Your job….

"I am sort of being pushed into management to progress but its not my thing. So sometime I wonder what I should do… "

I remember at my previous employer they seemed to just assume that EVERYONE wanted a management position. They had yearly career assesements where we were supposed to give details on our career goals and how we were going to achieve them. That's a tricky thing to fill out when you met your career goals ten years earlier. I must have filled them out right because they never started pushing me toward management at all. (Or maybe they just heard me wailing "No! You're trying to make me a manager!" every time somebody asked me to do a model in Visio… )

I have never worked in IT.

I think the best part of being a manufacturing engineer is that each day I can go to the end of the line and say, "I helped make that". The creation of a tangible product is very rewarding. Understanding the various processes that take a hunk of steel and turn it into a finished product is fascinating to me. The downside is that American manufacturing (particularly automotive) is a bloody battlefield with a questionable future, so there's always a certain stress about what tomorrow might bring.

I did some time owning my own small business. I think the best part of that was the exposure to all aspects of business. I've done the corporate taxes and done the hiring and done the QA and done the shipping/receiving and done personnel management. Understanding the bigger picture via firsthand experience makes it easier for me to function as an engineer (or so I claim in job interviews ).

The funny thing (particularly given my image over in P&R) is that, if I won the lottery and no longer had to worry about keeping the wife and kids in food and clothes, I'd love to resurrect my graduate studies and become an engineering prof at a teaching college (as opposed to a research college). I loved campus life and being the wellspring of knowledge suits my personality and ego to a tee.

My job is very stressful but also very rewarding when things work out. There are things I'd rather do but I'm reluctant to take the step in the current economic climate.

Originally Posted by dteowner
I have never worked in IT.

I think the best part of being a manufacturing engineer is that each day I can go to the end of the line and say, "I helped make that". The creation of a tangible product is very rewarding. U

We can say the same thing in software engineering too! Its pretty cool to "finish" a programme and watch someone else use to to do stuff! However there are some who will argue that a "computer programmer is never finished but only abandoned"

I'm a project manager in the R&D field. I have a background in electronics and software engineering, but once I found out a long time ago that others are much better at the engineering part I slowly moved to the management part of project and am doing that full-time for some time now.

I find it to be more rewarding on a mental level compared to when I was an engineer. I just love it when a plan comes together

Originally Posted by lostforever
We can say the same thing in software engineering too! Its pretty cool to "finish" a programme and watch someone else use to to do stuff! However there are some who will argue that a "computer programmer is never finished but only abandoned"

Programming can be very intellectually satisfying. You can mold anything you want and your mind is pretty much the limit. Sadly, much of programming involves customizing readily available solutions, presenting forms on screen, or pushing data to a database.

Have been unemployed for 3 weeks wich is rather stressful with 2 small kids but Im confident It will work out.

I have worked as a Chemist/research engineer at a university, focusing on environmental studies on lakes and rivers. Haven´t done any real chemistry in a long while. Spend my last time before parental leave doing internal investigations of a part of my workplace that was suspected with missconduct. Not fun, not fun at all..

I have been feed up with most jobs I have had, managed them with my left arm for a couple of hours each day and spend the rest of the work day surfing. Very seldom any challenge.

Would like to do something completely different, maybe sales engineer?

In short, my latest jobs have been to pay the bills ;-)

C

Interesting thread btw

Originally Posted by Crilloan
I have been feed up with most jobs I have had, managed them with my left arm for a couple of hours each day and spend the rest of the work day surfing. Very seldom any challenge.

Sounds a lot like my current job…

The worst part of it is that I can't seem to focus my free time on the job on constructive purposes. It would be ideal if I could spend time working on my projects rather than surfing or writing pointless drivel on this site, for instance

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
The worst part of it is that I can't seem to focus my free time on the job on constructive purposes. It would be ideal if I could spend time working on my projects rather than surfing or writing pointless drivel on this site, for instance

This is something that I find frustrating too. I have plenty of spare time in front of a PC with full access to the web during business hours, but I rarely do anything constructive. I've written the odd short story (or started several at least), done a little coding on my own small projects, but nothing substantial and never for long.

My genius is being wasted

PS: I had to spell check 'genius'

I've been working on a very dull project that involves a lot of waiting for things to copy across the network, so I've had a similar problem. I've tried to spend my time making notes about the stuff I'm writing, but it's far easier to just surf around online. I tend to tell myself that it's "research".

I work as an Art Director at an advertising agency. Fun sometimes, most of the time just stressful. I really like the work but hate a lot of the clients and people in the business. It's really a business filled with people with gross, huge egos. Drives me nuts sometimes. I think about quiting all the time and going freelance… someday.

Interesting thread btw.

I have plenty of spare time in front of a PC with full access to the web during business hours, but I rarely do anything constructive.

I've been working on a very dull project that involves a lot of waiting for things to copy across the network

The worst part of it is that I can't seem to focus my free time on the job on constructive purposes.

Well, why not tell the boss you can handle another project? If you don't feel you can do something useful with the "dead" time. IT is usually a fairly stressful field so I am surprised to see so many people who have time to slack

Originally Posted by GothicGothicness
Well, why not tell the boss you can handle another project? If you don't feel you can do something useful with the "dead" time. IT is usually a fairly stressful field so I am surprised to see so many people who have time to slack

Because I wouldn't consider another project "useful" in any way whatsoever

The problem with the IT field, in my experience, is how it's "spikey" in terms of the work-load. I don't need multiple projects for when times get stressful.

I prefer breathing room - and the pay is not high enough to serve as an incentive to go above and beyond.

That would cut into his posting time.

I know we wouldn't want that

Originally Posted by JDR13
That would cut into his posting time.

This will be out of date by the time you read it but I did rough calculation and you make about 6.3 post per day in this forums

The purpose of my post is so that I can beat your record

Originally Posted by lostforever
This will be out of date by the time you read it but I did rough calculation and you make about 6.3 post per day in this forums

I wonder if that's gone up since I've been unemployed.

Btw: All you have to do is look at a person's statistics in their profile.

During the vietnam war they sang "world is a bad, terrible place to live, but I dont wanna die…"

Its not always easy in work but if problems come you just solve them one by one.

Like Lemonhead, I work as an art director in the ad business. I've been freelancing the last couple years, which is fantastic and lucrative when the work is there, and scary when it's not. Unfortunately, I've been unemployed for the last 3 and a half weeks. The whole business sucks and is getting worse all the time.