Public vs. Private 11

[Wrightguy]

Ok....

Everybody stay frosty on this one....

I would like to survey anyone who can help.

Can anyone give me their opinion on whether its better to work for a private engineering company or a public entity? (i.e. government, DOT etc.)

Looking for the pros & cons on this one gang.

Can anyone help?

 

[RDK]

I have worked for both private and public organizations.

I have worked in both large and small firms.

I don’t want to get off on a rant here but…

I see very little difference between large firms and government. Once you are only a small part in the process the results are the same. If your contribution to the success of the organization is too small to be seen in the final product, then predictable things start to happen.

You become more concerned with process than with results. All you care about is if the forms are filled in correctly and passed on to the next person in line. You start to forget that the reason for the forms is to achieve an end result not the filling out of forms.

You stop taking reasonable chances. Small organizations measure success based on your overall ratio of success to failure. Large organizations measure success as the lack of failure and mistakes. A failure in a large organization is defined as an improperly filled out form since nobody can measure the contribution of any one individual to the end result. Thus you get a lot of CYA behavior in large organizations. (Not my fault the shuttle blew up. I filled in all the forms correctly.)

On the plus side for large organizations, once you rise above a certain level, to a level where you can see the end result of your efforts in the final product, you can achieve much larger results. A major hydro electrical plant or other large project will not be built by small firms. To be a senior project manager in a large firm could mean you would be responsible for a major project. If you were in government then you could be responsible for policies with national implications.

Unfortunately to rise in large organizations its not merit that gets you to the top but organizational politics and properly filled out forms. Thus in all too many cases senior managers in large organizations really do not understand the nuts and bolts of the technology that they are managing. (They do not have to do the nuts and bolts themselves but do need an understanding of them in order to know what is reasonable and achievable.)

In large part what is best for you depends on your temperament, talents, expectations and personality.

Pick a large organization if the following apply to you.

You want to work 40 hours a week and go home.
You are willing to get your satisfaction in life outside the workplace.
You want stability in the workplace. (This has decreased in recent years)
You are a office politics type. (This is not necessarily bad since office politics are a fact of life and politicians can sometimes achieve some good.)
You are comfortable in making a small contribution to a large project.

Pick a small firm if the following apply to you.

You are self motivated and self driven.
You are self reliant.
You are willing to do anything necessary to met the needs of your project. I don’t mean this in a mercenary manner. After 25 years experience I’ll still make concrete cylinders on a job site, a task often assigned to junior technicians or summer students. Simply because someone has to make them and I might be the only one available. (also its kind of fun to get your hands dirty once in a while or to show up the office snobs who can talk the talk but not walk the walk.) My point here is that nothing is beneath you when its necessary to get the work done.
You want to make a large contribution to smaller projects.

I’ll admit to a strong personal basis towards small organizations. Please do not let my basis overly influence you if you choose large organizations or governments. After all it takes all types and large firms do play an important part in our economy.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[Watermelon]

Hi wrightguy.

I think RDK is correct to focus on big versus small. It's not really an issue of government versus private. I too have worked for government and also a huge, private corporation. To a large degree they function the same. Loads of bureaucracy, plenty of forms to fill out, employee numbers and so on. And so it's BIG vs SMALL.

I work for SMALL, so my bias will be obvious.

BIG: You will never get to know what makes a dollar worth a dollar.

SMALL: You will be all too familiar with what makes a dollar worth a dollar.

BIG: You will never be sure of where your pay check comes from.

SMALL: You will be reminded daily of where your pay check comes from.

BIG: You will believe you are as good as what's written in your last progress and development review.

SMALL: You will know you are only as good as your last assignment.

 

[Wrightguy]

Thanks for the rant RDK!

(you forgot to include the millerism "of course that's my opinion I could be wrong." ending)

I work for a small firm and someone else and the 9-5 type hours look real inviting sometimes. The bummer is I enjoy the work...but sometimes it would be nice to punch out and go home. Instead I end up one of those type A people that rush home in traffic and talk on my cell phone and always late to pick the kids up...etc...etc..

whoops, sorry now who's ranting?

Anyway, just looking for anyone who can defend the big firm. What I'm finding with you and Watermelon is affirmation of the small firm thinking.

Thanks again.....

Mike

 

[peebee]

I'm under the impression that pay is generally lower in the public sector -- any thoughts on that?

 

[RDK]

I would think that on the average they work out to about the same per hour for the same levels of responsibility.

In private work you are expected to work longer hours, be away from home more, take more responsibility and show more initiative. For those successful the rewards are large as are the perks and prestige. For those not successful the retribution is usually swift and severe. For those unsuccessful the pay can be a lot lower than in government work.

Also private, especially small firms simply do not have the buying power or number of backup staff to offer a lot of additional benefits, longer vacations, additional sick and family related days etc. Here in Canada all government workers get Easter Monday as a paid day off, none of the private sector employees that I know of get this day.

Government work will seldom involve overtime and the need to travel is much less. They are not expected to entertain clients evenings and weekends. Failure results in a loss or delay in getting promoted. Demotions and outright firings are rare.

They also do not have to move as often or on as short of notice. I know a group of people in private work who were told on Thursday PM that their jobs were moving several hundred miles away and if they wanted a job on Monday they had to be there. Moving was all at their own expense. If not they could collect their (two week) severance pay on Friday. In government on the other hand I was once given two years notice that I would be given one year formal notice of a layoff due to closure of facility. I left the government after the three years with another years severance pay. Had I taken an offer that involved a move all expenses would have been covered and my real estate sales price guaranteed to the level prior to the closure of the facility.

Your choices are on the average less pay for less responsibility and less work. If you are a below average performer then the pay will be higher in government, if you are an above average performer then you will get more in private work, but work a lot harder .
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[KM]

I have only ever worked for goverments (municipal and federal) in Canada and have greatly enjoyed it. I've been at the federal level now for 14 years. I've always been in a union (in general, unions = good pay and good benefits). The only fly in the ointment is assuming you can get into a full time position--there are more and more "permatemp" positions in government and you can go several years on renewing 3 month contracts. In the federal government, being bigger, there is a lot of room to move around and try different positions if you are discontent with your job for whatever reason. It is not uniformly bureaucratic or paper pushing. The type of work you do depends very much depends on your particular unit's Director, and if you don't like it, there are always other positions to try for. I'm lucky enough to have had lots of variety in two closely affiliated units, and found I can to a large extent make my own job by noticing problems and becoming the person to solve them. The government is going more and more to project management and hiring outside consultants for design, but I am still finding enough design work in-house to make the job satisfying. There is a reasonable budget allowance for training and you can keep yourself up-to-date. I've found there is a fair bit of overtime required, but to get to get paid for doing it is fairly difficult. My week is supposed to be 37.5 hours but ends up being 45 hours or so most of the time. Project managers and construction supervisors could easily put in more than that, depending on travel time to the jobsites. You just do it because the deadline is there and its got to be done. If you're lucky you get paid for it, like if it is a special project with its own funding. Both my positions have had lots of travel, but not all government jobs do. If you like it, you can find it; if not, you can avoid it. There do seem to be a lot of reorganizations and management theory flavour-of-the-month things going around. Centralize, decentralize, centralize, decentralize. You can pretty much ignore most of it (shhh!) There is waste and inefficiency, some of it glaring. But there are very frugal and efficient things being done in government too, they just don't get the publicity. To get to the upper pay scale positions in engineering you end up doing more and more mangement. And there is the associated office politicking. You don't get promoted to be an engineering specialist. But if you like the *engineering* part of engineering, the pay at the working levels (ENG-03 and ENG-04) is fine and the work is interesting. I'm an ENG-04 now and probably retire as such, after a very good and interesting career. In general, I don't think you could get the same wide variety of work and excellent paid training support in a smaller company or government.

 

[JAE]

In terms of pay, the BIG private firms seem to pay the best, with the very small niche firms right behind them. The worst are the middle sized firms (50 to 150 people).

You see this effect every year in the engineering salary surveys that come out.

 

[HgTX]

I'm a government worker. My original plan was to go work for some high-dollar ritzy design firm, but for geographical reasons I took this job, and I have no regrets about that decision (not that I don't have complaints about the job). Two things I like best:

1. Not nearly as much focus on the "bottom line". We don't have to worry about billable hours. A reasonably economical design goes out the door and if the contractor wants to try to save pennies, it's their job to figure out how; we just approve or deny. "Taxpayer dollar" is a much vaguer concept than "last quarter earnings".

2. I like being on the facility owner side of things, rather than the contractor side. I don't think I'd like being a contractor or consultant, always having to sell myself and my company and the services we offer, justifying what we've done. Much more pleasant to be the judge than the judged. I'm thinking about leaving my job, and this is one of the big reasons I haven't yet taken another offer.

The first thing I decided I liked, though, was that it fell in with my preference for time over money. I was hearing about 60-80 hour workweeks in the private sector. I may have been hired for a lot less than my classmates who went to cushy design firms, but in terms of dollars per hour I really wasn't so far behind. I figured if one really wanted more pay, one could use the extra time to moonlight and have more money, but there's no way to trade the extra money in for more time. I *love* the hour-for-hour compensatory time, which is almost like flex-time.

I hear the retirement plan can't be beat, though I don't plan to retire from here.

Disadvantages? Pay, to some extent. The occasional weird limitation on public servants (I can't accept the same kind of freebies from company reps that private employees can; I can't run for elective office in a party election). The same kind of bureaucratic crap outlined in an earlier post about both government and large corporations. Stupid legislative policies that miss the big picture. And the job security that people love so much can manifest itself as an inability on the part of management to deal with poorly performing workers.

All in all, I'd prefer to stay in the public sector.

Hg

 

[epoisses]

Everyone complains about politics and organisational issues related to big companies, but I believe they're necessary to make a huge structure work. I used to work for a Texan oil company (yes, the big guy) and I think it's an extremely well-run company, even if all the procedural nonsense made me absolutely sick (and I didn't agree at all with its culture and vision, but that has nothing to do with it). You simply need more organisational "backbone" to make sure it works in a consistent way, without breaking the law, suffering from accidents etc etc.
It's necessary, but after that it becomes a matter of taste! Not my taste.
That's why I moved to a company a thousand times smaller, and yes, it's really a blessing to have, say, a guy next door who can repair the printer instead of having to fill out a form, have it signed by my boss, mail it to god knows where and have the printer repaired a week later. I feel much more responsibility for the results even if I don't run a team of engineers anymore. The career opportunities are obviously more limited but that just doesn't outweigh the rest.

 

[epoisses]

Ps oh yes, the small company really wanted me so they actually pay more...