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What would you say to your younger self? 11

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Azzazil

Azzazil

Automotive
Feb 1, 2020
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Let say that you have time machine and that you can go back to the past. What advice would you give to yourself, based what you experienced so far in mechanical engineering?

For me it would be to have more confident in myself and to not trust too much in titles of colleagues as a proof of thier knowledge and experience.
Disassemble as many products as can, to get sense how to design products in a proper manner.
Get balls to ask for a raise.


Regards,
Azzazil

CATIA v5 Assmebly Manager App:
 
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i do so agree

As someone once said to me 'Do not let your past get in the way of your future'


might be more appropriate in 'how to improve myself' forum.
 
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I'm not an ME, but I work in vibrations, so I'm a cousin. Ha.

The following would be my advice to my younger self:

At the end of your college days, you'll be used to living on a very small budget. When you get your first real job, your salary will seem like a lot of money. In a couple of decades, you might make 3-5x as much money but be in worse financial shape due to lifestyle inflation. You cannot out-earn lifestyle inflation, so it must be prevented at all costs.

Thus, the first day on the job, max-out your retirement automatic contributions. Then go to the bank and open a savings account and set up an auto-transfer to that account for $50/month on every payday. When you get your first raise, increase that auto-transfer the amount of the raise; do this for the every raise for the first five if not ten years of your career.
 
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I went to Woodstock in 1969 ...

My advice to myself back then would be ....

...drop out of Engineering School ... change my name

Move to California .... live naked on a commune in Big Sur ... smile a lot ... stay healthy

Buy Apple stock for years ... then TESLA ... then BITCOIN,... then Gold

Buy a small island in the south pacific .... shoot anyone who tries to visit

MJCronin
Sr. Process Engineer
 
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Go into medicine...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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Sorry, dad...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik
 
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In engineering, everything's important, but some things are more important than others. Be as scientific as possible in what you do, but use some judgement about what's important and how accurate of an answer you need to provide.

To steal a quote from Jack Welch, "There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and they have consequences."

Finally, your time is irreplaceable. Don't waste it. Focus. Learn when to say "yes" and when to say "no."
 
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3DDave said:
Jack Welch was a greedy useless jerk who destroyed companies.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying he's wasn't that. But the quote is good.

We make individual choices. If you're missing your kid's soccer games for work, or if you're never putting in any extra effort into your career... there are consequences. We need to prioritize things that are important to both our family lives and to our careers.
 
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Crapping in an otherwise positive thread could be called selfish.

I'd tell myself not to lose touch with so many. Career advice is tough. I dont regret my career decisions but had I stayed in the military I'd have retired permanently ~40. I used to worry over dollar signs more than time, not so much anymore.
 
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I nominate the attitude of the Wizard of Schenectady, Charles Proteus Steinmetz, as exemplar - a core contributor to creating the company key to making our modern lives possible, a company that Welch tore to pieces and killed for greed.

Steinmetz said:
Indeed, the most important part of engineering work-and also of other scientific work-is the determination of the method of attacking the problem, whatever it may be, whether an experimental investigation, or a theoretical calculation. ... It is by the choice of a suitable method of attack, that intricate problems are reduced to simple phenomena, and then easily solved.
Charles Proteus Steinmetz
Click to expand...

If calling out Welch as a hatefilled monster is selfish, then I declare on that that I will remain selfishly pointing out to others the damage that guy did and the continuing ripples of damage his efforts continue to do. Every time profit is used to buy back stocks to make the Board and CEO wealthier while making the company less competitive, every leveraged buyout that sinks a company, every time a company reports as profits money from sales to another division (yeah, the thing Enron did) that is what Jack Welch made.
 
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