Engineering - 6 Weeks In

I've now had a real engineering job for 6 weeks, and I think I'm starting to settle in. The first few weeks were mostly setting up the field office, buying desks and chairs, getting the tech up and running, setting up the paper trail, etc. The last month though, I've really started to get into things. My job consists primarily to two areas: Technical drawings, and being a conduit for questions (from sub-contractors to the official design engineers. In the past month, I've learned some things.

1.) Affter 4 years to get an engineering degree from Purdue, I know basically nothing about what is done here in the real world. I'd be frustrated except that I've realized that really...

2.) ...Entry level engineers are basically sponges. Or at least, good entry level engineers are. Sponges in that most of the job really is just soaking up knowledge and trying to learn as quickly as possible.

3.) The "Final Version" of a project schedules isn't complete until the project is. (Additionally, MS Project sucks.)

4.) In-company politics do happen, even especially at a small company. (One reason that I'm so low in the hierarchy at this point; I'm almost still an outsider, so I watch rather than participate).

5.) Fairness is a great thing in a boss. Everyone screws up, and I'm certainly no exception. Getting my ass chewed out after I do doesn't really bother me. But getting yelled at for doing what I was instructed to do (or not doing something that I was told not to bother with) gets old real fast. Having a boss that yells only when it's deserved is a treasure.

6.) Never buy a car from Hubler Chevrolet in Rushville. They'll pressure you, they'll lie to you, and they'll try to slip in $2400 in extra cost, hoping you won't read the contract. (Not directly related to the job, but I only bought a car because I have money from the job).

7.) Windows XP sucks.

8.) Computers that run Windows XP and are a decade old suck.

9.) 2013 HP Probooks running Windows 7 are wonderful.

10.) ALWAYS keep phones numbers and business cards.

11.) In the field, lamination is almost a necessity.

Online Tracking

I have to wonder if Facebook is in fact sharing my information despite their assurances that it doesn't happen. Today I opened up AccuWeather to check the radar and temperature for the day, and I saw on the side of the screen an advertisement for Pioneer Seed.

Now up until recently I had never heard of Pioneer. And I'd never seen ads for them on the internet. Well then I get a job working on a Pioneer Seed plant and suddenly I start seeing ads for them. The only places on the internet that I said anything about it are Facebook and LinkedIn. I updated my employment history on both just to keep it up to date. This means that either the internet just randomly decided that I was in the market for seed, after all these years ..... or that we are in fact being tracked by advertising companies, and that more significantly, they are getting info from Facebook/LinkedIn.

Wonderful.

8 Done, 1 To Go

I took my last exam for the semester this morning, and am finally finished. Hoping for 4 As and a B this semester, but we'll see what happens. I'm taking the rest of the day off; might go see The Avengers tonight. Been packing for a while now, cleaning up my room and throwing away quite a bit of built up junk.

I still have no idea what I'm doing this summer. ODOT hasn't gotten back to me, and according to what they told me, that means I'm not being hired by them. J&S hasn't gotten back to me, but I was told that I'd be informed either way. I'm going to call again on Monday morning to get a hold of my contact personally, and if he still doesn't know, I might just take the other offer that I have, which is with a startup web company.

I've been sick for the past week, but yesterday I was finally on the upswing and last night I slept well for the first time since last weekend, so I think I'm mostly over it.

It's strange, knowing that if I wasn't taking extra semester, I'd be graduating college. I'm not sure I'm ready yet for that, so I'm glad that I've got one more. Goal now is to get through this summer, make some money to help pay for next semester, and then get done.
 

Borgund Stave Church, Norway

I saw this on Reddit today. Pretty incredible building.