I'm an electrical engineer and been working now for 12 out of the past 15 years (a few years off scattered amongst it while travelling and raising small children). I've had the same job now for about 10 years (working full time for 6 of those years - 2 years off baby-wrangling - and 2 years part time).
I'm now finding myself at the stage where I'm getting bored. My job has had it's moments, but the fun stuff - site work - I can no longer do because one of my children has a chronic illness (well-managed and doing great!) and requires daily medication and regular specialist appointments. And the heavy technical stuff is increasingly being outsourced to another country.
I'm looking at my future career and just not seeing what to do. In my area (technical support) I would head into management (not my personal preference and also not possible part time) or into sales (wouldn't mind it but the area of coverage is enormous and I can't travel to site much anymore to do face to face contact).
My manager seems happy enough with me and has been very accomodating of everything, but I'm starting to feel bored and lost. My company was also bought and I've also moved interstate from everyone (I'm attending the local office so I'm trying to get to know everyone and the manager here and providing technical support in an area which I know well and have supported previously).
So there's been a lot of changes but I'm now reaching the stage that I feel I should either learn more via a masters program or re-skill in something else? I have been bored on and off in the past but always returned because I was also going nuts caring for my children at home and am a happier mother when I have something else going on. I've kinda felt like engineering wasn't a great fit at times, although I've liked helping people in a technical support role, but I now feel increasingly isolated and cut-off from the technical people after the move and the buyout and don't know what I have to offer at times. My technical skills I feel are slipping due to not working full time and I've not much interest in reading or skilling further in this particular field. Nor much time, in all honesty, with the rugrats at the non-school stage still.
I've also run training courses, but in all honesty that was my least favourite part of my job and I don't plan to head down that path either. I'm hearing impaired and just not all that confident in front of a crowd.
The local manager is away at the moment and I plan to bring some of this up with him when he returns. I've got another good 20-25 years until retirement and I've no idea how to fill them. I'm not at the stage that it is causing me to dread work or to panic, but I want to come up with some realistic ideas before I reach that stage. I've always loved science, critical thinking and skepticism but I can't imagine a career out of that. If we won lotto we joke that my husband would just write code and I'd go and do a science degree in all sorts of random things.
I'm now finding myself at the stage where I'm getting bored. My job has had it's moments, but the fun stuff - site work - I can no longer do because one of my children has a chronic illness (well-managed and doing great!) and requires daily medication and regular specialist appointments. And the heavy technical stuff is increasingly being outsourced to another country.
I'm looking at my future career and just not seeing what to do. In my area (technical support) I would head into management (not my personal preference and also not possible part time) or into sales (wouldn't mind it but the area of coverage is enormous and I can't travel to site much anymore to do face to face contact).
My manager seems happy enough with me and has been very accomodating of everything, but I'm starting to feel bored and lost. My company was also bought and I've also moved interstate from everyone (I'm attending the local office so I'm trying to get to know everyone and the manager here and providing technical support in an area which I know well and have supported previously).
So there's been a lot of changes but I'm now reaching the stage that I feel I should either learn more via a masters program or re-skill in something else? I have been bored on and off in the past but always returned because I was also going nuts caring for my children at home and am a happier mother when I have something else going on. I've kinda felt like engineering wasn't a great fit at times, although I've liked helping people in a technical support role, but I now feel increasingly isolated and cut-off from the technical people after the move and the buyout and don't know what I have to offer at times. My technical skills I feel are slipping due to not working full time and I've not much interest in reading or skilling further in this particular field. Nor much time, in all honesty, with the rugrats at the non-school stage still.
I've also run training courses, but in all honesty that was my least favourite part of my job and I don't plan to head down that path either. I'm hearing impaired and just not all that confident in front of a crowd.
The local manager is away at the moment and I plan to bring some of this up with him when he returns. I've got another good 20-25 years until retirement and I've no idea how to fill them. I'm not at the stage that it is causing me to dread work or to panic, but I want to come up with some realistic ideas before I reach that stage. I've always loved science, critical thinking and skepticism but I can't imagine a career out of that. If we won lotto we joke that my husband would just write code and I'd go and do a science degree in all sorts of random things.
