in several senses), and check your own work. There's no 'correct answer' in the back of your textbook. There is no textbook.

You can bring a little order to the chaos by keeping a chron file. At the beginning of each day, write down what you hope to do. At the end of the day, write down what you did. Stick to facts. It's not a diary, it's a record. It's not for anyone else's benefit. The effort will bring clarity.




Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[MechanicalAnimal]

Thank you very much for all your replies! The work log sounds like a great idea, I'll try it out! It should help me evaluate my work and advancement (or lack thereof) in a more objective way! Do you have any other valuable advice to give to a rookie? Or maybe a useful link? I'd be very grateful!!

Please don't see my disatisfaction as a search for a correct answer at the back of my textbook. It isn't so: when I worked in a real firm, the things looked signifficantly different. I cannot help but think my boss has somehow lost focus or at least a grip on the situation. A very memorable situation was when, after months of hard work that my team did, when the boss had to present the beta version of the study to the buyers, he doesn't know how because he hasn't even read the materials we prepared. Needless to say it all looked pathetic.

But I guess I just have to focus on myself, my own advancement and try and learn as much as I can, while ignoring the fact that my only product is a bunch of papers...