General > General Technical Chat
Losing the plot, losing "can do", losing motivation. Disillusioned engineer.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 04:20:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on March 08, 2023, 04:07:08 pm ---Do you mean X is a bodyshop?
--- End quote ---
To a degree yes. It does have many internally managed teams and the model they are really pushing is selling teams of people, rather than individual fungible bodies, "team augmentation".
What often happens is the delivery folks sell this dream to us and the customers delivery people and when we land on site we get resourced whichever way the company wants, often sending the "team" to far corners of the planet on completely different projects and reporting chains.
--- End quote ---
Sounds like a nightmare. I always made a conscious decision not to work in environments like that, of course but that's a personal decision.
Nominal Animal:
--- Quote from: paulca on March 08, 2023, 11:26:33 am ---Do you guys understand how this is driving me insane?
--- End quote ---
Well, if you add to your experience that tasks and responsibilities were not listed anywhere, only orally assigned and not communicated to anyone else, so that any question about any matter devolves into finding someone that can eventually tell you who you need to talk about it –– no, email won't work, they're far too busy to answer emails ––, then yes; perfectly. From experience. And yes, it did drive me insane. Burnout and then deep recurrent depression. Even though I eventually switched careers, the problems recurred. My brain chemistry is forever altered. Even after over a decade of therapy and trying to rebuild myself, I still haven't recovered my ability to really work. And I used to be known for being able to work in any situation whatever, with an absolutely rock solid, tested and verified ability to withstand stress.
Don't be like me, and try and tough it out. You have options, even if it might not look like it right now. Use them, and get yourself the fuck away from that mental mangler. If you have a good working relationship with your real employer, take a holiday until they can reassign you, or quit. No work security is worth losing your mental health and ability to work.
jonpaul:
[ Specified attachment is not available ]"Write two letters....."
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181865/
From General Ralph Landry, in charge of US Drug Policy, to Michael Douglas as the incoming US drug tzar... An anecdote about Khrushchev
<< "You know, when Khrushchev was forced out, he sat down and wrote two letters and gave them to his successor.
He said - "When you get yourself into a situation you can't get out of, open the first letter, and you'll be safe.
When you get yourself into another situation you can't get out of, open the second letter".
Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter.
Which said - "Blame everything on me". So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm.
He got himself into a second situation he couldn't get out of, he opened the second letter.
It said - "Sit down, and write two letters".>>>>>
From the USA film Traffic, 2000
I am writing two letters now (:-:)
Jon
aargee:
Much of the corporate world is heavily invested in managerialism, which has resulted in a fragile shell of nothing.
I'm about to exit the system earlier than planned to enjoy life, for this very reason.
paulca:
Just a small follow up.
I had meeting today driven by a local manager with most of the technical SMEs and he was simply epic. Without more than 20% subject knowledge... he drove the meeting, drove the points, drove the summary and drove the individual assignments and priorities. In an hour. Cutting off more senior managers in order to bring order and complete items before waffling on.
My jaw dropped. That is management. I know we all hate them, I know there is a void between management and "workers" but I think a lot of what has been going on in the past 3 months is simply my actual project manager was otherwise overloaded with other projects of higher priority and the whole project scope of mine was "back burnered" so nobody cared.
From my perspective I was standing in a burning house with a single fire extinguisher trying to hold the fort and already heading out the door, fleeing, deciding it was better to toast marshmallows rather than get burnt badly.
An hour with the right people in the room together sorted 90% of it, or at least took 90% of it off my stack and SEP. Gave a few days work too at least.
It would appear stuff like this "happens" and it's sort of ... normal situations that develop. Having an idle engineer is not a concern to them. They consider it "a good problem to have". and simply agree it's a shame that such a good engineer is idle in "psuedo support role". Having a low priority project smolder is not uncommon. Burning like a house on fire was a bit extreme, but not really my concern. If I do the job I'm asked to do and persistently clarify what that is, it's not my problem.
Friday went well. By the end of the meeting I had direction and tasks. I went through 3 out of 4 of them, sent the emails and logged out with an update sent on the ETA on the 4th.
I actually did a days work! Woohoo! First time in, literally 3 months. Better Friday feeling.
It won't last. But I'm trying to absorb the highs.
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