Engineer vs Professional
Q. i was having a late night discussion with the wife last night .. it
seems my kid wants to go to engineering school but my wife is pushing
him to go to a school and become a professional ( like a doctor, or
gulp ... lawyer ) and not "just" an engineer ... she believes that
steady employment and respect within the community are strong selling
points ... the recent engineering employment situation makes my stand
a bit weaker ... just thinking out loud .. mike
( background - after 15 years as a semiconductor process engineer my
company is offering me a final 3 months of employment if I am willing
to travel to India to train the Indian engineers who will be replacing
me in the new company R&D facility there as this good ole American
company is shutting the American R&D facility down this spring )
A. -i totally agree with your wife. need to be in a profession that
is outsourcing proof, and that you can practice without an
employer (with low overhead of going it alone).
irax (engineer now, though wish i was a lawyer...)
-3 months *employment* ?!?! Are you getting a severance package or
just being screwed?
If it were me, and I could see a way to survive, I'd just say "go f...
yourself", and walk.
I did just that in 1969 when Motorola wanted me to lay off some of my
engineers. I laid myself off and walked. Then all my guys (engineers
and techs) quit and joined me at my new place of employment.
Aside: In the greatest of American traditions, semiconductor firm
"A....", is laying off workers at American divisions instead of at
German divisions. In Germany it takes 6 months notice and a big
severance package, so it's cheaper to dump American jobs. The main
American division of "A...." is now reduced to a skeleton force.
-Take the Indian assignment, train them badly. Put M&Ms in the vacuum
pumps, or convince them they need an O2 flush in the tubes instead of
N2.