Naiadknight's chronicles page 581

[geostump]

In engineering, it's not that the older engineers are refusing to retire. It's that many have and few companies are willing to accept young blood. Everyone wants bare minimum 10 years exp as a PE (meaning 14 years total), with 20 years as a PE preferred.

Kind of makes engineering seem like its not such a great field IMO. I can really see your frustration. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't in a sense.

[naiadknight]

I'm searching throughout all of TX on careerbuilder for civil engineering jobs. I'm on page 6 of 15 and I've come up with 7 jobs that would accept me and maybe 3 I'd want to do.

[geostump]

Yuck. That isn't fun at all period. Sending you good vibes and hope that something will work out for you.

[Mud Flinger]

You know the problems we are all encountering here started so many years ago and just don't seem to be getting better. We've got to wake up the public and stop staring at our TVs, computers and cell phones. They changed the laws (many of them tax laws) and when you send our manufatcuring over seas and have very wealthy people not paying the taxes they should, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The people making the laws have huge salaries compared to most and no idea of what their living conditions are becoming. Not getting all political here, it just sucks. We need to get all the idiots out of Washington and start over with lower salaries and no lobbyists. People have gotten so greedy. They've sold out our great country and we are headed for a crash like no other. The problem is quite complex, but if we made a few changes (like making out sourcing jobs prohibitively expensive in most cases and got people to buy USA made goods ONLY - hard to do as many things are hardly made here), we could head back in the right direction. Best of luck to you! Sending "a new awesome job" vibes your way!

[namelesswonder]

Hey, cry if you need to. You were home, you were safe, that is absolutely the best place to unleash some salt water. Nothing weak about recognizing a need to let off a weight on your system.

Also sending good vibes!

[naiadknight]

I went through all 15 pages of "civil engineer" jobs on careerbuilder. 7 of the jobs listed would accept my experience level. Seven. It's sickening watching these assholes call for 25+ years exp. Means they want some one in their late 40s, early 50s at the youngest. It's disheartening. My generation has "no work ethic, no desire to work and learn, no desire to work our way up." Most of us do, but we can't get our foot in the damn door.

[Mud Flinger]

You know, it's kinda wierd that you are seeing this age/experience thing in your field as I would think that many (especially unemployed) people in their later 40s and 50s feel like they are getting "too old" and would have issues. Interesting ... and sad because we need to get our younger people trained up, employed and ready to "take it all over".

[naiadknight]

MudFlinger:
I have a grand total of 4.5 years experience, after accounting for my unemployed time. I have just barely enough job experience to go for my PE. If you find a job with under 10-15 years exp (what everyone and their dog asks for, or more), 95% of the time it's a job where they'll work you into the ground and expect you to lick their boots while they do it. The instant you hit burn out or need time off, they're off looking for another sucker desperate for experience.

[naiadknight]

I think I know what I'm being told by whatever deity(ies) has his/ her/ its/ their fingers in my life right now. I don't like it and I don't want to hear it. Do they honestly think that by keeping me from working and keeping me broke, I'll write more?

[Twibble]

You know, it's kinda wierd that you are seeing this age/experience thing in your field as I would think that many (especially unemployed) people in their later 40s and 50s feel like they are getting "too old" and would have issues. Interesting ... and sad because we need to get our younger people trained up, employed and ready to "take it all over".

Engineering is special. Dad's company is begging him not to retire (he's a plant engineer, my description of his job is he keeps the gas plant from going BOOM), and he's laughing at them and asking how much his "consulting" fee will be after he retires (if he wanted to, he could probably charge them $100 just to pick up the phone).

There's such a HUGE learning curve that it's ridiculous. I think they found someone to replace him last year, but given the fact that it will take that guy three days to do the calculations to figure out where the problem is, and that Dad can tell them within 5 minutes which valves to turn and where the problem is, they definitely have a HUGE incentive to keep him around for a bit.