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Hope I don't end up regretting this


Indy

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2 minutes ago, TrentonStrong said:

well, if you feel you are underappreciated then you're entitled to try to explain your value.  Good luck.

Underappreciated is putting it lightly.  My give a damn is completely busted at this point.  I've always been the lowest paid among my peers while continually doing the most work and coming up with ways to greatly improve the processes in both efficiency and accuracy.

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Just last week I let my bosses know that I was unhappy with the software project that I was on. I install provided software in the testing environment then test it. I also have to provide Level 3 support once it goes into production.

I told them that I was going to start interviewing for jobs at other companies or just retire. They finally made the decision to cancel the testing and send it back to the developers.

The developers' supervision basically blamed me for the problems and would send the developers out to fix the issues. They would tell me things like I had to do Part I using instructions in Part R before Part D. WTF? There was nothing in the documentation saying to do it that way. The last straw was when they came out to fix something that I had obviously screwed up and they crashed the server badly. 

I may still leave. One job pays six figure$ if I get it. 

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I think common flaws many engineers share are the near-compulsion to perform to the best of our abilities no matter how badly we're treated, and to have a tendency to follow the 'rules'.

One place I worked had an extensive electrical system, taking service at 34,000 volts, transforming it, and distributing it at 4,160 volts.  Nobody in the 'projects' department wanted to touch it; besides that was the 'maintenance' department's business.  Nearly everyone in the maintenance department was afraid of it.  I got to know the lead electrician.  It turned out he knew the smallest details of running the system day-to-day, but needed help with the theory and problem solving.  So we'd work together on fixing problems, even though I was 'out of bounds' working on stuff in his department.  In a couple years I became - unofficially - the responsible person for that electrical system, corrected some long term deficiencies and gained valuable experience.

I mention this example, Indy, because if your boss won't allow your transfer, then perhaps it's time to take on some 'unofficial' projects for some other departments.  Perhaps if another manager at the company can see your worth and your abilities, then that manager might go up one level to break you loose.  Take advantage of some of the efficiencies you've created in your own department to free up or create the time to work on 'outside' projects. 

If your present manager is so clueless that she believes a system you automated is still run manually, she's not likely to pick up that you're casually working out of the department here and there.  If you charge time to projects, however, you will have to watch that your time card is properly filled out.  Even the most clueless managers can pick up on something like that, and in some places I've worked fudging a time card got people fired.

You should expect that your email will come back to you, possibly as a hard copy in your boss' hands as she walks into your office.  I would suggest running several scenarios through your head to - and here's the really hard part for engineers - diplomatically handle the situation to your best advantage. 

And don't say there's no way you could diplomatically handle the situation.  You're a smart person, and this is just another problem to sort out, and that's what engineers do.  Just because a problem doesn't have equations and numbers, doesn't mean an engineer is incapable of solving it.

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7 hours ago, groupw said:

Companies don't properly appreciate engineers and IT because we don't directly create revenue for the company. We are a "cost of doing business" even though that cost would be much higher without competent engineers and IT. 

In IT "they" expect 100% uptime and scream like banshees if any system goes down.  When the mill went to profit sharing, IT was left out of the picture, as we did not directly affect the production, quality, and delivery of product; of course unless said system(s) failed, which controlled production, quality, and delivery, and everything stopped.  I'm glad I'm retired.      

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There are some really good points made in this thread. One of which is the obvious truth that engineers as a profession are under-undervalued in management and that is true with some exceptions, proof of which is the number of tech companies with accountants in the executive positions. This is I believe true in my country as it is in the US where Engineering is not held in the high regard it should be. In contrast in Germany and France an Engineer is regarded as the profession of the highest status and paid accordingly.

As to this advice:

"I would suggest running several scenarios through your head to - and here's the really hard part for engineers - diplomatically handle the situation to your best advantage. "

As a manager it is very easy to identify an objective...what is difficult is to plan a way to achieve this objective without also achieving unwanted negative outcomes...and that's not so easy. That requires a certain degree of cunning which anticipates and negates  ones opponent's response in such a way that defies criticism.

 

.

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12 minutes ago, onbike1939 said:

There are some really good points made in this thread. One of which is the obvious truth that engineers as a profession are under-undervalued in management and that is true with some exceptions, proof of which is the number of tech companies with accountants in the executive positions. This is I believe true in my country as it is in the US where Engineering is not held in the high regard it should be. In contrast in Germany and France an Engineer is regarded as the profession of the highest status and paid accordingly.

As to this advice:

"I would suggest running several scenarios through your head to - and here's the really hard part for engineers - diplomatically handle the situation to your best advantage. "

As a manager it is very easy to identify an objective...what is difficult is to plan a way to achieve this objective without also achieving unwanted negative outcomes...and that's not so easy. That requires a certain degree of cunning which anticipates and negates  ones opponent's response in such a way that defies criticism.

 

.

Disagree, I worked for a French company and they treated everyone equally like shit.  Or maybe it's just US Engineers that don't care about.

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9 hours ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

I mention this example, Indy, because if your boss won't allow your transfer, then perhaps it's time to take on some 'unofficial' projects for some other departments.  Perhaps if another manager at the company can see your worth and your abilities, then that manager might go up one level to break you loose.  Take advantage of some of the efficiencies you've created in your own department to free up or create the time to work on 'outside' projects. 

If your present manager is so clueless that she believes a system you automated is still run manually, she's not likely to pick up that you're casually working out of the department here and there.  If you charge time to projects, however, you will have to watch that your time card is properly filled out.  Even the most clueless managers can pick up on something like that, and in some places I've worked fudging a time card got people fired.

You should expect that your email will come back to you, possibly as a hard copy in your boss' hands as she walks into your office.  I would suggest running several scenarios through your head to - and here's the really hard part for engineers - diplomatically handle the situation to your best advantage. 

And don't say there's no way you could diplomatically handle the situation.  You're a smart person, and this is just another problem to sort out, and that's what engineers do.  Just because a problem doesn't have equations and numbers, doesn't mean an engineer is incapable of solving it.

Yeah, I've tried that.  Company policy is if it is a lateral move in the pay scale and not a bump to a higher pay scale the current manager can block any move.  If it is a bump in the pay scale they can delay the move for up to 6 months to allow them time to fill the position you are leaving.  So if she drags her feet, she effectively kills any moves.  So all that ended up happening was other departments became reliant on me to do favors for them to help, and my boss became aware of it and would even ask me if I was interested in helping out.  That was fun as I watched other people in other departments get awards and recognition because I was able to fix all of their hang ups, best I got was a hand written little crappy thank you certificate someone sat on my desk why I wasn't there.  So I've stopped doing the favors as it benefited others and never me.  Also I work for a military contractor so we do have to charge any hours we work on a project because of truth in charging laws.

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8 hours ago, Scrapr said:

i sure notice all the engineers in this thread are unhappy.

I'm not.  There were times in my past when I was, but I either found a way to make it better or I moved on.  I looked around in whatever my present job was for what I could change that would make my work more enjoyable, or at least more bearable.  If the effort far exceeded the gains, or if the gains were so paltry as to not deserve consideration, then the action that is always open is to seek employment elsewhere.

In my present job the work philosophy of the owners aligns with mine, as do their ideas of an employer-employee relationship that's fruitful for both.  I know they appreciate my work, which they express both in person and in what I get paid.  In return, I repay that appreciation by earning every penny of my salary by working efficiently, producing the best work I can, and establishing relationships with customers so they want to use my company's services again and again.

I'm most fortunate to have found such an employer. 

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it's obvious my boss isn't going to do anything for me other than block me when I've tried to switch departments because I'm indispensable

This first time a person hears this they should polish up the resume. The second time, actively pursue another job.

As Auric Goldfinger said in the documentary: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action."

Visit: askamanager.org, there's a lot of good stuff in there.

You should document the instances where your bosses diddled away your chance for advancement. How have your annual reviews been?

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9 minutes ago, 2Far said:

This first time a person hears this they should polish up the resume. The second time, actively pursue another job.

As Auric Goldfinger said in the documentary: "Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action."

Visit: askamanager.org, there's a lot of good stuff in there.

You should document the instances where your bosses diddled away your chance for advancement. How have your annual reviews been?

Annual reviews have been good, annual increases, not so much.

I've tried to get out, but at this point my experience is pretty much shot because I've been there to long and the work is far to much of niche area.  It's to the point I can't even get interviews because everyone says I have no recent relevant experience, which is really depressing as most people used to comment how impressive my resume was with my diverse background and experience.  This place has pretty much ruined me and my only out is going back to school at this point, which I don't have time for.

The only good thing about my job, I get five weeks off a year and ability to work from home pretty much when ever I want, so I try to take advantage of that stuff as much as I can, but even with the flexibility, managements attitude still wears on you.

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1 hour ago, Indy said:

Man, I screwed up.  Completely missed people from other departments we've lost, so I've already replaced 6 people.  So sent her another e-mail this apologizing for my miscalculation as five people was far from accurate and would be far closer to a dozen people to replace me.

 

:D

Careful, there, Icarus. :D

 

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I'm most fortunate to have found such an employer. 

That is great!  Synergy in real life as opposed to a corporate buzzword. :)

I feel the same way.  In a large corporation, so much hinges on the personality of your bosses.  I count my lucky stars that I narrowly avoided a beast, and now my immediate supervisor and the next two up the line are very good - probably the best lineup since I started, where I also considered myself extremely fortunate to start on such a good and professional note.  In between, though, wow!   I have outwaited some real bears.  Wally is absolutely my role model. :D

 

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9 minutes ago, Indy said:

The only good thing about my job, I get five weeks off a year and ability to work from home pretty much when ever I want, so I try to take advantage of that stuff as much as I can, but even with the flexibility, managements attitude still wears on you.

Serenity now!  When management disengages you, disengage them right back, and direct your energies toward your own goals.  Give then what they want, a disengaged employee.

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2 minutes ago, Ralph T. Mooseknuckle said:

Serenity now!  When management disengages you, disengage them right back, and direct your energies toward your own goals.  Give then what they want, a disengaged employee.

That is where I've been for awhile now.  Yesterday was the first day I've had a meeting with anyone higher up in management in years, so I kind of fired me up, especially after learning her boss is behind us forcing to take on yet another departments work.  It's not that we can't handle the added work, but the entire reason we can is absolutely the results of me.  So I'm being forced to pick up more crap work with absolutely nothing in it for me, but hey, his bottom line looks better.  Fucking asshole.

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47 minutes ago, Ralph T. Mooseknuckle said:

Careful, there, Icarus. :D

 

:D But I'm Dedalus...

Back on topic. My wife was miserable at her job. She could never do anything right. Her best was never good enough. She'd come home from work looking like a dog that had been beaten all day. They recently transferred her to another office, against her immediate evil supervisor's wishes. Now she couldnt be happier. She gets along great with her new boss and has quickly moved up the ladder. However, she had her yearly review, unfortunately it was with her ex supervisor. And ex boss took full advantage to screw my wife over one last time. No raise. But her new boss said she'd more then take care of her at the next review. 

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Just wait till your military development branch gets bought out by a stockholder company.  You ain't seen nothing yet.  Management will be 100% accounting and engineers will be tasked with producing something that boosts this quarters profit no matter what it does to the future of the company.

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16 hours ago, Indy said:

So after the meeting, I emailed our new bosses boss and briefly explained how we actually do things and how much more we can handle now because of it while increasing accuracy at the same time.  Then I told her that I am not a self promoter and have never done it, but after 13 years of frustration of continuing coming up with ways to automate things saving the company man years with out any recognition outside of the couple percent annual increases that I had nothing to lose.  Then stated with everything I've done and with the current state of the automation, the limiting factor is actually the network as I can push it hard enough to bring things to fault and that it would take around five people to replace me.

So, at first, I'm like "you go Indy, you ballsy mf'er."

48 minutes ago, Indy said:

've tried to get out, but at this point my experience is pretty much shot because I've been there to long and the work is far to much of niche area.  It's to the point I can't even get interviews because everyone says I have no recent relevant experience,

But then I'm like, "uh oh."

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10 minutes ago, Goat Geddah said:

So, at first, I'm like "you go Indy, you ballsy mf'er."

But then I'm like, "uh oh."

Yeah, I know, but they really can't afford to get rid of me.  I only have one coworker, he has said over and over that if I leave, he's gone because he is not going back to doing things the old way.  So why my options maybe limited, whether they will admit it or not, they have no options.  It's been that way pretty much every place I've worked, when I've been laid off, with in a couple weeks my previous employer has been calling trying to at least bring me back as a contractor.  Some how I've always been lucky enough to have had another full time job lined up by then already.  I've been the perpetual not truly appreciated until gone employee.

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I'm working from today due to Fin not feeling well, would've stayed home yesterday too, but went in just because of the meeting.

So far it's e-mail silence so either the storm is brewing or I'm being completely blown off.  I'm betting the later best on my experience working here, oh well, at least that's an answer and I don't need to worry about wasting my time with anymore of her staff meetings.

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30 minutes ago, Indy said:

I'm working from today due to Fin not feeling well, would've stayed home yesterday too, but went in just because of the meeting.

So far it's e-mail silence so either the storm is brewing or I'm being completely blown off.  I'm betting the later best on my experience working here, oh well, at least that's an answer and I don't need to worry about wasting my time with anymore of her staff meetings.

I am really interested in how this is going to turn out.  I hate large organizations where your talents and accomplishments are attributed to others, and I kind of feel done with that aspect.  Working for others just sucks.

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On 21/03/2017 at 11:19 AM, Indy said:

Disagree, I worked for a French company and they treated everyone equally like shit.  Or maybe it's just US Engineers that don't care about.

I take it that you were employed in the US.

Having lived in France and knowing several French engineers (of professional status) my opinion stands. To be a professionally qualified engineer is a position of respect and status in France.

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Just now, onbike1939 said:

I take it that you were employed in the US.

Having lived in France and knowing several French engineers (of professional status) my opinion stands. To be a professionally qualified engineer is a position of respect and status in France.

Yes, I was in the US.  Of course the French treated most US employees with disdain.  They actually moved one section of the business to some place more touristy because that way when they had to come to the US they could use it as a vacation.  Of course that area was also a very expensive area to be in so it only lasted a few years because the expense for doing meaningless task was so high.

It was just completely sad as they would buy up really well known companies and just destroy them with their idiotic knee jerk moves.  The level of ineptitude was truly amazing.

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2 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

^^^^^ This comes as no surprise as my experience is that even in France they treat their employees with disdain. French managers have a lot to learn......but I'm not sure they will learn what they need from American managers.

Snort.  Coffee on the keyboard again.

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2 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

I take it that you were employed in the US.

Having lived in France and knowing several French engineers (of professional status) my opinion stands. To be French and a professionally qualified engineer is a position of respect and status in France, Americans of course will always be treated with contempt and disdain.

FIFY

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On 3/20/2017 at 9:53 PM, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

I think common flaws many engineers share are the near-compulsion to perform to the best of our abilities no matter how badly we're treated, and to have a tendency to follow the 'rules'.

Agreed. Engineers I've worked with in-house and outsiders whether a customer or supplier have always been analytical and systematic. And easy to get along with. Treatment and sometimes ridicule from other departments suck.

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On 3/20/2017 at 5:52 PM, Indy said:

Underappreciated is putting it lightly.  My give a damn is completely busted at this point.  I've always been the lowest paid among my peers while continually doing the most work and coming up with ways to greatly improve the processes in both efficiency and accuracy.

I hear ya. I've been w/ my current company for 20 years and my give o' damn meter barely registers at times. I'd never deliberately sabotage anything (I do have morals).  Lack of respect, appreciation, and acknowledgement is demeaning IMO. And pay of coarse. Hang in there :)  have a drinkie :) 

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I really need to know when to give up, unfortunately I'm not good at that.  Have yet to get a response out of the bosses boss, so this morning another e-mail.  I suggested a process change that would greatly streamline the process (effectively what we are already doing by just going through meaningless steps for show) and it would cut out a lot of non-value added work.  Of course that non-value added work, just data entry that I've proposed to completely automate and make it direct is done by the rest of my new bosses boss.  So I just basically proposed to eliminate 90% of her staff.  Fired my boss up this morning, she came straight to my office when she got her this morning (never does that) tried to argue with me about it, but couldn't because everything I proposed was solid and easily do able.  Once she left, my coworker that sits right next me came over and said he was trying not to burst out loud laughing as she unsuccessfully tried to argue against what I proposed.  He then responded to my e-mail backing everything I proposed. 

 

God I'm an asshole when I want to be, but since upper management already wants to completely neuter a corporate procedure on how to do something, screw it, let's go all the way with it and be done instead of pretending. 

 

Of course my boss is now being obstinate (funny as one thing she always says on review is I need to be more involved and engaged with upper management) and wants to discuss it in our monthly full departmental meeting which would be with all the people I proposed to cut out of the process. 

 

Oh the fun continues.

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On 3/20/2017 at 10:45 PM, Randomguy said:

I think it is that engineers are considered a cost center at most places, hated until desperately needed, then hated again immediately afterward.

Support personnel as a whole are like that.  Because too many managers are lopsided.  The only important people on a team are those who "make money".

What their brains refuse to get unless they're smart enough to be a leader (not a boss, those two things are different) is that we're all on the same team.  A business is like a building. Those moneymakers (be they marketers, sales, etc.) are like the facade of the building.  They make it look good if they're doing their jobs right. People look at that building and marvel at it.

Support people are the foundation of that building, and that's what is forgotten.  What happens when the e-mail server or phone system that allows the moneymakers to make money breaks?  What happens if the building wiring has a fault that causes tripped breakers and power loss? Without the "foundation", that facade collapses and there's no building at all.

We're all part of the same team, and unlike "bosses", a true leader (someone who is a boss and more) gets that.  And here's what happens when you don't have team (in this case, corrupt builders in China).  Bad foundation = bad business.

Bad-foundation-in-china.png

 

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