Here I sit, at 9:00 PM with two big 20 inch flat panels on my desk. I have Power Point on one screen and MS Project on the other.
What happened? I used to be a real engineer. (sob)
Somebody please just put me out of my misery. Just slip up behind me and mercifully administer the bullet.
Sorry. What happened? Still a real engineer here. (Though, I of course sit in front of flat panels all day too…they’re just running AutoCAD.)
It’s the Peter Principle, I think. I was good at what I used to do and I enjoyed it. They keep handing me more management tasks until I don’t get to do what I enjoy anymore. Maybe I should just screw up this presentation really, really bad by … telling the truth, maybe?
I’m not a real engineer. I love doing Powerpointy stuff. Pay me a reasonable fee and I’ll do it for you.
'Tis done. I’m going home.
Thanks for the offer, though.
I do feel your pain, though. I went to college for engineering, then spent 5 years as an officer in the Army, doing more and more management than I could ever imagine (500 soldiers under my command at one point), and then after leaving went back to engineering, so I got to dump the responsibility and just be a design grunt, which is great. Luckily, I work for a very small company, so even as I progress, my management duties will consist far more of reviewing designs and training than doing powerpoint and other paperwork.
I know the boredom that you’re experiencing now, though. I don’t know how many reports I’ve written or how many presentations I’ve had to prepare. Ugh. Our weekly meetings when I was a battalion operations officer were such a pain…2 hours of death by powerpoint, every week, and guess who got to prepare that slideshow?
I never understood this, until it started happening to me. The problem is, they also keep throwing more money at me, and all the while, I’m becoming enmeshed in my company’s institutional history and culture (both technical and managerial). The net effect is I’m now more valuable to this firm than I would be to another one if I left. My replacement cost here would be high, while my “value added” as a swap-in elsewhere would not obviously be equivalent to my present compensation, unless I took some kind of pay cut, demotion or a flat year or two to learn the ropes.
It feels good to feel more important, in that I am definitely in a role with greater visibility, and am still involved in the technical design of the system in getting to dictate what should happen and why, not just how and when. And I’m not actually unhappy about my situation (or “career arc” as they call it). But it is less “fun”.
That’s the catch, isn’t it? That’s it in a nutshell. It doesn’t help that I’m over-specialized.
I swore I would never let it happen happen to me, but I found myself in a situation where I had to accept the responsibility to keep the project alive.
It goes to prove my dad’s old maxim, “Don’t ever say you won’t do something. You’ll end up doing it every time.”
One corollary to the Peter Principle is that you must choose to follow idiots without correcting them, or accept authority for supervising idiots. The later takes more time, the former has personal consequences. Both choices, of course piss off the idiots.
Tris
Ah. Yes. At my company, we call this “The Golden Handcuff.”
It could be worse.
I have a friend who graduated with a degree in Computer Engineering and is now working at a very good company. He has moved up a few positions from what he did initially and doesn’t do so much programming as he used to, but it is a great job.
Two weeks ago he told me he was going to quit his job this spring to become a “Christian Educator” at the fundie church he and his family go to. He said he that since his job had moved him away from computer engineering, he felt this was his calling. He even admitted that it would be a substantial cut in his earnings, his family would have to move into a much smaller house closer to the church, and that finances would be tight, but he thinks they should be able to manage it.
I think he is nuts!
So remember… it could be worse.
Ha, ha, ha, ha haaa! You guys all must be OLD! Ha, ha, ha, ha haaa!
Yeah, it’s all happening to me, too. robardin’s post says it all. At least I’m mostly happy where I am. And you guys think YOUR value would go down elsewhere? I don’t even have a college degree to bring to another company’s table…
Me to.
I now have close to 180 people to manage as well as revenue targets to met and budgets to control and at this time of year appraisals to complete.
I am now very definitely a ‘Manager’ it even says so in my job title.
And I am not old either.
My career path echos what robardin said
The OP could always become an electricity sanitizer. I understand that inferior brands of electricity are quite the hazard these days.
You’re still an engineer inside, Tully dear. Go home and build something.
So, which panel is the SDMB on, ya slacker? 
There’s a lady at my workplace who’s always telling me how sad it is that I’m not designing anything yet. WTF?? I’m happy with the [mechanical] engineering work I do now – researching, testing, handwritten calculations, and the occasional report. The designers here are basically managers – why would I be in that position with less than a year’s experience? And we don’t do true product design here anyway (very long story).
Tully, go get a big Lego set. That always makes me feel like a “real” engineer.
Tully, what type of engineer are you?
My title says Software Engineer.
I just got out a the sixth meeting in as many days to discuss what we’re doing to do to recover schedule. I’m about ready to rudely offer the suggestion, “Stop have these meetings.”
Preach it. I always dread quarter ends. As that magical date approaches the email and reports fly, each accompanied by a plea to “stay focused” and help the company reach it’s sales goals. Let’s see, if I didn’t spend all my time wading through those reports, I might have time to, umm, I don’t know, maybe work?