Frankly, HVACctrl, I can’t believe some of the responses your getting from posters I’ve come to respect on other topics. Clearly, they have not had to work under this exact type of circumstances before. I have and I know what you’re probably going through.
My first job out of school was in a manufacturing company with an engineering dept. of eight “engineers” and drafters. Myself and one other engineer was degreed. We were both experienced in manufacturing environments and knew how show respect and get help from the experienced shop floor workers and machinists as well as the “engineering” staff who had been there for a while. The engineering manager had only a high school education but years of experience in the industry, so fair enough.
The problem was primarily with one of the “engineers”. He didn’t like us even though we NEVER acted superior nor treated him with complete respect. Two incidents describe daily activities there. We were in a staff meeting discussing scheduling. I can’t remember what brought this subject about but without any provocation, after I had just made some comment about out topic, this person turns to me and states, “Well, if you were such a fat slob, you wouldn’t have issues like that!” I was stunned at such an unprofessional comment completely uncalled for. Additionally, half those present (the people who had been there a while) laughed along with him. I caught myself just before I told him I now understood why his wife just left him. No sense lowering myself to his level. (he was fooling around on her, inviting girlfriends over while hiss home babysitting his two young children. He should have paid attention to how quickly his kids were learning to talk.)
Second, I was under my desk one day reinstalling my computer (was double duty as the network administrator). He comes into my office, sees me on the floor, grabs one of my legs and drags me out into the hallway proclaiming to the whole office he’s landed a whale. This was typical behavior for many there including the general manager.
This company had lost five of their previous engineers (degreed) within the last 2 years. The other engineer soon quit (sadly, we became friends and he kept encouraging me to hang in there until I had enough engineering experience to find a better position). Then, after 17 months, they laid me off due to “inadequate job performance”. I asked regularly for a performance review, performance evaluation, anything to let me know if I was meeting their expectations. I told my manager several times that I was not looking for a pay increase, just some sort of sign of what I needed to improve or if everything was okay. He said I was doing fine, every time. Then, out of the blue, lay off. The manager (who had never held an actual engineering position) told me I might consider going into another profession. I had to laugh! I’ve had stellar performance reviews in every position I’ve held since then, obtained my PE, and one of the points that continually comes up is I am respected by and work well with my peers. I get along well with the trades people as well, mainly because I show a great deal of respect for their expertise and let them know I value what they teach me.
Back to the story, the state initially denied my unemployment claim until I shared this bit of information, then my benefits were awarded within a week. By the way, the company folded <12 months after my layoff.
So, HVACctrl, my advice is dust off the resume and get to looking. There are great jobs with great people out there, lots of them. Too many to mire your career in a bad environment. You just have to look at the people in this forum to see that there are some rich working relationships to be had.
IMHO, for IRstuff's benefit. ;-)
![[hammer]](/data/assets/smilies/hammer.gif "[hammer] [hammer]")
