Don't Go Into Engineering!

 Consider This Before You Decide To Get Into Engineering

There is so much misinformation out there that it behooves me to lay these facts in front of you before you get into this field. This is written for those of you having second thoughts about engineering. If you're already in engineering school, then think a little harder before you muscle your way through to graduation. If you've already graduated and are struggling to find a job, consider skidaddling into another career.

I realize that reading one blog entry means nothing and you most likely will not change your mind because of it. But think about what I have to say. And if you hear more than one engineer or ex-engineer say the same thing, then there may be something to it.

(1) No use of MATH OR SCIENCE. You'll NEVER use any MATH or SCIENCE. If you're an Electrical Engineer, you're going to use V=IR and P=VI. So quit school after the first semester and save yourselves tens of thousands of dollars in tuition and years of useless education. Laplace Transforms? Triple Integrals? I think NOT. Try ADDITION and SUBTRACTION. I even went completely wild once and used DIVISION. I think I almost fractured the space-time continuum with that one overly-complex mathematical operation for a lowly electrical engineer.  Needless to say, picking engineering because of my interest and acumen for math was a BIG mistake.

Let me try to put this to you as gently as I can: your engineering job is about fitting as many square pegs in as many square holes as quickly as possible while management breathes down your neck. You will not be able to use your creativity or imagination with anything.

(2) Zero Complexity. Enjoy complexity? Well, sucks to be you. There will be NO COMPLEXITY in your engineering design. Whatever problem you figure out how to solve in the first year of your employment, you will continue to solve for the remaining 35 years. Sizing an MCC? Load flow calculation for your power distribution system? Sizing your power cables? Designing your switchgear? Everything you need to know you will learn in 1 year. After that your mind will waste away. So what did I do for the remaining 12 years? I went to site. I commissioned systems. I hung out with electricians. I tried to troubleshoot real problems. I participated in technical committees. I volunteered for learned societies. But this isn't why I went to school. It's great that I could do it. And I'm grateful that I traveled all over Alberta and British Columbia, but this isn't mentally stimulating and I don't want to do this till I'm 65.

(3) NO Industry Stability. When I graduated in 2002, the city I was in was the Hi-Tech capital of Canada. I and all my classmates had done all our coop jobs in hi-tech firms. The month we graduated, everything went up in flames. It took less than a month for the entire hi-tech world in eastern Canada to completely turn to ash. All of us stared in disbelief and foolishly believed things would go back to normal. It never did.  I moved to oil and gas country.
In 2008, North American monetary systems collapsed and a lot of people lost their homes and their jobs. I managed to hold on to my job because the industry I was in was funded by the Municipal government. But most of my industry contacts were either laid off or were afraid to get laid off.
It's now 2015, and oil and gas country is now in dire straits. Canada and USA are feeling the pains of low oil prices, and engineers are the first to get the boot. Over 15,000 people - mostly engineers - have lost their jobs in less than 1 year in my city alone.
When an industry suffers, the first people to get the chop are engineers.

(4) TOO MANY ENGINEERS! There are far too many engineering graduates each year and post graduation placement rates are dismal. The only years when graduates get jobs straight out of school are boom years. After that, new graduates struggle to get their foot in the door in any industry. Because of the way things turned out when I graduated, 90% of my classmates never even had a chance to pursue their trade. Some got another degree. Some went into their family business. Some just got non-degree jobs. All those articles you read about a huge gap between the availability of experienced engineers and industry needs are mythological and ideological concepts concocted by people with too much time on their hands.

(5) NO Job Stability. Let me repeat that. Your company will lay off whomever they damn well please when their bottom line sees the slightest quiver. It is far more important for the VPs to get their bonuses than it is to keep 3 engineers employed. And this only sucks if you cared about what you did (when you were employed) and made personal sacrifices in order to produce a good product. If you didn't give a rat's ass about the drawings you made or the client you were servicing, then you're okay. You can just lie on your resume and get another job when the economy returns. I personally know of several engineers who were critical team members, who spent over 35 years with the same company, were laid off in the last few months and security walked them out of the building. They were given no pension (despite their employment agreement and a robust pension plan they contributed to) and just a 4 week severance. They have since sued their companies. You owe your company nothing because your company sure as fuck doesn't think it owes you anything.

(6) Nepotism. Be prepared. Hard work, honesty and great communication skills will get you nowhere. However, kissing people's butt shamelessly will get you very, very far. If you're related to people in management, that's even better. Learn how to play golf and read the best selling book, "How to $||ck corporate ____!". Do I sound bitter? Well, you'll meet many soul-less ghostly apparitions floating around in engineering offices. These spirits were once hopeful engineers that have now given up any hope of recognition and appreciation.

(7) Verbal Abuse. Are you kidding me?
Get ready to be screamed at & Be prepared to scream at people. You know, in the 4 years of engineering school, no one told me that all this education would guarantee that I would be treated with basic human dignity. Because that doesn't happen. There are plenty of people in management with serious personality disorders that use verbal abuse as a way to intimidate and coerce their co-workers into doing their bidding. It's a daily thing and it's common place in the consulting world. I've managed to fight off most of them - peer or manager. But I did have to leave one job because my boss - who was a workplace bully - kept climbing the corporate ladder until she became invincible and far too powerful. My ex-coworkers still get verbally abused and publicly humiliated regularly. I still cannot believe this happens in a professional environment in a first world country.

(8) Murdering the good things in your life. Whatever you love doing will be beaten out of you. Despite realizing that engineering wasn't my passion, there are parts of my job that I find enjoyable. I enjoy following client standards to produce a compliant design. I enjoy completing a good design. I enjoy working with the contractor to build a working system. I like troubleshooting systems. Well, all of the above have been beaten out of me. I have been made to work so much unpaid overtime that the zest of life has been drained from me. What does an 80 hour work week look like? From Monday-Friday I work 12 hours a day leaving me no time to exercise, enjoy a dinner or pursue a hobby. I reach work at 9:00, leave at 9:00, barely have enough time to eat, shower and sleep. Then I work another 8-12 hours on a Saturday and/or Sunday leaving me barely enough time to get groceries and catch up on my sleep. This would be fine if it occurred once or twice a year. But I've been doing this for 4 months straight. Some people are cool with this. I'm not. It's a choice. I honestly believe life doesn't have to be like this. I've also read research that has found we suffer neurological damage when we work these unhealthy hours. Also look up the word "Karoshi".

(9) Acute and Chronic Stress. You will stress out 99% of the time and your health will suffer. Chronic stress will lower your immunity and raise your chances of getting heart disease, stroke and cancer. One of my mentors died of a heart attack six months after he retired early. Another mentor died of cancer within 3 months of retiring. Another friend's coworker is now in a coma due to a stroke he suffered during a long weekend. He is 57 or 58. I've injured my back 5 times in 3 years now. My last straw was me being able to feel my heart beat for 30 minutes during a particularly stressful client meeting. And in the next client meeting, I felt repeated sharp stabbing pains in my chest for 2 minutes straight. Did I call for help? Nope. I didn't want to upset the client.

(10) Overwork and Exploitation. Some of you will work 80 hours a week for at least half the year. Some of you will be okay with this. I am not. I don't want my tombstone to read, "I only wish I'd worked a little harder."

(11) Anonymity. You will never be appreciated. Never. Never. Never.

(12) Bad Decision. If you're Indian or Chinese, seriously reconsider getting into this field ESPECIALLY if your parents are pushing you into this field. I speak from experience. My society essentially told me that if I wasn't a doctor or engineer, I should fall into a sinkhole and get obliterated. If you are going into engineering for societal approval and status, be warned that when you work those long hours alone and feel completely ungratified with the work you're doing, no society will be by your side. When I injured my back and was unable to move for 15 days due to pain, no one helped me. No one sent me a 'get well soon' note. No one gave a shit. When I am unable to sleep for more than 2 hours (for months now) due to stress and anxiety, society does not empathize with me or help me out in any way. Your parents may get momentary kudos for your toil, but it means jack shit because you're not there to get patted on the back - they are. Think hard about how you'll feel sitting in that cubicle doing something you absolutely don't give a shit about. And why? Because your parents wanted you to? Do you want to spend your life with someone you hate? (I hope you're saying 'No' to this one.) Then why would you spend your life working at something you hate?

(13) Being Thrown To The Wolves. You will not get any mentoring. My father became an engineer in 1967. He had kind and knowledgeable mentors that took the time to teach him things. I did not have a mentor and neither did my sibling. We were thrown to the wolves and if we made it ... great. I saw people that did not make it. I watched them get eaten alive. Whatever you can figure out on your own, using your own resources, reading IEEE books, text books, talking to vendors and manufacturers, befriending electricians.... that's what you will get. The onus is on YOU to get the knowledge. Be prepared. I actually found this part fun. But it shouldn't be this way.

(14) Misogyny. Ladies: Be prepared for sexism. I really did not think this would happen. But it does. I know my shit. I can dominate a meeting. I'm not leaning in - I'm taking over the room. And it doesn't fucking matter. It's a boys club. This is probably one of the reasons why I stuck around in this piece of shit industry for so long. Swimming upstream is my thing. But this isn't a good enough reason to keep doing something that doesn't bring you joy. Yeah, I'm one of the best Electrical Engineers I know. So what? Who gives a shit? All that matters is that when I'm with myself, I am not spending time doing something that bring me joy.

Having said all of the above, there are some topsy-turvy things I'm very grateful for:

(1) Humans. I now value all human beings equally: I deeply respect just about anyone but stick-up-their-butts engineers who cannot spare a millisecond of their time to respect their fellow human beings.

(2) Life. Money means less to me now: I went into engineering for the job stability and the pay. All I can say is when the joy of life has been stripped of you, money means nothing. I can afford a lot, and I don't give a shit. What's the point of having a gorgeous apartment if you're never in it? What's the point of having enough money to afford a trip if you never get permission for vacation and you can't spare even a weekend?

(3) Health. I value my health: After suffering from multiple back injuries, severe anxiety and stress and physiological illnesses related to stress, I've looked around and realized how little anything means if you don't have your health and body. I have co-workers who have a stash of medication in their office cabinet. They look ill. They are ill. And they drag themselves to work at a job they hate. It's a choice. I know more than one person in engineering suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

(4) Family. I value my family: They have stuck with me through all these crappy times. They have been with me when I treated them with neglect. But my "family company" laid off critical team members on a whim with less than 30 minutes notice.

(5) Self. I value my intellect and my curiosity: I have discovered some interests that I did not know I had. I have found passions that this career crisis has uncovered. For this I am deeply grateful. When one door closes, another one opens.

(6) Time. I value my time: I don't know if there are multiple lives. But I can only relate to this life. So I've got to make the most of the remaining 35-45 years I've got left. I came alone. I'll be departing alone. I have to take responsibility for my life.

I hope that was depressing enough.

I'll finish off with a quote from my favourite person in modern history:

"Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning