EPTOn August 28 2016 09:44 Frudgey wrote:
Out of curiosity, are you in Alberta?
I can attest to the job search post graduation being difficult.
That really sucks about your job though. I can't say I've had an experience like it. I'm also guessing you work in the Oil and Gas industry based on the description in your post.
Show nested quote +
On August 27 2016 17:53 iCanada wrote:
Ahhhhg.
I hate my job.
+ Show Spoiler +
The whole place is just completely fucked beyond belief and they don't even realize it. They made everyone do a survey about the experience working for the company, and what they could do to make it a 10/10 place to work. Frankly, I don't even have an answer that doesn't start with nuking it from orbit.
I want a new job, but the economy is more fucked than my work. Right now there are 2 ads that are available for Mechies. When i first graduated in 2010 there were 380 job ads for Mechies within the entire province posted on the big head hunting job ad websites... 2 jobs!
The older guys i talk to say this is the worst they seen in their entire careers. Not only is Oil busting through the floor, but this is probably the most anti-business provincial government we've ever elected. Went from lowest corporate tax rates in the country to highest... and now they don't understand why no one is investing in the province? Not sure why a business would be interested in paying out an additional 10% of their revenue in taxes here instead of our neighboring provinces, but what do I know.
I don't really think I have a career choice aside from take it until things improve. And that pisses me off. I shouldn't feel like I'm being bent over a damn barrel at work everyday. But I guess most people don't feel that way; i get realistically when times are tough companies get free reign to shit on employees (like i said, 2 job ads! Wow!) because there is nothing the employee can do... but why can't I get respect during bad times, and why can't my employer get respect during good times? Why the fuck can't we just be adults and meet in the middle and just respect each other all the time?
<_<
What do LL, what do?
Ahhhhg.
I hate my job.
+ Show Spoiler +
That place is just so so fucked. I've been there for about 4 months now, and its just... its just awful. I left my old job because the writing was on the wall that due to the economy and the results of local elections. Perhaps that was a real shit choice by me, as they still employ a few guys who I know they'd take over me dollar for dollar any day. That being said they are pretty much mothballed for the foreseeable future so maybe I did make the right choice leaving when i did. I dunno.
This new place is just a complete gong show. No one knows who is whose boss, no one knows how a decision gets made, and it is essentially just a huge game of politics and high school style drama that makes decisions. I don't even really know who my boss is? No project gets defined properly if at all, and all the goalposts just move over and back again on literally everything.
I'll get asked to do something, submit it. It conforms to all design requirements and then one of the random people with pull will just say "no, thats too fancy, will cost 15% more, do this instead." So I give 5 reasons why i didn't do it that way and I went the other way; my boss (maybe?) tells me modify it to be exactly what that guy wants. I make it exactly as he wants. Submit it, and now all 5 reasons I said I didn't do it in the first place get thrown in my face, and I get told to start from scratch. Suddenly instead of using the original design that hit all requirements to a tee but was "10% too expensive" on a one of design, and we went with the 5th redesign that compromises on a third of the design requirements after wasting everyone's time re-iterating and changing things. What the fuck is that? You delay a project and quadruple the design requirements to save 15% on materials, and that isn't even realistic materials savings because when they actually cut and make the parts this 6th design version wastes 5 times more material.
Worse yet is I just really don't understand what quality of work they actually want. You can't win./ It is either too shitty, or it is too much effort... the only way to not get complete shit is to stay over and throw in 60 hours a week and pretend I only threw in 40 hours.
The quality control is abysmal. I'm a Mechanical Engineer and they tell me it isn't my job to decide what size of weld to use, it is the welders job. They have gone 25 years without doing any NDT, specifying any welds (size, material, you name it), having weld procedures at all, or anything. They will literally break a track crane boom in half in the field, wing it and fix it on their own, and not even consult engineering as to why it failed or how to repair it. Then I ask to know this shit and everyone looks at my like i have 16 fucking heads.
So they started showing me the things that break. Why did this winch cable rated for 18,000 lbs break? Oh because you are a retard that lifted 50' of large diameter pipe from one end instead of in the middle, and the moment then caused the winch cable itself to be loaded at 280,000 lbs to resist that tendency to twist... And then I'm the idiot when I say you either can't do that or you need new equipment designed to do the work that way. Apparently the guy who spent 4 years studying in university with a 3.8 GPA to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering doesn't understand statics, and the crane operator is right. Clearly if you are lifting 20000 lbs worth of pipe the load on the cable could only possibly being 20,000 lbs at the most... which apparently would be fine even though the cable is only rated for 18000 lbs anyway.
Meanwhile in the shop the random foreman who no one really knows what he does but he is just there just condescendingly tells me shit like stress and vibration don't mix. Because I don't know anything about strength of materials.
Consistently I get projects that require 4 hours of work at 4:45 on a Friday than need to be done for Monday morning at 9, but yet it is impossible to get overtime. What the fuck does that even mean? The stream of must be done now or the world explodes 4 hour projects is endless, often with one interrupting the others, on top of the already 8 different projects on my desk... forget about that my office is a continuing stream of people coming in and consulting me for 15 minutes at a time worth of questions on how to do their shit. Which is fine, but when that happens 10 times a day, and then the same people are like "wtf, how come you haven't done X?" it just drives me up the fucking wall.
This new place is just a complete gong show. No one knows who is whose boss, no one knows how a decision gets made, and it is essentially just a huge game of politics and high school style drama that makes decisions. I don't even really know who my boss is? No project gets defined properly if at all, and all the goalposts just move over and back again on literally everything.
I'll get asked to do something, submit it. It conforms to all design requirements and then one of the random people with pull will just say "no, thats too fancy, will cost 15% more, do this instead." So I give 5 reasons why i didn't do it that way and I went the other way; my boss (maybe?) tells me modify it to be exactly what that guy wants. I make it exactly as he wants. Submit it, and now all 5 reasons I said I didn't do it in the first place get thrown in my face, and I get told to start from scratch. Suddenly instead of using the original design that hit all requirements to a tee but was "10% too expensive" on a one of design, and we went with the 5th redesign that compromises on a third of the design requirements after wasting everyone's time re-iterating and changing things. What the fuck is that? You delay a project and quadruple the design requirements to save 15% on materials, and that isn't even realistic materials savings because when they actually cut and make the parts this 6th design version wastes 5 times more material.
Worse yet is I just really don't understand what quality of work they actually want. You can't win./ It is either too shitty, or it is too much effort... the only way to not get complete shit is to stay over and throw in 60 hours a week and pretend I only threw in 40 hours.
The quality control is abysmal. I'm a Mechanical Engineer and they tell me it isn't my job to decide what size of weld to use, it is the welders job. They have gone 25 years without doing any NDT, specifying any welds (size, material, you name it), having weld procedures at all, or anything. They will literally break a track crane boom in half in the field, wing it and fix it on their own, and not even consult engineering as to why it failed or how to repair it. Then I ask to know this shit and everyone looks at my like i have 16 fucking heads.
So they started showing me the things that break. Why did this winch cable rated for 18,000 lbs break? Oh because you are a retard that lifted 50' of large diameter pipe from one end instead of in the middle, and the moment then caused the winch cable itself to be loaded at 280,000 lbs to resist that tendency to twist... And then I'm the idiot when I say you either can't do that or you need new equipment designed to do the work that way. Apparently the guy who spent 4 years studying in university with a 3.8 GPA to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering doesn't understand statics, and the crane operator is right. Clearly if you are lifting 20000 lbs worth of pipe the load on the cable could only possibly being 20,000 lbs at the most... which apparently would be fine even though the cable is only rated for 18000 lbs anyway.
Meanwhile in the shop the random foreman who no one really knows what he does but he is just there just condescendingly tells me shit like stress and vibration don't mix. Because I don't know anything about strength of materials.
Consistently I get projects that require 4 hours of work at 4:45 on a Friday than need to be done for Monday morning at 9, but yet it is impossible to get overtime. What the fuck does that even mean? The stream of must be done now or the world explodes 4 hour projects is endless, often with one interrupting the others, on top of the already 8 different projects on my desk... forget about that my office is a continuing stream of people coming in and consulting me for 15 minutes at a time worth of questions on how to do their shit. Which is fine, but when that happens 10 times a day, and then the same people are like "wtf, how come you haven't done X?" it just drives me up the fucking wall.
The whole place is just completely fucked beyond belief and they don't even realize it. They made everyone do a survey about the experience working for the company, and what they could do to make it a 10/10 place to work. Frankly, I don't even have an answer that doesn't start with nuking it from orbit.
I want a new job, but the economy is more fucked than my work. Right now there are 2 ads that are available for Mechies. When i first graduated in 2010 there were 380 job ads for Mechies within the entire province posted on the big head hunting job ad websites... 2 jobs!
The older guys i talk to say this is the worst they seen in their entire careers. Not only is Oil busting through the floor, but this is probably the most anti-business provincial government we've ever elected. Went from lowest corporate tax rates in the country to highest... and now they don't understand why no one is investing in the province? Not sure why a business would be interested in paying out an additional 10% of their revenue in taxes here instead of our neighboring provinces, but what do I know.
I don't really think I have a career choice aside from take it until things improve. And that pisses me off. I shouldn't feel like I'm being bent over a damn barrel at work everyday. But I guess most people don't feel that way; i get realistically when times are tough companies get free reign to shit on employees (like i said, 2 job ads! Wow!) because there is nothing the employee can do... but why can't I get respect during bad times, and why can't my employer get respect during good times? Why the fuck can't we just be adults and meet in the middle and just respect each other all the time?
<_<
What do LL, what do?
Out of curiosity, are you in Alberta?
I can attest to the job search post graduation being difficult.
That really sucks about your job though. I can't say I've had an experience like it. I'm also guessing you work in the Oil and Gas industry based on the description in your post.
Can confirm, Alberta.
All fabrication is fucked, doesn't matter what industry it is it is being funneled to Oil Field applications.
