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Brian Fuller2
If you guys haven't seen it yet, the results are out (link below), and I adopted ...
zeeglen
Does your job suck?
Brian Fuller
4/20/2011 7:07 AM EDT
Last month you weighed in on whether you were happy as an engineer. For the most part you are, although you're not nearly as completely satisfied as the average American.
Slicing up the data, it was interesting to see that consultants are three percentage points happier than those of you employed full time (Easier to get a tee time? Probably not. More flexibility and control? For sure). Also of note: The happiest are those who have been in the profession 5-10 years. That compares with:
- <5 years (62 percent)
- 10-15 years (59 percent)
- 15-20 years (53 percent)
- 20+ years (59 percent)
Based on the comments, a lot of the frustration comes not so much with the profession (although there's some of that) as with your workplace. And because you're a fairly mobile group (on average you work for four organizations in your career), it's hard to blame that on a few companies.
Company culture seems to stick in more than few craws. Do you feel valued? Is management out to lunch? Is your team the best you've ever worked with? Or does your situation suck? Is there something different about the management style in electronics companies that differs from software companies that differs from biotech companies?
Let's explore it. Please take 2-3 minutes to complete the survey below (or by clicking on this link). No names; just your thoughts. I'll dive into the results in the next couple of weeks and share and we'll see where that conversation takes us!
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mateusz.sawka
4/20/2011 2:06 PM EDT
Brian - did you really post this at 4AM? I hope you didn't take the 'does your job suck' survey while working at 4AM - that would skew your answers!
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zeeglen
4/20/2011 4:20 PM EDT
Not just management or colleagues can make a job suck. Consider:
Over-bright office lighting:
99% of work is done on workstations. Schematics, pcb layout, word processing. The overhead florescent lights are way too bright requiring high screen brightness. Glare and eyestrain.
A survey of those in adjacent cubes reveals that all would prefer less light. A request to the building facilities department results in "cannot do, federal regulations require a minimum amount of lighting in the work environment." from the facilities manager. Never mind that all desk cubes have additional under-valence lighting.
Engineers solve their own problems. Stand up on a desktop and twist the florescent tubes for no contact. Problem solved until next morning when tubes are found to have been re-inserted overnight.
Stand up on desk and this time completely remove tubes and stack them in a corner. This time the facilities maintenance person realizes that the lighting adjustment is intentional, leaves the tubes alone, and either says nothing to the facilities manager or the manager accepts the inevitable. Problem solved.
Locked door:
The large engineering cubeville had doorways on each of 4 walls. The doorway most convenient to the restrooms and drinking fountain was ordered locked during daytime by an officious security manager. No reason, engineers could get out but the door latched behind them and they had to walk way around the peripheral of the cubeville room to return to their desks through the unlocked doorways.
Again engineering ingenuity solves the problem. Packing tape on the door latch mechanism prevented locking. Security got quite upset when the guard on the beat had to keep pulling packing tape off the door latches. Eventually the engineering manager told security in no uncertain terms that the practice would continue. Security eventually gave up.
Can relate more of these, and I'm sure others have their own horror stories of petty power trips...
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yabosayoer
4/21/2011 6:21 AM EDT
Re: Lights: Um, considering you have an analog "face" (ie. personal logo; differential amp with resistors and everything ... ) I can't believe you would say that:
a) Re: 99 % of all work is done on a workstation:
I spend at least half my time in the lab ... when was the last time you "hand" prototyped/debugged 12 layer boards before with 304 pin QFP's and 0402's by the hundreds ... ?
b) Removing light bulbs:
Some "SmartyPants" efficiency type consultant convinced management to replace all, already inadequate, lighting, with half wattage "blue" bulbs ... again: have you ever prototyped/debugged 12 layer boards before with 304 pin QFP's and 0402's by the hundred ... ? I complained to no avail (policy, policy, policy ...) , and then sighed and went and bought, out of my own pocket (certainly not the first time) "proper" lab bulbs and replaced late at night the dim bulbs. It was a bit of an effort as the ceiling height was about 25 feet tall and involved about 60 bulbs. Co-Workers and medium level management noticed the next day and appreciated it to a person with a nod but were afraid of upper managements wrath which never came.
I believe, as you, that lighting can be lowered in "the Veal Feeding Pens", that is; the cubicle farms that we all seem to spend too much time in these days ...
PS: I do my own layouts and CAD ... but you need the Photons in the lab ...
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zeeglen
4/21/2011 2:05 PM EDT
Yabosayoer,
Note that my 99% comment was for "over-bright office lighting", not lab lighting. In the office the remaining 1% is for a pencil used mainly for jotting down notes and phone numbers on Post-It notes, and maybe some basic math. I spent 50% of my time in the lab too, but that was months in the office (designing) followed by months in the lab (testing and bread-boarding and debugging) with some office time writing test reports.
One of the better places (did NOT suck there) my office desk was tucked away in a corner of the lab and my bench was an extension of my desk. I could store a scope waveform on floppy and wheel my chair to my desktop PC. Luxury! Then the growing company moved to a larger building and I became another cube-veal resident, and the lab was smaller but at least was nearby.
No argument with the lighting needs in the lab, and you relate a good solution. I've never experienced lab lighting problems, but HAVE experienced things like soldering irons with worn-out tips and no spares (too expensive) completely unsuitable for surface mount, also lack of a microscope because the hand-me-down had no long extension for large boards and the group leader got rid of it instead of spending the bucks for a better mounting. Which of course made much of my debug time a hunt for fine-pitch solder bridges with a tiny hand-held magnifier. THAT job sucked!
As for the "analog face", you are close. It is an ECL Schmitt trigger from an article in EDN.
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Big Bad John
4/22/2011 7:25 PM EDT
The lighting does not have to be bright when working at computers. One company had installed all new indirect lighting. Lights could be turned on/off from your computer.
this was at company with ~1500 employees at this location. The company estimated the systems would pay for iteslf in 2.5 years. Also today is Earth Day think of less pollution, imported oil, etc.
Lobby management on this.
I also worked at one place, and room was almost a darkroom and all the engineers loved it.
Bright lights make people more aggressive.
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zeeglen
4/22/2011 9:56 PM EDT
Nice to hear a story of a good company. Can you name a name?
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Brian Fuller2
4/20/2011 5:31 PM EDT
Mateusz, I figured you'd be working at that hour and needed a break!
; )
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David Ashton
4/21/2011 5:24 AM EDT
Nice one's Glen. We had one once where (without warning) the management started to construct an office within our area, that would have totally blocked our outside light (which I realise we are lucky to get). Our protests were to no avail, and our signs outside (Entry to the mushroom club...etc) just made us more unpopular. Coincidentally that week we received an "invitation" to one of those hugfest things that management are so fond of, supposedly to make us feel valued and part of a team. I replied that if management just came in and started altering our area without so much as asking our opinion, I would respectfully decline their invitation to the hugfest, as it was obvious they didn't give a @#$% about us. The next morning workmen came in and took the construction down again. I guess I was lucky, I could just as easily have got a DCM (Don't Come back on Monday) but it sometimes pays to call management's bluff.
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zeeglen
4/21/2011 2:34 PM EDT
Sounds like someone in your management made a wise decision. I too have had a few good managers on occasion. These ones make the job easier and more productive.
On the other hand, the bad ones can completely demoralize the productive staff.
Example: A factory test engineer emailed me with a question on one of my products. I replied and all was well until his manager got hold of our correspondence. The manager was outraged that he had been bypassed and sent emails to me and my boss that in future all correspondence between factory test and design engineering was to pass through HIM to my boss then to myself.
My boss did not really care the path of correspondence, and did not want to get involved with a self-important moron. Of course the result was that factory test and myself never directly communicated again.
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Test_engineer
4/21/2011 9:01 AM EDT
I understand one of the most satisfying jobs anywhere is being a bill collector for the wiseguys in New York City. It's one of the very few positions where a person doesn't have to put up with attitudes from customers.
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Brian Fuller2
4/21/2011 2:54 PM EDT
Glen's last comment makes me think: How do you create an early warning system (in the interview process) to sniff out crappy managers? Control freaks and the like?
Is it likely that talking with current employees will yield that kind of insight?
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zeeglen
4/22/2011 7:40 PM EDT
Too often it is crappy managers in other departments that one does not meet during the interviews. As for talking to the future co-workers, they may not be entirely truthful if they suspect the interviewee is a possible spy for management. (ie the TV show "Undercover Boss")
I remember a telephone conference meeting in which a lead manager was in another city and was head of the mechanical design team. He was not my boss, but he was hated by all the local mechanical engineers and most of the electronic engineers. He was so obnoxious and insulting that the entire mechanical design team walked out of the meeting en mass, the remaining electrical engineers in the room had to tell this manager that the desertion had happened when he no longer got responses from his underlings.
Then there is the problem of getting new managers when starting new projects, can't help that. One of the these types was determined that even though engineering was way behind, the "Preliminary Release" milestone meeting was going to occur on schedule. BOMs and schematics and pcb layouts were all incomplete, but the almighty Schedule would be met! No missed milestones on HIS watch!
The invitations went out to production, purchasing, marketing etc. The day of the big meeting the manager called in "sick" and dumped the meeting chair on a colleague. This poor guy had to take the wrath when the other attendees realized that the design was in no shape for preliminary release. But hey, the meeting took place on schedule!
Don't know if that manager got chewed out or not, but he was later included in the first wave of layoffs...
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David Ashton
4/22/2011 8:06 PM EDT
I think "Undercover Boss" is going to change a lot of things!!
But I would still be honest with anyone who asked. My employer IS good in respect of pay and conditions. And the guys I work with are fine. The problem is with Middle management.
My employer is fond of acronyms for everything so I coined my own - PSMs - Pig Stupid Managers. When anyone asks why things are the way they are, I say "Ah - it's the PSMs." What's a PSM??" they ask.....
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David Ashton
4/21/2011 11:33 PM EDT
That's a difficult one Brian. I'd say talking to the employees (ie future workmates) is the best if you can do that. In my current job I came over from Africa to Australia for an interview, and with only one flight a week I was around for a few days. I went out on some jobs with my future workmates and was able to pick their brains pretty thoroughly. And the whole atmosphere of the place was just great - like a big happy family. The management then was very oriented towards letting the people who could do things just get on and do them. And it worked, really well.
Since then however the company has gone through a couple of amalgamations and the whole feeling has changed. My immediate team is still great (keeps me sane) and the pay and perks are good, but the management's got a real "us and them" attitude that has pretty much taken away the job satisfaction we used to get. Certainly I would be honest with any prospective employee who asked about the conditions.
(For a bit more see my story:
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4211973/What-NOT-to-do-on-a-job-interview
for an account of why I was lucky to get the job...)
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Brian Fuller2
4/22/2011 6:55 PM EDT
Thanks, David! Early results on the survey (I'm still coding the spreadsheet and slicing and dicing) suggest overall satisfaction. The big surprise: Most response (2 of 3) are not satisfied with the career opportunities available to them at their company.
Stay tuned for more results next week.
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tfc
4/22/2011 11:45 PM EDT
MY job did not suck. I just needed several choices of employers so I could fire the boss when THEY made the job suck. Without that simple escape mechanism, most jobs will go into a death spiral resulting in a job that sucks.
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David Ashton
4/23/2011 5:58 AM EDT
It's nice to have that luxury. Try being 54. Your choices narrow dramatically.
However, a job that sucks is probably better than no job at all. My job does suck - a bit - but the conditions are good, so I reckon I'm probably pretty lucky...
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zeeglen
4/23/2011 6:44 PM EDT
Right on both points.
Wonder if Brian would be interested in starting a discussion on experiences of age impediments to finding employment.
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Brian Fuller2
4/25/2011 3:54 PM EDT
Glen, I would absolutely love to start that discussion. Recall that "happiness survey?" Fully 10 percent of the engineers with more than 20 years experience either are or have been recently out of work for more than two years. So there's one data point about impediments to finding employment with years of experience.
Shall we start the conversation as a blog or a message board? Any preferences?
Thanks for the suggestion, Glen!
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zeeglen
4/25/2011 4:57 PM EDT
Probably blog.
Your article note "(on average you work for four organizations in your career)" is so true - expect to get laid off an average of 4 times in your career. Each time it becomes harder and harder to find a new job. And after the 4th time you are simply "too old" for anyone but Wallymart.
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Brian Fuller2
4/29/2011 12:30 PM EDT
If you guys haven't seen it yet, the results are out (link below), and I adopted Glen's great suggestion (above) by opening it up to a discussion of whether you're experienced impediments to hiring or advancement because of your age.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/pop-blog/4215511/Satisfied--Yes--Job-opportunities--Not-so-much
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