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?

 

[KENAT]

Very similar has I think been posted before, probably in this forum, try and find it. I've gotta dash now but I'll try and give a more useful reply tomorrow if I remember.

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[KENAT]

By the way, not so long ago if you looked up boring in the yellow pages it said see civil engineering.

http://www.ukcivilengineering.co.uk/quotes.html

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[MikeHalloran]

When time is available, I amuse myself by reverse engineering our own products, and our competitors' products, trying to find weak spots, and understand the reasoning behind the differences and the science behind the similarities.

The effort is more educational when you are fortunate enough to have access to product that's been used, and especially, broken.

Eventually you understand why "we've always done it that way", and once in a great while you stumble across a better way.

I'm also continuously trying to improve my own process, not necessarily for this job, but also for the next one.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[ctopher]

BoredEngineer,
Been there. It's not you, it's poor management. Use your time and learn other software applications, tools, machines, whatever.
I learned CATIA and Flex3 during the time my boss had his....never mind.
Stick in there, a better job will eventually turn up.

Chris
SolidWorks 09 SP4.1
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[msquared48]

Sounds like you were working in the government sector and perhaps for a large contractor with plushly funded government funds with little oversight.

No, this is not engineering. You need to move to the private sector where making money is important, not wasting it. 30 years ago I had to move as I was in the same situation working for a government entity.

Up and until the past year, I was always busy with lots of work and little time to do it.

For now, if you are still in that government job, stay there as it will pay your bills. However, if and when the economy turns, follow the road to the private sector. Hopefully, by that time, and the sooner the better, you will have enough experience to get hired, if you have not been pidgeon holed already.

Some here will disagree with me, but to each their own. That does not invalidate my experience.

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering

 

[SNORGY]

Engineering is not boring as long as the accountants who run the company actually allow you to do it.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[SomptingGuy]

Bored: Does the term "skunk works" mean anything to you?

When your task list is either short or dull, spend some time inventing or implementing things you know your customers would like, but haven't asked for. Most large companies stifle this kind of activity, but grab anything good that comes from it.

One of my bosses created a World-leading product through skunk works, which exists today. He got the boot several years later when a not-so-successful product was developed in a similar way (i.e. without management buy-in)


- Steve

 

[corus]

Most jobs are boring. Take brain surgery for example. Same old skull, same brain every time. You can make the job more interesting though by drumming on the skull top to a Phil Collins track to lighten up the day. Try that with your colleague in the next cubicle to you.

Alternatively try and get involved with other people to see what they do. Network, as they say. If you have spare time take the opportunity to learn new things. It'll help you expand your skills and move into different areas where the work may be more interesting. Alternatively, take drum sticks into work.

corus

 

[rowingengineer]

My job is going a bit slow as well, mainly because i'm new, so to past the time i have decided to write an concrete FEA design guide, there are probably heaps of these around but what the hey i never planned on publishing it anyway.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that them like it

 

[tygerdawg]

It doesn't have to be boring. But working isn't the same as school. As long as you continue to seek positions where you are a tiny cog in a giant machine, you will probably continue to be bored. My first job was taking airframe structural member machining drawings and converting them to machining drawings of cast parts for a defense contractor. Never really saw anything else of the rest of the airplane. Agonizingly boring, that was. I danced out of that place after eight months.

After one more stint with a large company, I have always sought work with smaller companies. Less pay, less benefits, less people, more work, many more hats to wear, certainly less stability. But generally the work was good and interesting and it made me want to wake up in the morning so I could go to work.

Try unemployment during a recession with a family to support: now THAT's thrilling.

When you're 50+ you'll probably wish you had a nice cushy boring job that paid well and had great bennies because you'll be pre-occupied with your family isssues and actually thinking about retirement.

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering

http://www.bluetechnik.com

 

[PEDARRIN2]

I came out of school and started working for a government contractor.

I agree with msquared48 in that I worked - but it was not engineering. And I did get pigeon holed. When they downsized I found that I didn't have 7 years of experience -I had 14 iterations of 1/2 years experience and nobody wanted what I was experienced in.

It took me a long time to rebuild my career with good experience.

Stay while the bills are paid - find things to do that will be useful - take advantage to learn new things and then get out.

 

[mauricestoker]

BoredEngineer,

If you are bored with working for the government, then you will probably be bored in the private sector. I've worked for bad management in both private and public, and one thing that hasn't changed is that in the government, managers are only too happy to load you with work until you drop, if you volunteer. Same genral rules apply to both, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. While private sector certainly had lots of dead wood and high paid nothings with "OVERHEAD" stamped on the forehead, they always seemd to have to stick their fat little fingers into engineering to justify their existence. Just like the pointy-headed boss on Dilbert. My experience with the gub'mint is that those same types do not have to justify an economic payback hence keep their chubby little fingers out and work on their buzzword generators.

Being with the gubmint, I've had experience opportunites that you just don't get in the private sector, and it has been anything but boring. It's been a lot of work with ASHRAE, IMC, CDC. NIH, etc., especially for facilities which had not yet had standards and criteria developed. More than once when the priate sector could not perform design, work was moved in house. If you are still truly bored, Uncle Sugar is always looking for people to relocate to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Not saying private or public is better for you, just that you don't need to be bored. A large benefit of gubmint work is it allows you to hold ethics over dollars. My last private sector job wanted me not to just bend the line, but defecate while crossing.

 

[SomptingGuy]

I should have mentioned (have done in other threads).

University is interesting because you are continuosly learning. Work gets boring very quickly when that learing peters out. You need to position yourself into a job where the learning doesn't stop.

- Steve

 

[kelowna]

Engineering is not boring.

There are fun, exciting jobs as well as boring jobs in engineering (I have had both) as there are fun and boring jobs in almost any other discipline.

The trick is to find and keep the good jobs and leave the bad ones in a hurry.

I count my blessings that although there are many bad things in my current job, there is fun to be had and learning to be done every day.

 

[IRstuff]

While management certainly has some fiducial duty to keep you gainfully employed, you need to find things to do, whether they're actual company projects, or something educational for you.

I don't think that you can fairly compare school, which is on a rigid schedule, with work, which is not.

Nonetheless, I don't think engineering is boring at all. There's tons of new things to learn every day, and I'm constantly amazed that someone actually pays me to do this!

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[KENAT]

So, mostly good advice above. Find something to do with your spare time. To some extent at my jobs I've created the position. Essentially there were core tasks that I was employed to do. Then there were other things that looked like they needed doing but no one else was working on them, so I spent some time on them.

So long as you're getting your 'core work' done mangement should be OK with it. Be careful not to tread on anyones toes etc, it can be a political minefield, but basically find stuff you can do that adds value to your job while giving you a chance to learn stuff.

Big organizations like yours tend to be better at paying for training of employees, see if there's anything available.

Maybe do stress analysis or something of the parts you're working on in CAD. If you're actually creating the drawings then I can tell you for a fact there are a lot of things you don't know about that after 2 years. While some may not consider it hard core engineering you could try and learn about GD& T & tolerancing etc.

Basically, in your apparant 'free time' find something usefull & interesting to do.

Small companies may answer some of your issues, but they aren't a panacea. Some people are happier in them than others. Maybe they're the right place for you, maybe not.

Oh, and yes there is a lot of dull stuff in engineering, a lot of that dull stuff gets sluffed off on junior staff, partly as a learning experience and partly because more senior staff don't want to do it. It's amazing how little cutting edge, make or break stuff there is in comparison to the more laborious stuff, funnily most of the few exciting/critical tasks aren't given to inexperienced junior staff that often.

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[Electic]

Any job can be boring if you get stuck looking at too small of a portion. Engineering often is terribly boring because of this.

It can require much personal initiative to get beyond the 'little picture' stuff, but if you are bored or don't have enough energy to face the day, it is probably because your work isn't presenting big enough challenges.

 

[BoredEngineer]

Thanks for the advice guys. I appreciate it!

 

[jberg]

BoredEngineer,

As others have mentioned, engineering can be boring, but similar to Mike, I have not had that experience yet. I worked for a couple of years at a large construction company which afforded me the opportunity to get on job sites and meet with the people building off my designs. This was good and bad, but even today in my current position as an engineer for a consulting firm, I often look forward to getting in the field for a day or so. It makes the office time fly by and while the traveling can be a pain at times, I like to meet with customers at their sites. Maybe I am a minority, but I find the variety is what makes engineering fun for me.

JWB