Grunt Work 20

[bwing08]

I recently left a job of three years in bridge load rating/analysis and joined a large engineering firm.

Without going into too much detail about myself, I will say this: I have been in the industry for six years, I have a PE, and I care deeply about my profession.

I have been with this firm for less than two months. Since my hire date, I have been performing the type of work, which led me to the decision to leave two previous engineering firms. I made this explicitly clear during the interview process. My colleagues on the other hand are performing the work which I would like to do.
The work I am doing has been kicked down the road so many times, because no one else wanted to do it.
I am trying to gauge how much of an “advocate” I should be for myself.

I might view this situation differently, If I was a young engineer out of school, trying to impress the bosses. However, I was hired as a mid-level engineer.

Question:
Should I keep performing this grunt work, or should I say something to my manager?

Thank in advance.

 

[SandCounter]

When you get a few minutes, check in with your new colleagues, see what they’re working on, throw out some ideas if you have the experience or offer to do a part, track something down, build a spreadsheet, make a couple of calls. It shows interest in certain work and showcases your abilities.

 

[1gibson]

Gotta learn the ropes. You can do that while helping everyone else clean up some grunt work they are behind on (probably the biggest reason they needed new blood) or you could do that by getting full responsibility for a new project and dragging everyone down with you as you constantly interrupt them and ask how you're supposed to get things done around here.

The first one establishes a good relationship with coworkers (doing them favors, clearing out their backlog) the other one makes people avoid you at all costs because you always need something from them. And it's always "just one quick question" so you never schedule a meeting to ask for their time, so they can't schedule their time well either.

Basically, you'd enjoy full responsibility for the new project for as long as it took you to go over the initial documents, then it would start to be a problem for everybody.