Vague Career Ramblings

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to John Welsh (Moderate Supporter) :

We have been told to take short or long term medical leave if we are unable to come in, which is a pretty big pay cut.  I actually am on an immunosuppressant so it's not hard to justify that I shouldn't be there.

That to me is reason enough to start looking for something new TODAY. 

This may sound a little harsh, but this is serious. This virus kills people. Your life, your ability to look after the family you love and watch them grow is at stake.  Do not berkeley around here.

I have a good friend who lost his dad as a teenager to illness. His mom died from Covid-19 in June. Do you need to talk to him to understand what the loss of a parent means? Stop being vaguely dissatisfied and start finding a place where they respect you, your health and your family.

Type Q said:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

In reply to John Welsh (Moderate Supporter) :

We have been told to take short or long term medical leave if we are unable to come in, which is a pretty big pay cut.  I actually am on an immunosuppressant so it's not hard to justify that I shouldn't be there.

That to me is reason enough to start looking for something new TODAY. 

I missed this earlier.  I would nope the berkeley out of there immediately.

Agreed - the way they're handling coronavirus is a sign whoever is running the company Has Problems. Viruses cannot be ordered around like that. And it's likely this dysfunction has bled over into other areas.

I'd start by making a list of what you hated about this job and what would make it better at a new job. It could be that you're the engineering type who'd rather work with machines than people - or it may be that you just didn't want to work with these people.

There's a whole bunch of MEs on this website - a car geek website, so I suppose it figures.

Contrary to most of you folks, Covid/WFH hit and I'm stuck at home and not particularly happy about it.  The whole cubicle experience was fine once I figured out the noise canceling headphone thing and I even made some new friends.  My company is in no hurry to get people back in the office and it looks like WFH might be a forever option.  This seems about par since most people I know with desk jobs are working from home long term. 

OP:  I'd be looking for a job that's more compatible with your goals and desire to get out of the cubicle farm.  The best time to look for a job is when you really don't need one.  WFH should be possible with a lot if not most white collar/engineering jobs for the foreseeable future, and that opens up more possible employers geographically.

I'm in a similar boat. Automotive mechanical engineer with a focused skill set. I went from "oh E36 M3, I need a new job now" to "well, I still have my job, but I know how the company really feels about me and I'm completely demotivated". I have been working with a career coach (link) and he has helped quite a bit. I haven't found a new gig yet, but am at least making progress towards it. And I'm in a much better position to find what I want, and when it does come along, I have some tools to help me showcase myself better, as well. We discussed everything from keeping my current job to a complete career direction change, to self employment options. All are still on the table.   

Good luck and I hope you find something that makes you happy!

In reply to PMRacing :

One of the realities is very few middle managers and above survive into their 60's.  In my whole life of working Less than a handful of employees actually retired before getting the ax.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯, if you have not yet followed the link in PMRacing's posting above, I highly recommend it. It touches on all of the things anyone should consider doing if they are thinking of improving or changing their career. 

PMRacing - Thank you for posting that! A great description of what it takes to actually make a difference in your career.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Datsun310Guy said:

My dad was a fire protection engineer and was let go 20 years into his career.  He became a freelance engineer working from home and made an excellent salary the next 30 years.  

... 

Think this is an Avenue? 

That sort of thing is definitely intriguing, I just don't know if it's possible to get a freelance operation going without 20 years worth of contacts to start with.

The shop is already zoned commercial, I'm always coming up with ideas for what to do with it to take my employment into my own hands but nothing ever seems like a good enough idea to gamble on it.

 

I'm late to the party, and haven't read the whole thread yet, but I had to respond to this. 

You absolutely DO NOT need 20 years of contacts to begin freelancing. You need 1 contact and a decent project to start with. You can develop the contacts along the way. 
 

If you land a 3 month job, you need to find the contact for the next job within 3 months. Rinse, repeat. I did that multiple times starting businesses. I now have a contact list of over 4000. 
 

One other suggestion... 

If you freelance, learn how to treat it like a business from very early on. I strongly recommend hiring someone to do full time sales, marketing, and social media from day one.  This can be done by one person who will also be very glad to be working from home. And it doesn't have to be really expensive. Consider women who have pulled out of the workforce to care for their kids at home during COVID. 

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

You've got mail. 

Thanks for all the responses and support in this thread, everyone.  It has been the kick in the pants I needed to start working through my options.

Most excellent - that is really good to hear.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

I have had a mechanical engineering degree since 2012, and have been employed at various places as a design or manufacturing engineer or somewhere in between since then- I've always felt pretty dissatisfied with these jobs and chalked it up to various things; maybe I hate my boss, or my coworkers, or what we actually produce, or a million other things that add up to me just not enjoying my job but trying to do it well so I can continue making money.  I had more or less made myself comfortable with that and accepted it.  Then, I started working from home in March due to the pandemic, and slowly but surely despite everything else going on in 2020 I felt my mental health and general ability to enjoy my life improving- it turns out I can actually be a lot better mentally while working an engineering job than I thought, and that translates to me being happier and healthier in other parts of my life too.

A few weeks ago my employer declared that "Covid is over" and I was to be brought back to the office full time, with no room for negotiation- this past week has been my first week back.  I think I just hate being in an office, because I am rapidly moving back to the same old angry dissatisfied state that I used to spend most of my waking hours in.  I don't know what to do about that, honestly, because I still like a lot of things about my employment situation and it pays enough that I could be quite comfortable if I wasn't trying to support a stage rally habit.  I could do my entire job from home just fine, even the hands on parts since they're automotive based and I have a shop, but it's simply not up for discussion.

I'm not really sure why I wrote this but I felt like I needed to, so there you have it.

GM, Ford, and Magna will all be remote deep into next year - and I get a finder's fee if you're hired by Magna.