Stay or Go, Fresh Grad Seeking Advice
 

Hey guys, been lurking around here and finally pluck up my courage to seek for advice from you all.

As the title suggest, Im a fresh grad who got employed as a project engineer after graduation. During the 1st six months i was shipped off to one of the project sites in thailand for training. Life was hard but i enjoyed it and had a sense of achievement. So one day the HOD came down and told me I need to go back Singapore to assist a project manager in another project.

To cut the story short, after I came back, I was loboing for 4 mths, doing document tracking and data entry (Is that what a project engineer really do?). Somehow i dont feel i am contributing and the project manager needs my help. Some of my friends do encourage me to stay on and observe the situation until i served a full year but part of me wants to quit.

Appreciate your advices.

stay on for 1 year. 1 year looks nicer on your resume than mere months.

First job try to stay for at least 2 years, otherwise look bad.

Anyway you getting decent pay and doing lobo admin work. What is there to complain? Most job titles are BS anyway and even if you join some other company as engineer, high chance still doing low level work but with heavy volume and crazy OT even worse.

You wan a sense of achievement?

Be a R&D engineer, you get to deal with everything...

Solution conception
while(customer != happy)
{
Costing
Negotiation
Proposal
Negotiation
Tender
Circuit design
Sourcing
Firmware programming
PCB design
Software
Verification
}
while(price > budget) //this part is super time wasting
{
Enclosure sourcing
Negotiation
Component sourcing
Negotiation
Fabrication
Assembly
}
Prototype trial run
if(customer != happy)
goto : Solution verification
else if(estimated budget overrun)
super long talk with boss
if(prototype == success && customer == happy)
{
Ship product!
while(you still alive)
{
unlimited lifetime support with people who are not interested
Spam emails and calls to see if anyone else wants the solution
}
}

interrupt(last day of the month)
{
collect $2132 check
}

See, you get to solution someone's or an entire group/company/national problems alone!! assumed sense of achievement = over 9000!

and you get to draw a pathetic pay as a bonus!

LOL some of the response above so funny, but yet true!

Anyway we were all young once also, fantasizing about doing strategic work, wanting more exposure and action and dreaming of being a super high flier.

My advice to TS is you dun know how lucky you are. Most engineers are doing the same kind of crap work you are but working until no day no night. You everyday lobo SOP work still can complain no sense of achievement...

I can understand where you are coming from. A job that is too free is also stressful as you may struggle to fill the time or find the sense of accomplishment to keep you going. I can relate to it because I have been through that and many people have told me "Stop complaining, you dont realise how lucky you are, blah blah blah."

I would say these comments are not constructive and does not help your situation at all. In fact, they will only lower your sense of worth and ask you to accept this situation.

I would advise to give your job a 2nd chance. First, assess what you are doing, what your skills set are, what would you like to do and what are the opportunities you can identify in the company. Next, speak to your boss, be truthful and forefront about this, saying TACTFULLY that you would like to have more opportunities to contribute and based on ur skillset/interest/available opportunities, you would like to propose to do this and that or hear what your manager can offer for you to take on additional responsibilies. DO NOT SAY YOU ARE TOO FREE..lol. thats not a good picture to paint.

If all goes well, you could be given additional tasks and will have a much more fulfilling time with your job. Unless another attractive offer comes along or that things dont improve even after you have tried to proactively change things, then I think its time to move on.

Welcome any thoughts/comments on this. Feel free to shoot! :)

All the best bro and keep us updated!

This is just text book answer not anymore constructive than those who ask him to stay put and lobo. In fact it can be very dangerous if you are not careful in the nuances you unintentionally send to your boss.

Sure the ideal scenario is the boss value your feedback and finally put your talents to good use, but I think more likely scenario is:

1) Boss realise you too lobo and pile more work
2) Boss think you are one of those young punks who only want to talk strategy, do sexy stuff and refuse to do grunt work
3) Boss label you as flight risk and inititate back up recruitment to replace you, better he control the timing of your firing than you stunning him with resingation
4) Boss realise he is over-paying you to do simple work, makes life miserable to encourage you to resign so he can replace your h/c with a cheaper budget

Of course it is easy to say worse come to worse just resign and join another company, but to get a good role in a good company is not easy and under time pressure to grab the first available job due to any of the 4 scenarios arising doesn't help at all. Not to mention leaving a black mark in your CV for staying so short in your first job...

My advice is do not initiate such conversations unless the boss is the one who starts an in-depth discussion on this subject first. Meanwhile stay lobo as you can while covertly searching other openings. At least in this case you will have the luxry of taking your time to choose what you want, easier to disappear for interview because you dont have much to do anyway and before you know it you would have loboed there for >1.5 years which looks better in the CV.

I think your advice to not initiate such conversations and wait for boss to start is not a wise one. This would mean u are waiting for boss to realise you are too free and also asking TS to accept the situation and hope for the best. I am shocked that you advocate being reactive and HOPING that your boss has psychic powers to read your mind and talk about things that matter most to you?

Your advice to lobo for 1.5 years just to look good on CV is also a bad one. This means TS would have learnt nothing substantial during this time and even if he manages to land the next job, he will struggle there. Life is short, why waste time?

I am not saying my advice is top notch, of coz it depends on company culture, the boss and your team dynamics, etc. But to do nothing and adopt the above two advice is highly unwise to me.

I have had conversations with my boss to take on more responsibilities and it has worked in my favour. My boss may think i am too free, but at the same time I took the initiative to see what I can do (not paper talk strategy like what you have mentioned above) and contribute. I feel a sense of accomplishment and my boss saw the contributions and appreciated them.

Of coz every situation is different, but once again, to adopt the two advice (dont initiate and hope, and lobo for 1.5 years) are truly bad choices, in my view.

+1.

Unless you know the boss character many years better not take the risk. All boss will claim they open to constructive feedback, but many will take offense and some may retaliate in real life.

Thanks for the replies.

right now im keep myself busy by reading more of the technical aspects of the project, asking around abt the SOP. The situation could be better if i had a upperstudy instead of having myself to stumble around.

I did approach the project manager if i could help with more tasks before but his reply was to take it slow. Of course im not looking to run before i could walk but sometimes i wonder whats the point of maintaining excel sheets when no one seems to be bothered by it. The share drive was in a mess before i came, after i tidied up, its a white elephant.

Point of which, i spent 6 mths doing site work and the transition of pace of work is frustrating. Perhaps i need more time to understand the company culture and at the same time as some of you advise, look for other opportunities. :\