Hate my job 14

[tumbleleaves]

1) I am a civil engineer in California.
2) I have been looking for employment elsewhere, for over 3 months.
3) An across the board pay-cut was instituted at my current employment.
4) I took this job when I was laid-off due to lack of work in 2009, when construction froze up. It did not pay well, but I thought it was secure, and thought there was no way they would reduce the pay further.

I work with old people that are hanging on to their positions (protecting their turf), should have already retired and are dysfunctional and out of touch. I've been carrying these old people. Now the job bugs me so much that it affects how I feel when I'm off work, and the last couple of weeks is affecting my performance at work.

I can't afford to quit, have been unable, so far, to find a new job... How are other people doing and coping?

 

[patprimmer]

BTH

That can have two distinctly different outcomes depending on how much value you really add to the team vs how much you think you add.

Regards
Pat
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[SNORGY]

Still...

If I wasn't busy, I'd go home, if that was an option. After all, nobody in management would hesitate for a second asking you to put in a 60 hour week if the company was busy - in fact, most places would make it an "expectation", citing "professionalism" as the only required motivation.

Mind you, I do hold the current corporate record (set in 2010) for hours worked during one seven day week: 124. So, darned straight, when I am not busy, I go home.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[patprimmer]

When I went missing in action during slack periods, I always countered, OK I will happily work 9 to 5 on a strict basis all the time if you like. They generally mumbled and grumbled as they slinked away to avoid escalating the issue.

Regards
Pat
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[ctopher]

"talented old people 60+, that use AutoCAD and are very sharp"?

What kind of place is this?!


Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[berkshire]

ctopher
Sounds like your kind of place Cris.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor

 

[patprimmer]

One of the sharpest guys I know is 84 years old

Regards
Pat
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[TheBlacksmith]

Geez, your post sounds like one of the young guys that used to work with me. Smart, hard working and unhappy. He found another job and now, in less than three months, wants to come back. I opined that he didn't find the grass as green as he thought; one of the supervisors stated "maybe because he urinates on the grass and kills it." My point is - take a long hard look at yourself, what do you contribute and what can you learn from the old guys? Are they letting you do more work as a learning experience and waiting to catch you if you stumble and you haven't yet?

 

[Xera]

If you think the grass is greener on the other side, who have to ask what kind of fertilize are they using? And what else does it get on when they apply it?

 

[Latexman]

What type of work is your passion? Go for that, then the change will have a better chance of being worth it.

Good luck,
Latexman

 

[ctopher]

berkshire,
Not mine, I'm 48.

Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[monkeydog]

Chris -
Patience . . . Patience
You will get there.

 

[ewh]

Chris' kind of place would have "talented old people, 60+ that use SolidWorks and are very sharp". ;-)

"Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor." - [small]Robert Hunter[/small]

 

[berkshire]

And would write how to's and macros for the not so sharp.

The good engineer does not need to memorize every formula; he just needs to know where he can find them when he needs them. Old professor

 

[ctopher]

Thanks


Chris
SolidWorks 11
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[nde3rich]

Leave California and never look back! When I worked out there as an inspector, i would only bring home 38% of my paycheck. I could not afford company insurance, 401K, and state taxes. I think you will find if you are bringing home more of what you earn, you'll be fine. As far as the economy goes, I travel about 300 days a year for work. Every hotel is full, every resturant has a waiting list, every freeway is full of cars, Wal-Mart and Grocery stores are always packed. Where's the recession?

Richard S.
ASNT NDT Level III
API 510,570,653, AWS-CWI

 

[patprimmer]

Was Excel even invented when they first put man on the moon then bought him home safely.

I wonder if those guys where sharp despite their lack of knowledge of Excel?

Regards
Pat
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[ScottyUK]

Well, they were smart enough to fake the moon landings and get away with it for 40 years...


----------------------------------

If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!

 

[imcjoek]

Was Excel even invented when they first put man on the moon then bought him home safely.

I wonder if those guys where sharp despite their lack of knowledge of Excel?

I would highly suspect that had Excel been around, the moon lander boys would be of the personality type to embrace it as a new useful tool, and likely would have mastered it. They used the best tools available to them in their day.

Too often I see "well, we did fine without it back in my day" as an excuse to not learn a new and potentially powerful tool. Is newer always better? No. Is it better to have more tools at your disposal, assuming one knows when to use them? Yeah, probably.

A lot of posters rail against "the old guard". I think it's this reluctance to learn new tricks that is at the heart of it, even if said posters don't typically express this in a mature way.

 

[patprimmer]

Well I think a lot of the old guard here do learn new tricks, but only use them if useful.

Some, not all, of the young inexperienced people think they learned everything there is to know at Uni and when you try to teach them another way they think it's you being narrow minded and out of date because you disagree with their professor who probably never had a real job in his life.

I am always cautious of young people who think they know it all. Occasionally they do, but more often than not, they have yet to learn just how much they still don't know.

If they are the really smart ones, they are normally smart enough to show respect.

Regards
Pat
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[TenPenny]

What I find fairly common is the belief that, if it doesn't come from a computer, it's wrong. I know young engineers that won't look anything up in a book, they believe that everything will be delivered at the end of a keystroke.