Not sure if I'm happy at work. Advice? 6

[CivilTom]

I have my first career.. I was told it would consist of engineer tasks but I haven't done anything engineer related yet. I am pretty much a cad zombie drafting telecom towers all day. I am however paid like an engineer, if I put some overtime every week I am scheduled to earn over 65k. Should I be content? Or look for some real engineer work even if it means ill make 10k less?

 

[francesca]

MBA is useless in an engineering company. In my last office (same company), there were four people with MBAs. Only one was a project/staff manager. The other 3 went into debt and didn't even get a salary boost. Engineering project management in Civil engineering anyway is 90% technical. Our contracts for public design work are cost + overhead + fixed fee. Don't bust the budgeted hours and you get your margin. Being able to budget accurately requires a solid technical understanding of what it takes to design the work. There is so little MBA-type management in engineering and most of the people in those positions were rising-star project managers. Our CEO is an exception... he's a lawyer (with an engineering undergrad). But don't let that red herring side-track you. There's an engineer in my current office with law degree and he's a project manager and doesn't earn any more than any of the other project managers. If you're serious about Structural Engineering a Masters is essential.

 

[controlsdude]

Caddy?
I have been doing CAD work off and on for 20 years. I guess I must hate myself. Now I find myself going to another trainging class for CAD, this is so funny. I think you need a hobby, so that you don't whine so much at this job. When you stop hating that job, they might look at you as reliable and send you out to what your drawing. Maybe you should look at what your drawing and figure out how they arrived at this design?

Stick with it, get a hobby, quit whinning, do more when they ask you. How many times has this question been asked here?

 

[tempeng]

2 months? LOL

When I got my first proper position (or job title) after University my first 5 months were spent on hopping between CAD and just sitting in the library, reading all the various standards relating to the department I worked in. After becoming a semi-competent CAD jockey I was then moved from the Structures Dept. into the Marine Engineering Department and guess what i did there for another 5 months?

Just when I thought Engineer was just a posh term for Draftsman, I was given my first place with a design team and it was horrible. I was still calculating like a student and that is just not good enough for the work place.

Six years on and now I'm in charge of my own designs but most of that is drawing whatever it is I've just run the numbers for.

TL;DR


Be patient and try to do the best you can with whatever it is you're given to do and soon, you're attention to detail will be noticed and you'll go further up the ladder. If you start job hopping you'll only ever be sliding down the snakes. [/waffle]

 

[KENAT]

"How many times has this question been asked here"

Too many. I sometimes wonder when we all got to be too good to do some drafting at least 'on our way up' like many greats of the past.

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[jgailla]

The first two months at my first job out of college I was working 80 hours a week as a construction materials technician, making concrete cylinders, logging truck tickets, and so on.
The guy in charge of the CMT department (not my boss) figured he could get a good profit out of me by billing the client for 80 hours and paying me salary for 40. I was making the same amount as an hourly worker making $8 an hour.
After a couple of months my boss reeled it back in and I spent more hours in the office and cut back my hours. The time I spent doing the field work was invaluable towards my experience as an engineer. If you don't pay your dues you'll be less of an engineer.
As most posters have said, two months is nothing. I would not leave a job without serving at least one year unless there were some egregious circumstances.

 

[CivilEngineer401]

When in doubt, it is better to be over paid and not content than under paid and not content. This is coming from someone who makes 55k and spends all their tome doing engineering work and managing projects. [tt][/tt]

 

[SNORGY]

CivilTom,

Make the most of your time and experience on the drafting. Keep track of the time in man-hours it takes you to start with a blank sheet (or screen) and end up with a professionally endorsed drawing, including back-drafting and recycle. Soon you will start being asked for man-hour estimates, you will start being asked to coordinate the efforts of several CADD folks, maybe checking the work done by peers...

The "engineering" that you aspire to is coming, trust me. Oddly enough, I have been in the engineering business for 30 years, 29 of which for an EPC contractor, and one of the two things I regret never having learned is CADD. (The other is HYSYS.). If I could CADD my own work I would have it made right now.

 

[Forensic74]

I'm thinking we'll see the OP on here in a few months asking if he should be content with that mind numbing position of a telecom tower designer. IMHO, whether or not the OP is a CAD jocky or designing, this position is not likely to be a resume builder.

 

[CivilTom]

Mainman that is what I am afraid of. A history of Drawing towers won't impress a possible future employer. Perhaps I can morph this position into something that may actually build my resume...would a project engineer type position managing drafters be somewhat appealing for an engineer résumé

 

[berkshire]

I have stayed out of this until now, But CivilTom you are paying your dues.
When I had people working for me I would hand them a job , get out of the way and see how they handled it.
If they did ok I would give them a more involved task. I was looking for confidence and competance.

The thing I was also looking for was attitude, if I got griping, moaning, comments of this isn't my job etc.,
That person did not last long.
B.E.

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

 

[Forensic74]

Actually, a history of either drawing or engineering towers wont impress a possible future employer unless all they do is tower design. If that's something you want to make a career out of, go for it.

I do think EIT's should be CAD jockies for awhile to learn how things go together and how a set of drawings is produced. If you've only been at it for 2-months, I think it's unreasonable for you to be noncontent.

 

[GregLocock]

I'll assume for the time being that designing towers /is/ mind numbing. So what do energetic engineers do when faced with mind numbing repetitive tasks? (well OK sometimes they get someone else to do them but that wasn't the point)

Cheers

Greg Locock


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