Sorry about that Frank, nothing personal intended.......in today's environment, however, most BA's have difficulty finding good jobs, where there is a severe shortage of those in the science disciplines.....
Before I retired last spring, I had two openings for engineers under my supervision that had been open for over two years, and remained unfilled (starting salary $85k, full benefits, 2 yrs experience req'd).......the company still has not found a replacement for my position......
doc
I'll go even further. The position in which I work "requires" a two-year degree, or suitable experience. But being a small field, companies these days are not at all inclined to develop talent internally, instead content to operate under the assumption that the talent pool will always be sufficient, or at worst case, contractors can be brought in to do the work.
Which leads to a couple of problems. 1--even taking a kid with a Bachelor's, they don't necessarily have the EXPERIENCE in the field, and fewer still want to sit in a substation or switchyard in -40 wind chill or 115 degree heat, or deal with REAL voltages that will make you REAL DEAD if you screw up. Which leads to problem 2--Better to sit on a computer and crunch numbers in a nice comfy office all day, then ship the numbers out to the poor schlubs in the field (me) to play trained monkey and just do as they say. Only problem is, it doesn't quite work that way. Many's the time I've seen relay settings that didn't look right, and surely enough, testing them shows that they weren't right.
But of course, don't tell them that, they're engineers, dammit. Which means you have to have THEIR level of theoretical knowledge in order to show them the error or their ways, coupled along with real-world field experience, whether you have the sheepskin or not. At least the smart engineers are willing to admit they are capable of mistakes, as evidenced by the red/green markups on prints I submitted at the end of each job.
Which brings me to my last employer. My manager thought I was little more than a trained monkey, and didn't bother to find out otherwise. (He was generally regarded as an ass, but I digress.) He thought he could get anyone to do what I did. Turns out that after I left, he had to hire THREE college kids to replace me, and none of them lasted more than a year because they didn't have the rapport or field experience I did. Sadly, his attitude is pretty prevalent in a lot of fields these days.
We had four relay techs at my current employer. One got fed up with the company taking so long to get him classed over and necessary schooling, he went back to being a senior electrician. One is currently off work without pay, pending a court case which, if found guilty, will see him go bye-bye. The other is retiring in a year. That leaves me. Does HR or management think they can just pick a kid off the street and shove him into a relay room, and expect him to know everything in a year? I'm here to tell you, that ain't gonna happen. I've been with my current employer nearly FOUR years and am just getting comfortable with all the processes and procedures I'm expected to handle.
