Starting a new chapter in my life

DriveHard

DriveHard

Joined
Nov 24, 2003
Messages
3,791
Location
Middle of Iowa
I've been personally going through a lot of internal turmoil to the point of seeking therapy, and sadly disrupting my marriage. Conclusion being, that I needed to change everything...which I am uber excited about. I don't live well when not pushed and challenged. (I am still happily married, and am blessed with my bride and her ability to stand behind me)

During this week I will transition from being a lead Engineering Manager in R&D for a major hydraulics firm to an entry level application engineer for a GPS intelligence company.

I have a TON to learn, but they assured me that nobody joins their company with any previous knowledge. I was selected due to multi-disciplined engineering capability and some much needed customer relations capability.

I have only worked for two companies in my 22 year professional career, and this is a HUGE change for me.

I have another secret, I hope to talk about soon...

Thanks, BITOG! I will continue to answer the few hydraulic questions I see :)
 
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Hey BITOG,

In my post about life changes, I hinted at a secret I was working on.

Starting a new chapter...

I've been personally going through a lot of internal turmoil to the point of seeking therapy, and sadly disrupting my marriage. Conclusion being, that I needed to change everything...which I am uber excited about. I don't live well when not pushed and challenged. (I am still happily married...
bobistheoilguy.com

Anyways...I was interviewing for an adjunct professor position at Milwaukee School of Engineers (MSOE). So in addition to my new career working on GPS, I will be teaching hydraulics part time for a great university!!!

I never thought I would be a "professor".
 
Congratulations and yes, welcome to the club, or the ivory tower, or whatever they're calling it these days. I'll PM you the instructions on the initiation rites-they involve several tasks requiring overly long and complicated answers to what on the surface are pedantic and insignificant points but will require multiple pages to address every nuanced situation. Be sure you type it single spaced in 12 point Helvitica with 1/2" margins. Administration will print it, measure the thickness of the printout, and give it a cursory glance before passing so as to claim they did something.

In all seriousness, I've never had a "real job" outside academia, and am in my 4th full school year now doing it full time. It can be frustrating and demanding, but I wouldn't trade it for anything. I was an occasional adjunct along side my full-time job(Scientific Instrument Specialist in Chemistry at a big school) for 5 years prior to doing this, and of course a TA in graduate school.

I don't know what adjunct wages look like where you are, but ours are awful and I've never known a school that could brag about "good" adjunct pay(ours are just extra awful at a middle of nowhere community college). Fortunately you have a full time job to pay the bills and can do it pretty much because you want to. That's always where I was, especially when I got to teach instrumental analysis(you have no idea how badly I wish I could still do that), but the extra money was nice too.

Enjoy and also don't get discouraged if your first semester doesn't go the way you had planned. Flexibiltiy is the name of the game! Also try not to get caught up in all the administrative minutia that FT faculty have to deal with-we try to insulate our adjuncts from it as much as we can.
 
Outstanding. I tutored a troubled kid in Math years ago; I never forgot the experience. I taught certain types of database programming to groups at work.

Not to be compared with what you are doing, but I never imagined how rewarding those experiences turned out to be.
 
Just coming across this from your other post. Good on you to go to therapy. I don't know what you're going through but I wish you the best.

I myself have been considering going for some time but IDK why I don't. I think it would help me with a lot of stuff. I really should...
 
DriveHard said:
I've been personally going through a lot of internal turmoil to the point of seeking therapy, and sadly disrupting my marriage. Conclusion being, that I needed to change everything...which I am uber excited about. I don't live well when not pushed and challenged. (I am still happily married, and am blessed with my bride and her ability to stand behind me)

During this week I will transition from being a lead Engineering Manager in R&D for a major hydraulics firm to an entry level application engineer for a GPS intelligence company.

I have a TON to learn, but they assured me that nobody joins their company with any previous knowledge. I was selected due to multi-disciplined engineering capability and some much needed customer relations capability.

I have only worked for two companies in my 22 year professional career, and this is a HUGE change for me.

I have another secret, I hope to talk about soon...

Thanks, BITOG! I will continue to answer the few hydraulic questions I see :)
Click to expand...
I must say I went from a manager to higher paid worker bee at a better company in 2005. Worked there more or less very happily until I retired Jan 2021. I mean some people enjoy managing others and are really great at it, so I'm not disparaging managers. But the extra stress, the constant people BS, no, just not for me. Not worth it, IMHO unless your true target is the top I suppose.

Good on you!!
 
1) sorry to hear of your troubles.
2) congrats on the new job!
3) why in the world did you need to start a second thread rather than just continuing the first thread ????????

THREADS have been MERGED
 
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Job changing is a challenge and I was never excited about that. Maybe some 15 years ago. Now the free time or time spent for me is priceless.
Anyway, good luck with your personal and professional life. It’s hard to speak in front of such a respectable audience like bitoggers, so you will do it !
 
2014, 2015 was the project manager to rollout 2000 Geotab GPS units on a well known CPG company in Canada, installation and training of its use, drivers and managers. Quite the process and experience.
Interesting that Geotab bought a US startup, which happened to have its HQ in Las Vegas. Had a few business trips there.
Good luck on your new job!
 
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