Ztrain1985
Electrical
I’ve been working for a company for about a year now, and I'm almost to the breaking point.
This is my first job out of college and I was thrilled to get it. They pay me well; in fact I have the highest starting salary of my class.
To avoid a wall of text, here are the highlights.
- When I started the job, I had no education in electrical power systems (my college focuses on computer/hardware, not power).
- They started me off doing drafting work, so I self - taught myself Autocad, and eventually they moved me up to checking electrical drawings for typos.
- My first project was probably 1.5 month after being hired, where I was told to copy an existing design and ask questions on anything I didn’t understand. Simple design project, 2-3 drawings, didn’t learn much from it, just copy and paste because that’s all there was to it.
- My next big assignment was a service upgrade. In this job, I was given the NEC and basically told do it, and ask any questions you have. I learned a lot from it as this was my first experience with the NEC but my learning was entirely reliant on asking questions.
As a side, its hard to ask questions you don’t know you should ask, or sometimes, the correct question to even ask.
- Next couple projects were all the same. Use the NEC, ask questions if you don’t understand something.
If money wasn’t involved, I would have a problem with this, except I am the sole designer/engineer on the project, so there is no one to check my work until the end review. It is here I normally find out they wanted the project done a certain way, but didn’t realize they had to tell me that. (ie. Use a certain brand of device, drawn a certain way, use a certain font, etc.)
With each project I have been on, I am the lead drafter, lead designer, and lead engineer. I am responsible for everything on the project, even work done by senior members of the company. I am responsible for contacting the client, arranging meetings, etc. I am also in charge of the drafters assigned to this projects. I am not instructed what to do, and typically have to use my own engineering judgment on how to solve something, or ask someone else and then decided what to do based on their answer.
Looking back I have learned a lot, but at the same time, I feel humiliated and useless when it comes time to review the project. The people who critique my work have been in the field for 10 years, sometimes up to 45. I am not a physical or wiring designer. I do not know the NEC or NFPA or UL codes. I am not a skilled drafter. This company does not have their own drafting/design/engineer standards I can look at it to learn from. It pretty much goes on a project by project basis.
Is my experience in the electrical power systems field typical and I just need to suck it up? Is this typical for small company of 50 to 60 people?
I feel so cheated going to school for engineer for 4 years, and walking away from it knowing almost nothing that assists me in the field I got into. I feel even more cheated working so hard in school under the belief that “work hard now so you can play later”, only to have no work some days of the week (extremely boring), and then being told “we are working overtime and weekends”, meaning I don’t get to see my family, friends, or Girl Friend (I have a 1.5 hour commute so overtimes means get up, go to work all day, go to bed).
At least hearing this is typical would let me know Im not alone in dealing with this. Thanks for taking the time to read this by the way, I’m just really down at the moment.
This is my first job out of college and I was thrilled to get it. They pay me well; in fact I have the highest starting salary of my class.
To avoid a wall of text, here are the highlights.
- When I started the job, I had no education in electrical power systems (my college focuses on computer/hardware, not power).
- They started me off doing drafting work, so I self - taught myself Autocad, and eventually they moved me up to checking electrical drawings for typos.
- My first project was probably 1.5 month after being hired, where I was told to copy an existing design and ask questions on anything I didn’t understand. Simple design project, 2-3 drawings, didn’t learn much from it, just copy and paste because that’s all there was to it.
- My next big assignment was a service upgrade. In this job, I was given the NEC and basically told do it, and ask any questions you have. I learned a lot from it as this was my first experience with the NEC but my learning was entirely reliant on asking questions.
As a side, its hard to ask questions you don’t know you should ask, or sometimes, the correct question to even ask.
- Next couple projects were all the same. Use the NEC, ask questions if you don’t understand something.
If money wasn’t involved, I would have a problem with this, except I am the sole designer/engineer on the project, so there is no one to check my work until the end review. It is here I normally find out they wanted the project done a certain way, but didn’t realize they had to tell me that. (ie. Use a certain brand of device, drawn a certain way, use a certain font, etc.)
With each project I have been on, I am the lead drafter, lead designer, and lead engineer. I am responsible for everything on the project, even work done by senior members of the company. I am responsible for contacting the client, arranging meetings, etc. I am also in charge of the drafters assigned to this projects. I am not instructed what to do, and typically have to use my own engineering judgment on how to solve something, or ask someone else and then decided what to do based on their answer.
Looking back I have learned a lot, but at the same time, I feel humiliated and useless when it comes time to review the project. The people who critique my work have been in the field for 10 years, sometimes up to 45. I am not a physical or wiring designer. I do not know the NEC or NFPA or UL codes. I am not a skilled drafter. This company does not have their own drafting/design/engineer standards I can look at it to learn from. It pretty much goes on a project by project basis.
Is my experience in the electrical power systems field typical and I just need to suck it up? Is this typical for small company of 50 to 60 people?
I feel so cheated going to school for engineer for 4 years, and walking away from it knowing almost nothing that assists me in the field I got into. I feel even more cheated working so hard in school under the belief that “work hard now so you can play later”, only to have no work some days of the week (extremely boring), and then being told “we are working overtime and weekends”, meaning I don’t get to see my family, friends, or Girl Friend (I have a 1.5 hour commute so overtimes means get up, go to work all day, go to bed).
At least hearing this is typical would let me know Im not alone in dealing with this. Thanks for taking the time to read this by the way, I’m just really down at the moment.
