What are your biggest frustrations about work? 28

[EngineerDave]

For me sometimes I find that I dislike the rigid 40 hour week work schedule. I almost always work more hours (closer to 50), but the grind just gets to me at time.

I wish there was incentives for completing your work efficiently. As it is the work never stops. I leave many days wore out, unless I was smart enough to sneak in a quick lunch time workout.

It just seems like your day is shot pretty quickly, unless you are one of the lucky few that can get by on very little sleep.

Alas, don't expect any changes here in the US.

I often dream of the shorter work weeks and longer vacations that our European counterparts have.

 

[Comcokid]

Fustration is reading a Dilbert strip, and realizing that it is non-fiction because you are currently living the exact same situation!

Thank You Scott Adams!!!

 

[BigH]

EngineerDave - Spanish would be okay - that I do remember (with some boning up). Hindi or Chinese is a bit harder - at least for me with "horrible accents".

p.s. There are a lot of great feelings I get from engineering - helping others on site (younger "green" engineers), finishing a job and doing it well - but you know, a thread like this helps in that it lets us "get it out". Now, relieved, I can go back to enjoying my work - today is signing off some 400 RFIs!! using carbon paper!.

 

[EddyC]

Some of my frustrations:

a) Wondering if so much engineering is outsourced to other countries that I won't be able to hold/get another job.

b) Wondering what the next generation is going to do for work if everything ends up outsourced.

c) Wondering why the great political leaders of the USA aren't doing anything about a & b.

 

[Scoobystu]

Eddy

There should be a few openings coming up in NASA soon if the USA are going to be increasing the space program with a base on the moon.....

 

[MechEng13]

Well now with 4 months in on my new job....

My biggest frustration is not having the necessary tools to do the job productively.

Can't worry about what my frustration was at my last job, I am the engineer here.



Alan M. Etzkorn
Product Engineer
Nixon Tool Co.

http://www.nixontool.com

 

[ctopher]

One of my biggest frustrations is when we hire new engineers (with BS/MS) and they are not familiar with how Windows works and how/where files are saved. I spend a lot of time helping them because they work on something, but don't know what something does or don't know where a file was saved. Don't they teach this stuff anymore in college?

 

[COKA]

ctopher,

I am almost certain that every Engineering student knows how to use Windows! Maybe you were unlucky with a rare case. I graduated two years ago, and let me tell you that every lab report that I did had to be done on the computer, sometimes using special softwares that not everybody is aware of. As for not knowing where files are saved... well until I was shown how my team works, where documents are saved, and what document format the group likes to use, I had no clue either. Just imagine yourself working for a new company, and nothing is the way that you are used to... wouldn't you ask where to save the files? Also, bear in mind that new Engineers are more then happy that they have a job in these hard times, and are probably very scared because they want to make a good impression and not make a mistake and so on. And don't forget, it takes a year or two, depending where the new engineer gets a job, to be really familiar with everything and at the same time stop asking "stupid" questions. And you know what, no question is inapropriate, specially at the entry level!

And to continue on the general topic of this post, what frustrates me the most is when junior Engineers are not given the chance that they deserve to prove that they can do a very good job!

Coka

 

[GregLocock]

ctopher, Is your organisation not ISO 9000? If it is then they should be able to read the procedure or work instruction and find out.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[EngineerDave]

One that recently set my blood boiling was when a co-worker used my computer at lunch time (this wasn't the first time either) to conduct his job searches.

This time it was even more over the limit than before. A few times I had noticed on the printer that he printed out job ads and left them laying around. I had a return confirmation from one of the online job companies in my Microsoft Outlook. So not only did he use my computer and apply for a job, he must have mistakenly used my e-mail account as well.

I was really angry. But as I am one to avoid confrontation I didn't say anything about it, I just password locked my computer instead.

I couldn't just tell my boss about it though, because we are so understaffed now, it would be even worse if they fired him!

 

[MASSEY]

EngineerDave:

You should document the inappropriate computer usage somehow, or you may be the one fired when the computer histories are checked.

Just a thought, I know I would.

 

[ctopher]

Thanks. Yes we are ISO 9000. We just have several engineers that just don't understand the concept of the Windows invironment. I know they had it in school, but maybe it wasn't that interesting to them or maybe not much of attention span. Maybe it's...lazyness? Don't know but is frustrating teaching them they same 'ol common simple tasks every other day. When they write it down, they can't either understand or read their own notes! thanks, just wanted that off my mind.

 

[EngineerDave]

Massey,

I told one of my co-workers, but you are certainly correct. I put a password protect on it, but alas I need to set it for only a few minutes. I noticed he got on the computer because he uses Yahoo for his e-mail and I don't.

It really made me mad that one day a confirmation from Careerbuilder about a job he applied to came back to my Outlook account.

 

[TFL]

i will have to be honest my biggest frustration is moronic contractors who either are two stupid to build something right or would rather spend all their time fighting with me after they build it wrong that it will work anyway.

case in point i went to visit a jobsite yesterday were a contractor had started construction with out submitting any shop drawings. he actually told me

"how am i supposed to build the building if i have to wait for shop drawings"

i might not mind if they built it right but i had to spend the rest of the day writing a 4 page report about all the things he has to fix

i hate morons

 

[scherry]

glad i'm not too late. What do i love? solving problems that are solvable with some elbow grease and creativity, working with people who like what they do, and are professionals, knowing enough about the codes and the field to make good decisions...what do i hate? no management (and i do mean none), not enough resources to do the work we have in...and the boss said the other day "if i could just fire all of the support people (read clerical and drafting) i could give all the engineers a raise"...yeah so they can do drafting and clerical work, less efficiently than the staff doing it now. I am frustrated by files that do not have anything in them, on the assumption that the supervising engineer will remember everything and no one else will need the information. i am frustrated by not having any office standards except in the bosses head where no one else can access them...well this is getting long. Basically to my dismnay I find that I am working in a small company on the edge of growth, and incapable of making the changes required to accomplish that growth. Suspect I will be looking as soon as I turn down all the work i have in, but cannot put out on time because of no drafting pool.

 

[Jhewes]

My boss is a figure head who only has his position through his freindship with the owner. You know the type goes on work-vactions to Brazile with the owner on company time. No real work quality training/experience, college education or decision making ability.

This leaves me all of his responsibilities without any of the authority. I'm one of the few Management Reps for ISO thats not a Quality Manager. He hasn't even read the quality related procedures since we converted the Quality System to ISO 9000:2000 in Nov. (But he was good enough to sign off on them).

Fortunetly for me I have the backing of the rest of the department. At least when he's gone we can get the job done!

The icing on the cake is his half witted statements

QM: "You dont have to follow the procedures" speaking to an inspector/auditor?

QM: "Don't be so critical on those dimensions" speak to someone completing a first article on a $150,000 die.

I do find it gratifying that I know more than my boss and that I out work him on projects he cannot do.

Being a Quality Engineer sucks anyone know someone looking for a Prod. Manager? LOL

 

[NanoMan]

Blatant nepotism

 

[aspearin1]

1. Managers who don't pay attention, and therefore have little to praise you on heading into your review. ("But I'm listed on the patent for a reason."... "I made the company almost $1M last quarter."... "Did you even read my reports?")
2. People who'd rather work long and late days instead of working steadily throughout the morning. (Get it done, and get on out!)
3. Extra taxation for overtime. Shouldn't extra work be rewarded?
4. Two hours of commute on top of the 9 hour workday.
5. Only getting home just in time to kiss the kids good-night.
6. What's excersize?

aspearin1

 

[jmw]

To know that by definition, 50% of the population are of below average intelligence and they all got to be managers.

To know there will always be at least one brown-nosing back-stabbing ..... wherever you work.... and you are destined to be his particular target...

To give 110% commitment to the company for 1% in return.

To wonder how management manage to get their shoe laces tied (their wives do it for them, I guess) or find their way to work every day (if they are particularly stupid they get a chauffuer), to wonder just how stupid you'd have to be to be a manager and why educators don't teach you how to look and act stupid as this is a much better way to a secure future than science or engineering....

To see all your hard work of two years destroyed by two minutes false brain activity by a business manager with just enough brain to make a bird fly crooked.

What the hell, if i just say "MANAGERS!!!!!!" i can spare you the next ten pages.

There is a plus side: most all of the people you work with (except managers).
The satisfaction you get from doing a good job, of making a client richer by CAN$8million a year even if you do have a problem making ends meet on your salary.

Doing something no one else has been able to do.

Best of all, peer recognition.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

 

[EngineerDave]

OK I finally realized what my biggest frustrations are this job and they are very similar to what I have experienced in other jobs.

1) The feeling that I have way too many bosses. This is due in part to my willingness to help others and my laidback personality. In the end It is my own fault that I can't say no and as a result I end up helping out others even when it conflicts with my own work plan at times.

2) Being constantly interrupted which is related to the people who are giving me more work to do!

TGIF!

 

[preludemd]

I too am disenchanted with my current job situation. My frustrations are the whole job, everything about it. Hence my post "Need career advise." My frustrations are as follows:

1. A boss that's supposedly an engineer but doesn't know how things work in our company...or what we do. I guess for safety's sake, he's management now. He also askes for a ROUGH ESTIMATE on when a project will be done and takes it as when it should be done.

2. A boss that pulls you off of projects constantly to do things that were mentioned in a meeting, then wonders why the other stuff isn't done yet.

3. Project managers that promise unrealistic delivery dates just to get the job. Of course the parts won't get there till a week after a product is due.

4. When I put in my request to have the day after Thanksgiving off in May, and that week, they tell me they need me to come in.

5. I "play the game", working 2nd shift now to handle the overflow of problems from another engineers project, it has interrupted my family life. Yet, I've been there longer than any of the new engineers and they are making more than me. I didn't ask for this info, an hr rep that thought I was being treated unfairly I guess told me this. Yet, I can't use this info, because it's something I'm not supposed to have.

6. Referring to number 5...sub par salary.

7. Making process improvement suggestions only to have them all shot down or not having managements support for time need to do them.

8. A boss that doesn't stand up for his department. He would make your typical "yes man" cringe.