Good for you.
Nearing the 17th year I said f it, quit & started my own business.
It failed.
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Give it some time man. If you show competence and willingness to work, you'll get pulled into more projects after a bit of time. Soon, you'll be in a position where things will need to be put onto the back burner.
I had seven engineering internships, and the lack of work as you're just starting out is normal. I've had two real engineering jobs; even coming in with a high-level degree, there's still a slow start until you get integrated into the system. My manager at my current job is not very proactive, so I spent a lot of my first months browsing the company Web site, directories, and reading stuff (journals and whatnot). At some point, I flat out asked for more work.
Now, I have more than I can handle. It's far better than too little.
Another department hired a guy out of college, civil engineering. Probably around $55K a year. A couple months later I get a note to remove him from the list of recipients for certain reports, which seemed odd. I asked the manager about it.
The guy was leaving work in the middle of the day for a couple hours a few days a week, but was careful to get back before the end of the day so he could be seen when others in the group started to go home for the day. Manager started to get suspicious so he asked the facility manager for the data on the guy's electronic badge use. That seemed to indicate what was going on, so the manager monitored the guy carefully for a week. Three days that week he snuck out around 1 and came back between 3:30 and 4.
The confrontation:
Manager: Bob, I need you to explain why you have been leaving work for hours in the middle of the work day.
Bob: I don't do that.
Manager: I want to know why.
Bob: Uh, you told me when I got hired that you have flex time.
Manager: That's true, and I explained exactly how that works. Do you think it meant you could work 30-35 hours a week and record that you worked 40?
Bob: No, I work 40 hours.
Manager: You were only here about 32 hours last week, and your time sheet shows 40 hours.
Bob: I work the rest of the hours at home.
Manager: Bob, you are fired.
So we'll never know what the guy was up to, but for someone right out of school to blow a good opportunity like that really shocks me. The guy's manager thinks the guy simply thought he could get away with it, and wasn't as clever as he thought he was.
Amazing he would do this... especially being his first job.
I say he was sneaking out and havin an affair. Lust, sex, the thrill of it all, made him not think clearly.
Then again, that's purely a rumor.
Mechanical Engineer/Project Manager for Naval Subcontractor ... my deadlines are typically measured in months or years and it's rare that I need to be in the office every day unless it's to answer customer phone calls. My email and phone calls are all forwarded to my phone so I am never out of touch. During the winters I can easily work from home if the weather sucks (Northeast winters can be a bitch here in Rochester). My work also often relies on input from coworkers and I tend to be ahead of them quite often, that gives me lots of free time. Summer months I am usually in the office around 7am and leave around 230p.
As long as my work gets done when it's supposed to be done and my customers can reach me, no one has a problem with my hours.
LOL!So Mosh, was Bob a good lay? :sneaky:
Rochester eh... Looking to hire?
The turnover is pretty low here. You have to be a major fuckup to mess this job up. I've only known two guys that got fired from here in the past 10yrs. One of them was playing wolfenstein all afternoon on company PC's rather than working. Granted, we've been known to have deatchmatches during lunch, but he was pushing the envelope and not getting his work done. He was a designer and typically had a full stack of things to do. I wasn't surprised when they sent him packing. The second guy was an ME and just wasn't a good fit. He had it in mind of how HE wanted things to go around here and had a hard time conforming to the system and processes. Nice enough guy, just not a very good fit. It's one thing to have your own vision and ideas, it's another to blatantly just not want to go along with how things go. I dread it when I see his name on any drawings or models. I know I'll be spending all afternoon trying to understand what he did and fixing it.
That's amusing. I am curious if he was actually getting his work done, though.
Another department hired a guy out of college, civil engineering. Probably around $55K a year. A couple months later I get a note to remove him from the list of recipients for certain reports, which seemed odd. I asked the manager about it.
The guy was leaving work in the middle of the day for a couple hours a few days a week, but was careful to get back before the end of the day so he could be seen when others in the group started to go home for the day. Manager started to get suspicious so he asked the facility manager for the data on the guy's electronic badge use. That seemed to indicate what was going on, so the manager monitored the guy carefully for a week. Three days that week he snuck out around 1 and came back between 3:30 and 4.
The confrontation:
Manager: Bob, I need you to explain why you have been leaving work for hours in the middle of the work day.
Bob: I don't do that.
Manager: I want to know why.
Bob: Uh, you told me when I got hired that you have flex time.
Manager: That's true, and I explained exactly how that works. Do you think it meant you could work 30-35 hours a week and record that you worked 40?
Bob: No, I work 40 hours.
Manager: You were only here about 32 hours last week, and your time sheet shows 40 hours.
Bob: I work the rest of the hours at home.
Manager: Bob, you are fired.
So we'll never know what the guy was up to, but for someone right out of school to blow a good opportunity like that really shocks me. The guy's manager thinks the guy simply thought he could get away with it, and wasn't as clever as he thought he was.
<snip>
guess he forgot he wasnt working for the government.
Once we hired a contract new recruiting assistant. She came in on time the first week, did her job well, and was pleasant. The second week she came in late, calling the first few days to explain she had a migraine. The fourth and fifth days she didn't notify us she was going to be late and the water started to heat up.
The following Monday we were discussing her future at the company, but when she didn't show up on Tuesday and WE called HER, she flippantly said, "oh, I got a better job. I quit."
Rude and cheeky of her, but sometimes you make a bad hire, oh well. We shut off her badge and started manning her inbox.
The next day we get a phone call from someone asking for a manager on the fourth floor and we transfer it up. GUESS WHO PICKS UP THE PHONE?? She took a job with us, blew it off, and then took a job with the tax department. My coworker who was transferring the call was a little astounded and the chick's blithe answer was, "well, I make 45k here so whatever. Oh, and STOP answering my email!"
So she was still using her email account. My coworker did a little checking and found out that (A) she had told Tax that we knew she was job hunting, (B) they mainly hired her because they were on a short timeline and she already had accounts to everything, (C) she had led them to believe she'd worked with us for a long time.
Well, she was in HR and had a ton of access she wasn't allowed to have. Since she'd never formally informed ME, the person responsible for her accounts, that she was still here, I followed protocol to the letter and shut them all off.
We got a RANTING mad call from her pissed that she'd been locked in the parking garage when her badge was disabled, and that her emails were gone, etc. To which I answered, entirely surprised, "Well, you QUIT..."
I think Tax fired her about 6 weeks later.
And it is certainly much better than his new salary of $0.
lol $55k? He was probably selling dope to get some extra income
Once we hired a contract new recruiting assistant...
I love Swissvale. And yes the cost of living in PGH is low, esp the housing market.
I love happy endings. :biggrin:Once we hired a contract new recruiting assistant...