# How stressful is your field?



## random_soldier1337 (Mar 9, 2020)

I'm in nuclear engineering and things seem fairly laid back. Everyone comes off as a bit of a party animal and faculty where I am don't seem in a particular rush to get things done.


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## RBHeadge PE (Mar 9, 2020)

There are some pretty huge differences between academia and industry....


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 9, 2020)

RBHeadge PE said:


> There are some pretty huge differences between academia and industry....


Please do tell. I understand that profit margins would motivate someone to give their all but not much more than that.


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## RBHeadge PE (Mar 9, 2020)




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## Supe (Mar 9, 2020)

I'm in nuclear construction, and to quote one of our former contractors, "I've never been in a job this stressful before.  It's like an outage that never ends, and there's no turnover."  

Thankfully, not as bad as it was a few years ago, though.


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 9, 2020)

> 58 minutes ago, RBHeadge PE said:



Interesting. Can you tell me more?


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## Master slacker (Mar 10, 2020)




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## Supe (Mar 10, 2020)

random_soldier1337 said:


> I get that. I just didn't realize it was that bad at unis. I didn't realize you could just scrape by doing the base minimum. Or less in some cases that I have seen.
> 
> My aversion to industry is not so much the results part as the part that you can't do much of anything that doesn't maximize profit. I definitely don't think there is much of an industry for figuring out what goes on inside black holes.
> 
> Interesting. Can you tell me more?


First of a kind, incredibly high regulatory scrutiny, uneducated/nonexistent supply chain, payments tied to milestones, high employee turnover, huge workforce generation gap, huge workforce knowledge gap - just about any variable you can throw into the equation exists.


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## Edgy Cheesy Graphite PE (Mar 10, 2020)

This is a very interesting question to me because I've worked in a few different fields. Sorry for the long response.

tl;dr: You asked how stressful your field is, but* stress is a combination of many things*. *Your field *definitely plays a part, but also *your individual level of responsibility*, and *your work environment* (e.g. how well the organization is run, how good the managers are, etc), *your coworkers*, and also *how much you enjoy your job*.

First I spent 8 years in aerospace, specifically human space flight for a NASA contractor. I would give that *stress level an 8 out of 10*. I was very early in my career, so my personal responsibility level wasn't that high. I worked in various roles: quality, design, and planning, before settling in as a structural analyst (this has become my expertise over the years). I gave it an 8 out of 10 for stress level because the work was highly critical (if we screwed up, people died) and there was occasional intense schedule pressure. But at the same time, there was a strong support system, especially for inexperienced engineers, and there were a lot of processes to make sure everything was done correctly. People often complain about too much "red tape" to get things done, but having all those checks and balances help to make sure that any hypothetical miscalculation gets caught before it gets built and flies.

Next I moved to a different defense contractor building ships for the US Navy. I would give that *stress level a 9 out of 10*. I was a senior engineer by this point, so my personal responsibility level was much higher, but my rating is mostly due to the fact that the specific program that I was working on was very poorly run. We were constantly over budget and behind schedule, so there was constant management pressure to do things faster and with fewer people. And this particular organization definitely took more risks, and played more fast-and-loose than I was comfortable with coming from aerospace. The critically of a Navy ship is much lower than a rocket. If we made small mistakes in the design (structurally speaking) everything would mostly be fine, but we wouldn't get the life out of the ship that was required. (For example, it would only last 10 years instead of the required 28.) Those ships are inspected often enough that any fatigue cracks would be caught and repaired before something bad would happen. But still, we had requirements to meet and we never had the time necessary to do the work thoroughly. Also the company that I worked for was constantly looking for opportunities to lay people off (that whole over budget thing). In the 5 years, that I was there, I think I witnesses 7 layoffs, usually small groups, but sometimes big groups. So yeah, it wasn't a great work environment.

Now I work for a company that designs and manufactures factory equipment. I'd give my *current stress level a 4 out of 10*. This work is not critical. Now I'm a borderline expert in my field, so my personally responsibility is very high. But schedule pressure is rare. The company is extremely well run and profitable; it treats employees with respect and trust. Honestly, it's great here and I really love it. Sure, it's not as cool as space ships, but this is the happiest I've been in a job.


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## Road Guy (Mar 10, 2020)

&amp; it does sort of matter where you are in the "Food Chain" I once worked for a County Government and if you are familiar with "Coach Pitch" baseball (where the coach pitches) I had to take an angry call/ass chewing from the County Manager and an elected official in between pitching a game (on a Saturday) - It was a job you could never really escape.

Had I been 1 or 2 pay grades lower I would have 90% less stress.

&amp; I have been in much higher paid consulting positions where I could waltz out the door on a Friday at lunch and not have to worry about getting any calls or having a crisis develop.


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 10, 2020)

jean15paul_PE said:


> This is a very interesting question to me because I've worked in a few different fields. Sorry for the long response.
> 
> tl;dr: You asked how stressful your field is, but* stress is a combination of many things*. *Your field *definitely plays a part, but also *your individual level of responsibility*, and *your work environment* (e.g. how well the organization is run, how good the managers are, etc), *your coworkers*, and also *how much you enjoy your job*.
> 
> ...


To your tl;dr, I didn't know at the time how to put it better. Maybe using the term workload would have been better. All I could think of at that moment was, "Are you bad enough dude(tte) to do your job and not cry for your mom!?"


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## ChebyshevII PE PMP (Mar 11, 2020)

random_soldier1337 said:


> Are you bad enough dude(tte) to do your job and not cry for your mom!?


If I’m honest I’d say the answer is both yes and no.


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## P-E (Mar 11, 2020)

random_soldier1337 said:


> I get that. I just didn't realize it was that bad at unis. I didn't realize you could just scrape by doing the base minimum. Or less in some cases that I have seen.
> 
> My aversion to industry is not so much the results part as the part that you can't do much of anything that doesn't maximize profit. I definitely don't think there is much of an industry for figuring out what goes on inside black holes.
> 
> Interesting. Can you tell me more?


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## JayKay PE (Mar 11, 2020)

jean15paul_PE said:


> This is a very interesting question to me because I've worked in a few different fields. Sorry for the long response.
> 
> tl;dr: You asked how stressful your field is, but* stress is a combination of many things*. *Your field *definitely plays a part, but also *your individual level of responsibility*, and *your work environment* (e.g. how well the organization is run, how good the managers are, etc), *your coworkers*, and also *how much you enjoy your job*.


All I learned from this is: you're way more badass that I thought and you are potentially much older than I thought.

Or am I getting older, too? *Dixie Chicks starts to play in the background*


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## Edgy Cheesy Graphite PE (Mar 11, 2020)

JayKay PE said:


> All I learned from this is: you're way more badass that I thought and you are potentially much older than I thought.
> 
> Or am I getting older, too? *Dixie Chicks starts to play in the background*


LOL. Any badassedness is due to some good training and lots of experience. Curious how old you thought I am? I just turned 39. You? Ignoring internships and stuff, I have ~16 years of experience (8 in aerospace, 5 in shipbuilding, 3 in commercial equipment... although I'd call all of that "advanced manufacturing" if I was assigning an industry to my career). So yeah, I guess I'm starting to get old.


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## JayKay PE (Mar 11, 2020)

jean15paul_PE said:


> LOL. Any badassedness is due to some good training and lots of experience. Curious how old you thought I am? I just turned 39. You? Ignoring internships and stuff, I have ~16 years of experience (8 in aerospace, 5 in shipbuilding, 3 in commercial equipment... although I'd call all of that "advanced manufacturing" if I was assigning an industry to my career). So yeah, I guess I'm starting to get old.


Idk, I def thought you were closer to early 30s, but then I assume everyone on this forum is the same age.  Even though there are obvious tells: like children over 20 and other stuff.  I am lame and have a single structured mind.  Now that you're listing out years of work I'm like...oh no.  I worked that long too.  AM I GETTING OLD?  DID I FORGET TO PICK UP MY MEMO?


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## NikR_PE (Mar 11, 2020)

JayKay PE said:


> AM I GETTING OLD?  DID I FORGET TO PICK UP MY MEMO?


ld-025:


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 11, 2020)

P-E said:


> View attachment 16696


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq_Fm7qfRQk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABzWafwY20o


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## Orchid PE (Mar 11, 2020)

Out of the four jobs I've had, all dealing with some sort of electrical, only 1/4 was constantly stressful.

I worked for a manufacturer that developed rugged avionics and surveillance equipment for the US and foreign military, and SpaceX. The stress was a 10/10 on a daily basis, mainly because our sales team didn't know how long it actually took to develop, test, and produce the equipment. They would get new contracts and tell the customers it would only take like 6 months to develop a new product, but in reality it takes ~2 years. So from the beginning of most projects, we were already behind. Plus management treated everyone like sh*t, and was constantly belittling and cursing out everyone.

Working for a consulting engineering firm doing MEP+S designs was a stress level of 3/10. Only stressful when the customer changes their mind about something, but the project deadline didn't change.

Working for a utility in FL, stress was a 2/10 on a daily basis (responsibility 5/10, since there was another engineer doing the same job), then a 8/10 when a hurricane hit.

Working for a utility in TN, stress is a 2/10, and level of responsibility is a 10/10. I'm the only engineer doing my job (and that knows how to do my job at the company), and it deals with real-time systems, so if something goes down it can be stressful for a little while. Especially when I get a call in the middle of the night saying something broke, because everything I work on has to be fixed ASAP. I don't mind though, because I enjoy working under pressure. I just don't like working under pressure 100% of the time. Like, this week is pretty stressful so far with like 4 different systems acting up, and then having other stuff I need to work on for coworkers, but I know within a few days everything will be back to normal for a while.


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## LyceeFruit PE (Mar 11, 2020)

I work in consulting for utilities. Generally I'm not terribly stressed. It's usually coworkers who make my life stressful. I've had a few projects that were real grinders, the work kept growing, the project was underscoped so it was underbudgeted (plus an EPC job) and the schedule couldn't change because the outages were already set. I once took a run a lunch during that project, tripped on a crack, fell, and starting crying since it was just the final straw. 

But in general, idk, 3/10? My current client is one of the better ones I've worked with and now I have input with scope/schedule/budget so I know what I'm getting into.


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## ChebyshevII PE PMP (Mar 11, 2020)

I work for a small engineering contractor, and my role is software/control systems engineering, primarily. Roughly 70% of my job is engineering control systems for customers, and the other 30% is starting up those control systems at the customer site. I've been at this job for almost 7 years (considered a senior engineer now, so my level of responsibility is mid-to-high level), and it's my first job out of college.

My work is about a 7/10 or 8/10 stress level right now. But it fluctuates depending on how busy we are. The primary reasons the job can be so stressful are as follows:

1) We're frequently up against very tight deadlines.

2) Customers are not always responsive and won't always provide us with the information we need to make a project successful in a timely manner.

3) Customers expect control systems/software engineers to be wizards who should be able to wave their wand and make things work, and get very irritable when the situation turns out to be anything to the contrary.

4) Starting up control systems is a huge gamble, because you never know what's going to happen (obviously, we do as much preparation as possible, but even with this there are unknowns that inevitably crop up).

5) Control systems can be dangerous and kill someone if not done properly. You constantly have to be concerned with how what you are doing may affect the safety of the end user.

All this said, would I trade my job for anything less stressful? I don't think so, at least not at this stage of my life. I'm hardly ever bored in my role and I feel very accomplished whenever I complete a project, especially a large one.

On top of that, being at my current role has helped me learn to deal with stress in ways that I would not have learned anywhere else.


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 11, 2020)

From what I'm gathering, a lot of it seems to be due to a schism between the technical and non-technical people. Is that somewhat right?


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## Edgy Cheesy Graphite PE (Mar 11, 2020)

I'd like to add after reading some responses....

Not all stress is bad. Too much stress can certainly be bad, but I would find a job with zero stress VERY boring. Stress is what moves people to getting stuff done. 

Stress = pressure (both in measured in force per area). I would be skeptical of any job with zero pressure. #BadEngineeringAnalogies  LOL


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## User1 (Mar 11, 2020)

ChebyshevII PE said:


> I work for a small engineering contractor, and my role is software/control systems engineering, primarily. Roughly 70% of my job is engineering control systems for customers, and the other 30% is starting up those control systems at the customer site. I've been at this job for almost 7 years (considered a senior engineer now, so my level of responsibility is mid-to-high level), and it's my first job out of college.
> 
> My work is about a 7/10 or 8/10 stress level right now. But it fluctuates depending on how busy we are. The primary reasons the job can be so stressful are as follows:
> 
> ...


I'm still struggling to accept that you're not structural, apparently...


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## User1 (Mar 11, 2020)

I feel like my stress level is HIGH AF right now. 

I'm in between doing the work myself and managing/delegating to more people, so my pay is lower than desired and my responsibility is higher and I am a very dependable and responsible person so I end up trying to delegate and then balls get dropped or higher ups take that help away and I end up having to pick it up myself anyway.


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## User1 (Mar 11, 2020)

I am structural, unlike @ChebyshevII PE, apparently.


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## mudpuppy (Mar 11, 2020)

Is it bad that I hope for things to break/blow up/burn down because it makes my job more fun/stressful?


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## LyceeFruit PE (Mar 11, 2020)

tj_PE said:


> I feel like my stress level is HIGH AF right now.
> 
> I'm in between doing the work myself and managing/delegating to more people, so my pay is lower than desired and my responsibility is higher and I am a very dependable and responsible person so I end up trying to delegate and then balls get dropped or higher ups take that help away and I end up having to pick it up myself anyway.


Oh ive been there too. It sucks. Hope theres light at the end of the tunnel friend


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## RBHeadge PE (Mar 12, 2020)

mudpuppy said:


> Is it bad that I hope for things to break/blow up/burn down because it makes my job more fun/stressful?


That depends, do you do forensic engineering?


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## random_soldier1337 (Mar 13, 2020)

RBHeadge PE said:


>


Is that a subway tunnel? This may have just turned morbid.


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## civilrobot PE etc etc (Mar 13, 2020)

Usually not very stressful at all. It was pretty stressful today though. I’m responsible for keeping a workforce of 400+ working on programs (requirements through construction) so I had to create policies, procedures and workflows that didn’t exist before.


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## Exengineer (Mar 22, 2020)

You will have stress when you have to babysit the company you work for, that is you are responsible for finding clients, performing the work and ensuring your department makes a profit every time regardless of circumstances.  Recession?  Not the company's problem, that's YOUR problem.   Clients going bankrupt or moving operations to China?  Same thing, the company bears no responsibility for that.  A recipe for ulcers and heart disease.


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## Platypus Engineer (Mar 26, 2020)

Supe said:


> First of a kind, incredibly high regulatory scrutiny, uneducated/nonexistent supply chain, payments tied to milestones, high employee turnover, huge workforce generation gap, huge workforce knowledge gap - just about any variable you can throw into the equation exists.


Sounds what I used to experience working on oil and gas pipelines. Plus someone with an 8 to 5 mentality in a 24/7 environment. And the 100-150 nights a year in hotel rooms.


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## envirotex (Mar 27, 2020)

Times like these make me wish I was still in school...


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## Platypus Engineer (Mar 27, 2020)

envirotex said:


> Times like these make me wish I was still in school...


Not me. I sometimes miss days on my last job where I was out on pipeline right of way and the only other human voices I heard were on truck radio.


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## random_soldier1337 (Apr 7, 2020)

envirotex said:


> Times like these make me wish I was still in school...


Why is that?


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## envirotex (Apr 10, 2020)

random_soldier1337 said:


> Why is that?


Lots of uncertainty in real world problems that affect real people...


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## DoctorWho-PE (Apr 10, 2020)

tj_PE said:


> I'm still struggling to accept that you're not structural, apparently...


We want all the cool kids to be structural.


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## DoctorWho-PE (Apr 10, 2020)

tj_PE said:


> I feel like my stress level is HIGH AF right now.
> 
> I'm in between doing the work myself and managing/delegating to more people, so my pay is lower than desired and my responsibility is higher and I am a very dependable and responsible person so I end up trying to delegate and then balls get dropped or higher ups take that help away and I end up having to pick it up myself anyway.


This is a constant battle for me, I'm supposed to be delegating my stuff to the young engineers, yet the engineers above me are delegating to the same people, and who are they going to work harder for, me or their supervisor?


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