Engineering too stressful - should I change career?

engineerfear1

Hi. I hope someone can help me with a dilemma I have. I've been working as a civil/structural engineer for 3 years and I am finding it very difficult and stressful. I am a hard worker, and find the work extremely interesting, but there is so much to learn and understand that I end up knowing very small amounts about a lot of things.

As a result, I get very stressed when it comes to designing structures. While I know my designs are correct, I always want someone to double check them. I have this great fear that one day I forget to carry the one and a design ends up failing. It has never happened, but I get very stressed about this thought. I don't have a problem with making mistakes in my work, everyone does it and it's how we all learn. But when a mistake can mean someone getting injured or worse, it doesn't make for a comfortable experience.

Are there any ways out of this rut I'm in? I can't relax doing the work I am doing and the only solution I can think of is to change career. But even then, I don't know what I'm qualified to do, and I'd probably end up starting back at the bottom again.

I thought about project management, or even to go afar afield and doing accounting, but I just don't know. What can I do?

godtabh

What is your reporting structure in work?

Only a CEng should be signing off your work. You have to be careful in this regard.

Stick to engineering. As you progress through your career your competence will build. You cant be expected to know everything straight away. 12 years later and I am still figuring stuff out

breadmonkey

I used to find it very stressful as well but now I take this approach and it works well for me:

1. I do everything as thoroughly and rigorously as possible unless explicitly instructed otherwise. This would have been hard earlier in my career when I always felt I wasn't getting through my work fast enough but I have a much better feel for that now.

2. I prepare absolutely everything in such a way that someone could follow everything I have done in a logical order. No half arsed convoluted spreadsheets that are impossible to follow, no random pages of calculations floating around, no documents left unreferenced, no bizarre numbers that can't be traced back to their source, no undocumented assumptions etc. This really helps when I get the inevitable "what if we do this instead of this" type questions and I can go back and not spend half a day trying to figure out what the hell I was doing in the first place.

3. I clearly state any key assumptions or limitations when submitting my work to someone else, be it my manager, another colleague or a client. This way everyone is on the same page and there are no misunderstandings as to how comprehensive the calculations are and no surprised/annoyed looks later on when things change for the worse because of something to do with an earlier assumption that has now changed.

4. Related to (3) above, I try to discuss key assumptions or decisions with my manager. This is a good idea for many reasons: it prevents me going down a wrong or otherwise undesired path early on and it gives my manager a sort of stake in my work so that there is an implied responsibility on their part. I still take 100% ownership of my work, but it's less likely I'll be getting any flak later on if any problems arise out of these key assumptions/decisions because they were made collectively.

5. I check my own work as best I can with the time available. If nobody else has checked your work you had better do it yourself. In a similar fashion to (2) above, I document all checking work as if it were part of my calculations. As an absolute minimum I look through my output and hunt around for anything that looks implausible or out of place. If it looks wrong, it is wrong and it will be much worse in the long run if you ignore it and hope for the best. This can be hard to do when under extreme pressure but that is when it is most critical. I've learned by now that even the most absolute drop dead deadlines can be moved if necessary. Don't submit crap just to submit something on time.

6. I try to be mindful of any particular calculations or assumptions that are absolutely critical; things that could be truly "catastrophic" in terms of collapse or delay or cost. I follow my usual methods listed above but I also ask explicitly in writing that the calculations be rigorously verified by someone else in the team.

If I have done all that and something still goes badly wrong, nobody can say that I did not do my absolute best in my work. That has really helped me deal with the stress of the job.

Dardania

breadmonkey wrote: »

I used to find it very stressful as well but now I take this approach and it works well for me:

1. I do everything as thoroughly and rigorously as possible unless explicitly instructed otherwise. This would have been hard earlier in my career when I always felt I wasn't getting through my work fast enough but I have a much better feel for that now.

2. I prepare absolutely everything in such a way that someone could follow everything I have done in a logical order. No half arsed convoluted spreadsheets that are impossible to follow, no random pages of calculations floating around, no documents left unreferenced, no bizarre numbers that can't be traced back to their source, no undocumented assumptions etc. This really helps when I get the inevitable "what if we do this instead of this" type questions and I can go back and not spend half a day trying to figure out what the hell I was doing in the first place.

3. I clearly state any key assumptions or limitations when submitting my work to someone else, be it my manager, another colleague or a client. This way everyone is on the same page and there are no misunderstandings as to how comprehensive the calculations are and no surprised/annoyed looks later on when things change for the worse because of something to do with an earlier assumption that has now changed.

4. Related to (3) above, I try to discuss key assumptions or decisions with my manager. This is a good idea for many reasons: it prevents me going down a wrong or otherwise undesired path early on and it gives my manager a sort of stake in my work so that there is an implied responsibility on their part. I still take 100% ownership of my work, but it's less likely I'll be getting any flak later on if any problems arise out of these key assumptions/decisions because they were made collectively.

5. I check my own work as best I can with the time available. If nobody else has checked your work you had better do it yourself. In a similar fashion to (2) above, I document all checking work as if it were part of my calculations. As an absolute minimum I look through my output and hunt around for anything that looks implausible or out of place. If it looks wrong, it is wrong and it will be much worse in the long run if you ignore it and hope for the best. This can be hard to do when under extreme pressure but that is when it is most critical. I've learned by now that even the most absolute drop dead deadlines can be moved if necessary. Don't submit crap just to submit something on time.

6. I try to be mindful of any particular calculations or assumptions that are absolutely critical; things that could be truly "catastrophic" in terms of collapse or delay or cost. I follow my usual methods listed above but I also ask explicitly in writing that the calculations be rigorously verified by someone else in the team.

If I have done all that and something still goes badly wrong, nobody can say that I did not do my absolute best in my work. That has really helped me deal with the stress of the job.

Find myself agreeing with everything breadmonkey notes...if it feels wrong it is wrong.
I've pulled work I wasn't about about back from a client in the past as I wasn't happy with it...

Also, on deadlines, if you haven't sent something by 5pm, there's no point sending until the next morning - no one is going to read it until then anyway. You're much better sending the next morning, and the overnight relaxing will give you fresh eyes to be happy about your work then...

And on the safety / risk element - are there standards you can follow? I'm from elec background, so I don't know specifically your area, but from ear wigging on the civil / structural guys, they go by eurocodes quite a bit - can you base your work from them?

Turbulent Bill

engineerfear1 wrote: »

While I know my designs are correct, I always want someone to double check them. I have this great fear that one day I forget to carry the one and a design ends up failing.

Peer review is critical to having good, safe design. Having someone double-check your work is a great way of doing this, and it shouldn't be done out of fear. Some engineers have a weird attitude to doing this, either being over-confident ("I don't need a review, how could my brilliant design be wrong?!"), insecure ("I can't take any professional criticism of my work") or just bewildered ("Why am I reviewing your work again?"). The majority though understand that peer review works for everyones' benefit.

As godtabh mentioned, you shouldn't be signing off on work (and especially not your own work). If a design fails it's ultimately a failure of your company's processes, not your individual failing, as it's unreasonable to expect no mistakes from anyone. Follow best practice and use the tools available to you.

breadmonkey's point about assumptions is well made. You need to find these out and state them explicitly as soon as possible in a project, and then use them as design requirements (we assume X, does the design address this?).

Don't panic, it gets easier!

godtabh

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

Peer review is critical to having good, safe design. Having someone double-check your work is a great way of doing this, and it shouldn't be done out of fear. Some engineers have a weird attitude to doing this, either being over-confident ("I don't need a review, how could my brilliant design be wrong?!"), insecure ("I can't take any professional criticism of my work") or just bewildered ("Why am I reviewing your work again?"). The majority though understand that peer review works for everyones' benefit.

As godtabh mentioned, you shouldn't be signing off on work (and especially not your own work). If a design fails it's ultimately a failure of your company's processes, not your individual failing, as it's unreasonable to expect no mistakes from anyone. Follow best practice and use the tools available to you.

breadmonkey's point about assumptions is well made. You need to find these out and state them explicitly as soon as possible in a project, and then use them as design requirements (we assume X, does the design address this?).

Don't panic, it gets easier!

Be very careful of this. You are personally responsible for all your work if you sign it off and issue it with something going wrong. The legislation has changed a lot

Turbulent Bill

godtabh wrote: »

Be very careful of this. You are personally responsible for all your work if you sign it off and issue it with something going wrong. The legislation has changed a lot

Is that enforceable if you're not legally allowed to sign off on the work, e.g., a non-chartered engineer signing off controlled works?

I don't work in this field, but my impression was that PI only extended to particular types of work approved by CEng, not generally.

godtabh

My take on it is that if it leaves the office with your name on it you are liable. It was different previously but now the liability follows you.

Turbulent Bill

godtabh wrote: »

My take on it is that if it leaves the office with your name on it you are liable. It was different previously but now the liability follows you.

Any reference for the legislation on this?

From a professional perspective I'd obviously stand by anything I sign off on, but never took this as accepting legal liability. If a widget I design fails, surely my employer (rather than me personally) is the liable party?

godtabh

From here.

It is and always has been the position however, that individual employees can be sued for their own acts across a variety of causes of action and we have seen several cases of this. Just because the employee signs in their own name does not alter this. It does however place them more in the spotlight and concerns are being raised by employees about signing the statutory certificates in their own name.

Halloween Jack

OP I work on a software project for a govt. dept. we work with business analysts from a big consultancy outfit, the majority are from an engineering background and this particular company seem to like to hire engineers.

godtabh

Halloween Jack wrote: »

OP I work on a software project for a govt. dept. we work with business analysts from a big consultancy outfit, the majority are from an engineering background and this particular company seem to like to hire engineers.

I think you need to get in there as a grad. I'm currently trying to get into a company like that now and finding it hard due to me experience

breadmonkey

godtabh wrote: »

I think you need to get in there as a grad. I'm currently trying to get into a company like that now and finding it hard due to me experience

Not to mention that a management consulting job is going to be really stressful as well! Although the pay might be adequate compensation...

godtabh

breadmonkey wrote: »

Not to mention that a management consulting job is going to be really stressful as well! Although the pay might be adequate compensation...

I wouldnt expect it to be easy

engineerfear1

Thank you all for the advice. It's been very helpful and reassuring.

On a side note, do you ever find yourself constantly having to look things up? I always feel that I never spend long enough doing any one exercise continuously for it to stick. For example, lets say I am designing a timber joist. I look up the design procedure, codes etc. and design it accordingly, have it checked and approved, no problem there. However, the next time I design a timber joist may not be for months, where I am designing steel or concrete elements in the meantime. Then when I go back to design a timber joist again, I practically have to start from scratch as I've forgotten what I've done before.

Is this normal? Should I be brushing up on these things every couple of weeks so that the whole design procedure is retained? I am starting to feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none.

godtabh

engineerfear1 wrote: »

Thank you all for the advice. It's been very helpful and reassuring.

On a side note, do you ever find yourself constantly having to look things up? I always feel that I never spend long enough doing any one exercise continuously for it to stick. For example, lets say I am designing a timber joist. I look up the design procedure, codes etc. and design it accordingly, have it checked and approved, no problem there. However, the next time I design a timber joist may not be for months, where I am designing steel or concrete elements in the meantime. Then when I go back to design a timber joist again, I practically have to start from scratch as I've forgotten what I've done before.

Is this normal? Should I be brushing up on these things every couple of weeks so that the whole design procedure is retained? I am starting to feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none.

I constantly refer to relevant documentation etc. I either dont know and need to check or need to check there hasnt been an update etc etc

Nothing wrong with needing to check. If you should have checked and didnt I would be more concerned

budhabob

engineerfear1 wrote: »

Thank you all for the advice. It's been very helpful and reassuring.

On a side note, do you ever find yourself constantly having to look things up? I always feel that I never spend long enough doing any one exercise continuously for it to stick. For example, lets say I am designing a timber joist. I look up the design procedure, codes etc. and design it accordingly, have it checked and approved, no problem there. However, the next time I design a timber joist may not be for months, where I am designing steel or concrete elements in the meantime. Then when I go back to design a timber joist again, I practically have to start from scratch as I've forgotten what I've done before.

Is this normal? Should I be brushing up on these things every couple of weeks so that the whole design procedure is retained? I am starting to feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none.

My leaving cert maths teacher used to say (in a more eloquent fashion) never learn off something you can look up - she was referring to the good ol log book. Continuous use will make you familiar with standards etc and provide you with recall facilities. Unless your living and breathing a design continuously, then its only right to refer appropriately.