The great resignation 19

[MIStructE_IRE]

The pandemic has given me a change of perspective and a change of life priorities. That, in conjunction with engineer’s anxiety and sleepless nights sweating over calculations has me questioning whether or not I want to do this for the rest of my life.

Has anyone else experienced this?

What is a sensible alternative career for a structural engineer?!

 

[MIStructE_IRE]

Having considered this over the past while and discussed it with my wife and a close colleague, I’m going to stick it out - for now. Also booked into a therapist to help manage the classic Engineers anxiety over our worst fear.

Thank you all for your valuable input and thought provoking responses as always.

 

[3DDave]

The two major contributors to disaster are:

1) New materials, new geometries, or a significant change in scaling of existing geometries.

2) Last minute changes to some detail without going back to the original design analysis to ensure that initial assumptions are still in force after.

As long as those cases are in control/understood/avoided then the chance for a major screw-up on a normal career are pretty small, like infinitesimally small.

I struggle to think of a failed situation that isn't one of those as far as those caused by design and analysis. Construction failures are a separate consideration - people failing to follow the plans or substituting substandard materials, for example.

If you wish to deal with anxiety over this, then realizing that the breadth of the problem has a far narrower scope than everything might help.

Best of luck.

 

[Tomfh]

This is what quality control, checking and oversight is there for.

When things go bad, you find out what all that’s worth. Your checker, to save his own neck, becomes your executioner pretty fast.

Never been thru it personally, but I’ve seen it. It’s not pretty.

 

[SwinnyGG]

I look at it this way, a person can:

1) Be really good at something
2) Get paid really well to do something
3) Really enjoy something

RARELY does one maximize all three simultaneously.

I, with respect, couldn't disagree with this more strongly.

Lacking one of the above in your professional life just means you haven't found the thing you should be doing. Finding that thing takes risk, and likely some minor level of failure along the path - but that thing is out there for everyone. This is a little woowoo for this forum but it's something I truly believe.

If you aren't enjoying your work over the long term, you should quit and do something else. When you find something you enjoy, that you also do well, the money will come.

Enjoying your work is as much a function of taking satisfaction from your own success and skill growth as it is about having objective 'FUN' during the work day. Almost always, enjoying it will mean you're good at it, and being good at it will mean you make more money. In my opinion, if you think you're great at something you hate doing, you're probably not as good at it as you think you are.

 

[IRstuff]

I think that the caveat "RARELY" applies; there's a reason why all the engineering disciplines aren't flooded with super-engineers. The sub bullet "Be really good at something" has to come into play; I think most people simply are NOT "really good at something." We can see that in children's sports; all those kids playing summer league, travelling league, etc., to the point where they might actually be good enough to get noticed for a college scholarship, and find that there are dozens of people equally good, or even better. And by the end of college, most of them wind up having to live in the real world, instead of going to the "big show." And in some cases, it may simply be the lack of decent educational resources/opportunities, or it may simply be that most people are NOT "really good" at anything, they may be just barely good enough to hold any job.

Sure, there might be a potential Edison, slaving away at some menial job, but the odds are pretty low, but non-zero, for that happening. That first sub bullet is a really large threshold, and that puts the 90- or 99 percent of the rest of the discipline in those lower-paid jobs. There's obviously a question whether any of the lower quartiles would, or could, be successful in something else. And, that would need to be coupled with the 3rd sub bullet, "really enjoy something" and the two somethings have to coincide. Otherwise, one is faced with choosing something that they're really good at vs. something they really enjoy. And, only then might there be the commensurate compensation. On top of all of that, you need to be able to manage your finances well enough, and have a number of other dominoes fall your way, like health, companies that have some level of staying power, etc.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[LittleInch]

3D Dave,

I'll try and remember those - they sound like the root causes to the Miami Bridge collapse to me, but apply to all engineering disciplines.

MI Struct IRE - Well maybe do a retread in a years time after some counselling / therapy and see where you go. I've maybe been fortunate, I don't know, but I've always enjoyed what I do, think I'm pretty good at it by now and have received pretty good compensation for it over time.

Out of PMR06's list I would take nos 1 and 3 as the key parameters. How much you compromise those for no 2 is your call and everyone's different.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[HTURKAK]

MIStructE_IRE ,

I got really sorrow when i read your post.

I was retired several years ago after 40 ++ working life . You can imagine that my generation had worked with slide rules then with calculators then with computers .
But at least we enjoyed , get paid really well and get respect. Nowadays, IMO, enhanced softwares ( input cow , output sausage ) together with plague of MBA destroyed the real engineering

I am afraid that we are witnessing the last days of engineering due to escape of clever young engineers to marketing , management..etc..

I wish GOOD LUCK to you..

 

[EireChch]

Hturkak - I think its worse again. The very young youngsters (even 10-20 yo) dont see college or university as a future. They see youtube, crypto and NFTs as the way they will make money. There is no doubt that people can make money and do make money from these, but only the very lucky ones.

I think all professions (marketing, accounting, finance, engineering, medicine etc) will suffer!

 

[3DDave]

Rough estimate - (For the USA) since I graduated the cost of college has gone up at least 10X but the salaries have only gone up 3-5X making the investment less of a payoff. I'm not sure they see anything as an alternative except that they all have terrible career prospects. Between this and the way the USA handles medical care, it's clear that the less-optional segments of the supply side of the economy have decided to look at how much most people might ever earn and price their products to take all of it. Housing, education, healthcare. Can food be far behind?

 

[IRstuff]

They see youtube, crypto and NFTs as the way they will make money. There is no doubt that people can make money and do make money from these, but only the very lucky ones.

It's a general life lesson; it's no different than learning that being a rock superstar is neither for the faint of heart, nor for the less than stellar performer.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[bones206]

My wife is a doctor and her office just had a mass resignation yesterday. Almost half of the doctors quit or retired en masse. She said most of them had no prospects or plans lined up -- just couldn't take it anymore. Pretty crazy considering the student loans these people are repaying (my wife's education cost ~$600k @ 7% interest).

I've observed that many of the trends in the physician profession seem to mirror those in the engineering world. But at least they have a sort of professional association that has the power to continuously negotiate compensation rates with the insurance companies. We don't even have that.

 

[XR250]

600k? Is that what medical school costs nowadays? WTF? Why would anyone become a Doctor?

 

[IRstuff]

Why would anyone become a Doctor?

Family medicine is probably close to a losing proposition; they get squeezed on all sides and make the least amount of money. Almost any specialization, particularly surgical, boosts income by factors of 4 or more.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[Aesur]

I have noticed a similar trend with the medical industry, family doctors are closing down as the older doctors retire and the new ones are going to work for hospitals or urgent cares where they sign a contractor for x years and their student loans are paid back by the company. Their industry is already taken over by corporate America so to say. Engineering I bet isn't far behind with the latest trends of the ones who offer the most to the industry having had enough and leaving (either switching careers or retiring) and the newer ones (in my opinion 9 out of every 10) coming into the industry relying only on software and not knowing what they are doing nor receiving proper training/education or going into project management. I am hoping there is an adjustment as the engineering community shrinks allowing us to become more profitable again to attract the best talent.

 

[bones206]

The 10 year public service loan forgiveness program allowed her to choose family medicine. Otherwise she would have gone into cardiothorasic surgery in order to pay off the loans. Under Trump, the feds rejected over 99% of the loan forgiveness applications, effectively reneging on the promises made to borrowers. Seems to have reversed course under Biden, but there is a lot of uncertainty and we are reliant on the government keeping it's 10 year forgiveness promise in order to not fall into financial ruin. It boggles my mind that some of her colleagues decided to bail with only a few years left in their 10 year forgiveness term.

 

[IRstuff]

Family medicine woes are compounded if they are single-practioners or IPA members; there's basically no paid vacation and vacation incurs costs to pay staff, not to mention being on-call all the time. Working for a hospital or something like Kaiser gets rid of a lot of that built-in stress

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[BigH]

phamENG - yes, the Rogun Dam . . . we are in a very interesting point of the project - yet, another estimated 10 years to go . . . About 80 Mm3 of material to place . . . has been a very good project to work on thus far.

 

[As-Lag]

I never got sleepless nights from engineering until two-weeks ago. I write my own engineering software and two weeks ago, I managed to delete all the named ranges in my excel database. 14 years of stuff. There must have been a hundred named ranges. All gone. Every spreadsheet filled up with #NAME?. Worst still. Not knowing what I did, I tried to reload my add ins and managed to turn all my functions into #VALUE?

For two-weeks, I have done nothing but fix my work. I load a beam, find the missing named-range and then go into the database and recreate the range.

I am nearly 70, I love this job, never want to retire. If I had the chance, I would teach engineering and algebra in code.

 

[3DDave]

Here's a fun fact. The AMA lobbies to keep a lid on the number of teaching hospitals in the US making sure that competition for decreasing the costs to become a doctor cannot happen.

I wonder why. /s

 

[JStructsteel]

As-Lag, you dont back up your work somehow???