Is engineering boring? 10

[BoredEngineer]

I graduated two years ago with a Mech degree and I found school to be both fun and challenging. I loved it. Since then I’ve held two full time jobs (one with the government and the other a large defense contractor doing CAD) and I’ve found both to be unchallenging and boring - I end up finishing my work after an hour or two, then beg for additional work and ultimately stare at cubicle walls. After a couple of years of this, I’ve become awfully frustrated. I understand that I'm young and I have ALOT to learn, but I've looked around at the senior engineers and their work doesn’t seem all that exciting… Maybe this is engineering?

I would like to get my hands dirty -see what I’m good at and what I suck at. I would like an interesting, challenging and technical engineering job, but I don’t how to go about finding one without job hopping. It seems horribly inefficient for all involved. Any advice on where to go from here? Do I continue taking jobs and hope that one clicks? Go back to school and get into R&D?

 

[MALK]

Just curious now, what kind of positions / job function do all you guys /gals have? I've moved within the company recently to a job with a faster paced day to day manufacturing problem solving type of work from design / analysis. The pace certainly suits me better and I haven't had to totally give up the design aspects - still looking tho

 

[IRstuff]

And even with that, do you really think that even research is exciting 24/7?

To do any sort of interesting research, you have to running a lab, which means that you have to:
>> teach classes
>> grade assignments
>> mentor students
>> supervise your postgrads
>> curry favor to get grants
>> be on the road about 25% of your time to glad hand potential customers
>> grind out analyses proving your position
>> oh yeah, spend some time doing some real research

When I was a kid, being a rock star sounded like something that was glamorous and exciting, but the reality is that the only exciting part of the day is the one or two hours on stage, and everything else is gritty and mundane, unless you've made it to the top, but the luxury and glam appears to be insufficient for many top rock stars that spiral into drinking and drugs to blot out the periods between performances.

The bottome line is that nothing you'll do will be 100% exciting 100% of the time. However, there's enough excitement in doing the things that get yiou out of bed in the morning to keep you contented. As in the old song, " you can't always get what you want, but you sometimes get what you need."

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[FeX32]

Good points IRstuff.
At least you get 'some' stuff of the interest. Many jobs this 'some' is nonexistent.

" you can't always get what you want, but you sometimes get what you need."


Fe

 

[IRstuff]

To that regard, we are truly lucky; as engineers, we have the potential to get, or find, interesting things to work on. There are lots of jobs where there's not even the remote possibility of ever doing something interesting.

Just consider the people that clean your office. The biggest thrill for some of them is to find a cache of soda cans that they can recycle for $20 or so.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[KENAT]

I'll back up Mike Hollarans point about the interesting stuff getting given the interns. I used to have to stop myself from doing their work for them because it was so much more interesting than what I was doing.

Sorry New Postjck87 but there's relatively little real cutting edge new product development.

A lot more of the stuff Mike mentions.

For instance, for every guy coming up with the planform or wing section of the next super fighter, there are probably dozens that get stuck analyzing release of the same weapon from a couple of different hard points under the wing of the same aircraft at various stages of the flight resume...

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[GregLocock]

Also bear in mind that while working on new concepts is great fun, if you don't do the implementation as well then your 'ownership' will be slight at best.

At least with cars, a large percentage of the people involved in initial system design/selection tend to be the core of the group who will see it into production (usually described as "go to woe").

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[FeX32]

go to woe = go to guys?


Fe

 

[GregLocock]

No, when the program starts it is "Go", everyone is enthusiastic. By the time it is in production everybody is saddened, hence "woe".



Cheers

Greg Locock


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[stanier]

The accountants in Australia are running ad campaigns and the theme is " You can work with interesting people". If you think engineering is boring dont become an accountant!

 

[FeX32]

Oh ic. Thanks Greg.


Fe