New engineer feeling like failure 18

[huskybuilder]

I'm having an extremely difficult time at work right now, guys. I'm a little over a year into my first job after college. I graduated with a civil engineering degree and am working as a field engineer. Right now I'm administering a state transportation contract and have never felt more incompetent or like more of a failure. The job was only about $500,000 to begin with, but the project is running way over budget (like 20%). I'm having to learn ALL of the state reporting/materials/documentation/specs all at once and try to pull the project together.

Besides trying to actually learn how this type of project is built, I'm expected to do all of the paperwork necessary. I literally spend about 15-16 hours every day, and usually about 12 hours each weekend trying to seem like I somewhat know what I'm doing.

I'm trying as hard as I can but it's still not good enough. Sometimes, trying our best just doesn't cut it. I was valedictorian in HS and magna cum laude in college, but I realize book smarts don't always equate to ability either. I like to think this type of work just doesn't suit me, but how bad I'm failing makes me question my engineering judgment overall.

So what are people's thoughts? Are these kinds of mistakes and stumbling blocks common, or is my ability as an engineer questionable? I just can't continue failing like this. My confidence is rock bottom and that further degrades my ability to make decisions...

 

[graybeach]

A star to Kirbywan fpr the statement under the sign-off. It's great: "Remember, first define the problem, then solve it"

Sounds simple but I encounter lots of engineers who don't do this well.

If you haven't done so, it might help you a lot to define your problem with a big matrix of all your deliverables, with due dates, and a remarks column to list the issues you are having with getting them done. Color in the cells as you complete the tasks (include this in your reports). For some reason I alway use orange for completion because it's such a happy color.

 

[rowingengineer]

Everyone has covered the your already swimming part. Something that I remembered when doing contracts for government’s way back was that you would get heaps of stuff to fill in. I would spend Hrs filling in each line appropriately, however as it turns out, you don't need to fill in each line of the form, not even every second, only the key info. Don’t try to be too good, no one appreciates it.

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field

 

[beej67]

At least you realize when you're screwing up. That's about ten times better than screwing up and not realizing it.




You're in a pickle, because honestly the best thing for you would be to work somewhere where you had a direct supervisor you could learn from. Engineering Professional Development is and always has been all about learning under older smarter folks, and you're not being afforded that opportunity where you work. If this was 2007 I'd say get another job.

BUT it's 2010, and if you quit your job you'll be gaining experience at McDonalds or Burger King, so be thankful you're getting any experience at all. Tough it out. Things are tough all around.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[beej67]

Point of reference:

http://finance.yahoo.com/career-wor...ms-struggle-to-hire-despite-high-unemployment

When you get out of a good college but have no experience you're definitively a "middle skilled" engineer. Companies aren't hiring "middle skilled" people right now, just labor and high skill, because of the way the market is shifting. So yes, your job may suck, but at least you have a job in your profession.

A good friend of mine is in his mid 30s, is a civil PE with a decade of experience in project management, and he just got a job at the US Post Office to try and make ends meet.

Don't let him steal your job, hehe. He'd love to have it.



Tough all around.



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[dvd]

Perfectionism is the problem that you need to overcome. You grew accustomed to getting all of the answers right in school, and now you are working on problems that don't necessarily have a right or wrong answer. School spoiled you because of the nearly instantaneous, and in your case, positive feedback.

Your boss may not think that you are doing as poorly as you think. The fact that a $500K job is 20% over budget means that your employer is willing to spend money on you to learn the ropes. The project is not complete, and until it is, you are under the total budget. Besides, who set the milestones for the project? Could it be that they are not able to do their job right? Also, your company may have taken on the project knowing it to be a money-loser in order to get other work.

You should look for a job that suits your need to be absolutely correct. You may find that you are not happy with engineering because there are too many gray areas.

 

[ctopher]

In today's economy companies have less employees, who are doing double work.
Stick in there, when the economy gets better, so will your job.

Chris
SolidWorks 10 SP4.0
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion

 

[FACS]

I gave dvd a star for his perfectionism comment.

Pay close attention to his advise, and it's probably time to see someone that can help you deal with it.



Charlie

http://www.facsco.com

 

[peaktop]

Forget about the perfectionism comment. Your goal is NOT to lower your standards, but, rather, to improve your knowledge and skills.

I've been an engineer for over 25 years, and I still bristle whenever some old guy tries to tell anyone to "lower your standards." Sometimes you have to accept a B, but don't let some C student talk you out of trying for an A.

I suggest you find a mentor. If you can't find one where you work, then look outside. One outside possibility is through your local professional engineer society. NSPE (nspe.org) has a formal mentoring program (see attached link). Find your local chapter. Then find out when the next meeting of the Construction, Government, or Young Engineers interest group. Go to a meeting. Talk to the engineers. Find someone you feel comfortable talking to and who might be willing to be your mentor. Things likely won't turn around overnight, but, at the very least, you won't feel alone.

You say you are "administering a state transportation contract," but you don't say whether you're working for the state or the contractor. I ask, because you'll want to avoid conflicts of interest with a prospective mentor, but I would expect any NSPE mentor with any integrity will help you steer clear such issues.

The world is full of good, helpful people. You sometimes have to work to find them.

Good luck.

PT

Fudd's First Law of Opposition: "If you push something hard enough, it will fall over."

Teslacle's Deviant to Fudd's Law: "It comes in, it must go out."

 

[dvd]

I certainly do not advocate lowering one's standards. I know that there are individuals who cannot deal with uncertainty; everything has to be either black or white. My advice is to recognize that quality and seek out work that better suits one's need to get the absolute correct answer. I mean no offense; I recognize myself in the situation. The OP will be happier in the long run by not compromising.

 

[peaktop]

Perhaps the OP could explain what types of decisions he's "forced to make." Is this a "project management" issue or an "engineering design" issue?

He talks about "having to learn ALL of the state reporting/materials/documentation/specs all at once and try to pull the project together" and "any mistakes I make are scrutinized by the state auditors." These sound like project management issues.

On the other hand, he talks about "design errors and simple omissions that really add up in cost.... I'm constantly forced to decide what's 'good enough'." These sound like engineering design issues.

I don't know many people who excel at both project management and engineering design. Sometimes it's simply a matter of which you enjoy more. I've done both at one time or another, and I definitely enjoy design work more than project management.

Unless he just doesn't like civil engineering, my recommendation in either case is to find a mentor. Find someone who is experienced in managing state construction projects or who is experienced in engineering design for state construction projects.

Good luck.

PT

 

[huskybuilder]

So much great advice here guys. This is why I love these forums.

peaktop: This is the construction phase of the project, in which we shouldn't HAVE to do design, but this project was pushed through quickly for funding and the plans were less than stellar. So, we have had to make significant changes to make up for plan errors. That's where the engineering design comes in. The management aspect is present too. That should be the primary focus, but we're working with a bad design to begin with. And, I enjoy civil engineering (at least I think so) but it's just hard to muddle along with seemingly nothing going right.

dvd: I've often thought that myself. I would do extremely well in an environment where everything is black and white. Does that exist in the civil engineering field? I don't really think so, so that means I'll have to adjust.

For those suggesting I better delegate to subordinates... I don't have any

 

[zdas04]

Black and White exists. It is on Cop cars and Ansel Adams prints. People working at the DMV often have a single right answer (but not always even there). Cashier at McDonalds doesn't see many shades of grey. Oh yeah, you said in civil engineering. Sure, you can quit or not quit. Beyond that there really aren't too many binary decisions.

David

 

[peaktop]

zdas is on target. Life is shades of gray (and I don't mean life is drab and dreary). Almost anything we do is done with incomplete information. This applies to "we" as human beings, not just as engineers.

Acting on incomplete information has a rational aspect and an irrational aspect. On the rational side, how do I create the optimum circumstances for maximizing my chance to make a right decision (not necessarily *the* right decision)? On the irrational (psychological?) side, how can I be happy, or content, or satisfied with the my decision?

Here's a thought experiment. Your task is to select the best ear of corn from a row of corn plants. The rules, though, are 1) you may only traverse the row once, 2) you may not go back to a plant once you have passed it, and 3) you don't get to see the rest of the row once you make your selection.

How do you choose which ear to pick? A rational analysis yields many different possible solutions. (I don't know if there is a *best* solution.)

But, and perhaps more importantly, how do you psychologically cope with the known and unknown consequences of your choice? You know how your chosen ear compares to the ones you pass by, but you don't know how it compares to the ones you never got to. Did you choose one after passing by others that were better? Did you settle for a lesser quality ear because you were getting close to the end of the row?

A long-winded post, but my bottom-line advice is "Make your decision, and don't look back." In other words, learn from the past, but don't dwell on the past.

Good luck (and find that mentor).

PT

 

[hahor]

- 90% of project management is to decide who are the right people to talk to each other and bring them together
- don’t get lost in details and
- never try to do everything yourself (because sometimes people who feel ignored will “teach you a lesson”)

Kind Regards,
hahor

 

[rheim]

you should give up the idea of being perfect. I've been in the engineering field (civil and structural) for 30 years, and am still waiting to see a project where everything is perfect from start to finish. It is always a sum of right and wrong decisions. I once read an interview with a stock broker (not the type of guys we see today, he used only his own money). The interviewer said "if you can make a living out of your investment decisions, you must be really good at it". His response was: "that's an illusion. 52% of my decisions are right, 48% are wrong, and I live on the difference"

 

[peaktop]

None of us can *be* perfect. All of us can (should) *strive* to be perfect.

There's a huge difference between a standard of perfection and recognizing that decisions made on incomplete information are necessarily imperfect. The question is how to make decisions given incomplete information. One thing we don't do, IMO, is lower our standard of perfection.

Engineers are obligated to practice their profession to ensure public safety.

What would we think of a brain surgeon who said, "52% of my decisions are right, 48% are wrong, and I live on the difference"?

When plant workers die from a pump that explodes because you undersized a pipe, it's pretty poor consolation to say "I gave up being perfect."

 

[stanweld]

huskybuilder,
You have had your baptism of fire early. Building before engineering is complete is comonplace. In civil projects, soil conditions often are substantially different than originally thought or bid upon. Engineering may be poorly performed. Indian burial mounds and other archeological discoveries can lead to unexpected delays and much paperwork.

It's the world of construction! Expect the unexpected!

 

[FACS]

I think we all have our ideas on what standards we need to keep, and what our moral obligation is. But some people take themselves too seriously, and they have a hard time distinguishing what is important and what is not. The hardest people to work with are the straight "A" students that have no concept of balance. They are stubborn, and they make lousy team players. There is a place for them, but it's not usually working with other people. Of course there are exceptions.

Balance is what's important. You are going to have a very hard time adjusting to the real world if your only focus is on being "perfect" every time, all the time. You're going to suffer from "paralysis of Analysis" and not get much done.

Don't be full of yourself, be reasonable, listen to others, and take what you need. Don't toss off advise of others because you might not agree with them, simply listen and learn.

No one is talking about "lowering your standards"; what we are talking about, is finding a way to balance your life between achieving and knowing when to settle. Anyone that suggests that finding balance is lowering your standards is missing the message.

There is a time to be perfect, and a time not to be perfect; successful people understand how to deal with these choices. Spending time perfecting something that does not need to be perfect allows you the time to make important decisions on something that really does need to be perfect. If you want to be a stubborn person, and only thrive to be perfect on every single thing you do, that's OK, but you need to learn to delegate work on things that mean little so you don't waste your time.





Charlie

http://www.facsco.com

 

[plasgears]

Your engineering training has taught you how to learn, so do some research along the way. Most operators in the field know that engineers have analytical ability, and they expect you to put it to work.

You should derive pleasure in being able to enter new areas and make a difference. In many instances I have crossed over into areas outside my ME degree scope and made improvements.

A good example was when we were designing for vectored thrust of a jet engine with afterburning. Secondary flow in a curved flow path causes a split rotating flow like in chimney flow on a windy day. Considering this phenomenom impelled us to design for two sector burning to avoid a hot spot on the outside of the curved path. This kind of revelation is satisfying to engineers. Have fun.

 

[KENAT]

I've been trying to think of something that can actually directly help you overcome your current situation beside the above.

I'm not sure I've come up with anything but...

When I feel overwhelmed, especially when it's not so much I have too much to do as I don't know how to do it, I sometimes find myself almost paralyzed into inaction or at least finding other things to do which perhaps are less critical.

So obviously the general things about prioritizing your work (perhaps fairly brutally) can help, but sometimes you just have to get stuck into that nasty task you've been avoiding/hedging around and plod away on it till you're done.

Not exactly inspirational, but maybe it'll help.

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
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