Field Service is not for me

I am sorry guys I need to vent. I hate to be the guy who is switching jobs again but I have been living in a hotel room for almost 3 months putting in 70+ hours a week without a day off, on top of all that I cannot get any support from my company. If anyone knows of any job openings in the controls or maintenance field. I have extensive experience with PLC's HMI,s Instrumentation, servos, and Vfd's I would like to move to the Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi area. please feel free to email me at [email protected]
I spend all day at work then 2-3 hours a night looking for jobs online. Maybe I am just fustrated. Anywhoo thanks for listening

Dallas

What did you think field service was??
Welcome to my world.

You dont want to work for me!

Dallas, I hear you, brother. You're in exactly the same spot I was in about 6 years ago. I was working all day and all night, getting pulled from job to job, going in to fix other people's mistakes.... I was sleeping in MCC rooms and eating in truck stops and forgetting what my girlfriend looked like.

Field Service STINKS !

But it wasn't so bad for the other guy I traveled with. He'd embraced it, mellowed out a little. The Company paid for his truck and 5th wheel, and he and his wife travelled from jobsite to jobsite, spending about 3-6 months at each one. When he crossed the border, he looked cheerily at the Customs agent and said "going fishing."

I wish I'd mellowed out more when I was working in the field. Now I'm in an office, and I never get to go out into factories or jobsites. My steel-toed boots have dust on them, instead of dirt. I can't remember the last time I flirted with a waitress at a truck stop or smoked a cigarette with the 3rd shift millwrights.

Learn as much as you can from the situations you get placed into. DEMAND overtime. Give yourself a safety pep-talk every morning and wear those uncomfortable eyeshields. Think about getting up tomorrow every time you pop the defeater lever on an MCC bucket.

Most guys can last 3-5 years doing what you do. If you've got more than that in, and it's getting to you this bad, keep working on those job searches.

Originally posted by Ken Roach Learn as much as you can from the situations you get placed into.

Click to expand...

That was just as valuable as any hardware, programming, control advice, etc. Do what you can with what you got and there you are.

Hello,

Dallas, switching jobs is OK but there are some things to think of,

Look for a job were that interest you 100%, don't switch jobs to get away from the one you have now. If I read your story you put alot of emotion in it, this isn't the best thing to do at a job interview. Always remember : the gras is always greener on the other side. But in your current situation it probably is.
I wish you all the luck in the world and let's hope you succeed in finding another job. I know what your talking about, I was a year ago in the same position.

Good luck Rudi

I like field service, but in manageable doses. Right now I've got a guy laid up, so I'm doing way more than I want to.

Before you change jobs, consider getting your current one restructured. Talk to your boss, explain that you cannot take being on the road every single week. Figure out what you can cope with - maybe every other week or once every three weeks. If you are a top troubleshooter maybe they can accommodate that, and only send you out on the tough ones. Offer to train one or two other guys, so they have some backup and nobody burns out. You can cross train on the jobs the new guys have, so the company actually wins, you win, the other guys win, and world peace will ensue (well, maybe not the last thing, but still a good deal all around)

Something to think about.

I feel that the one of the main issues is that your company doesn't give you the attention you deserve. Its a classic amongst field engineers. But unfortunately, you will find the same scenario in other positions, even when your boss is sitting right across the office.

Either you need to take the mellow road as Ken Roach describes or you need to find yourself another position.

Why not list the positive and the negative aspects of your job. Write them down on paper and you will have a list to work with. Either for things to be changed in your current job or things that you will be looking for in your next.

The great things about working in the field is the many, many different jobs and challenges and the many, many different people you meet. The downside is that you are ALWAYS espected to get things running in half the time than anybody else would accept. So if its not for money issues you work that much, do it for the fun and challenges in it and to enjoy it. Find your own pace and not everybody elses. Everybody espects 50 hour work weeks, but not 70+.

I hope you'll find a way to overcome you current troubles. Sometimes it needs to rain in order to appriciate the sun.

Glad to see ( joking ) there are alot
of other suckers out there besides me.
I am or was in the sort of the same boat
as eastkodakguy. The company I work for
sells its machines worldwide. I have been
in South Korea and Taiwan three months
straight several times. Plus various
other domestic sites the same time frame.
The biggest kicker is your stuck there
that long because other people are not doing their jobs correctly and you end up
fixing all the screw ups , finishing up
35%-75% uncompleted work , being a
puching bag for the lieing salesman who promised everything to the customer just to get the sale. I could go on and on.....
My suggestion to you is if you have some
seniority tell them you want to stop going on the road as soon as possible. If your good they are going to have a hard time replacing you with someone competent. Then that causes major problems for other people and maybe get the rocks rolling around in the managements heads. If you do not get treated better keep looking for another job. I have seen this scenio played out many times. Management acts tough and
does not treat their key people well.
Many quit and others put up with it but are not working up to their full potential. The company suffers and in the
end either ends up being bankrupt or close to it. Like I said if you paid your dues ask for some of the rewards back.....

Great feedback!

Well, I have listened to what everyone has said so far. I love control work. I couldn't see myself in any other field. I feel like an old man and I just turned 23. I eat sleep and breath control work 24hrs a day 7 days a week for months on end. too much is too much I realize every job has its ups and downs. The biggest thing I like about my current job is I am challenged. I like to be thrown into a situation I have never been in and its either sink or swim. I was one of three guys hired at the same time. Neither have been on the road alone like myself. I was on the road alone 2 months after I started. Just me, my backpack/laptop, toolbox and little to no training. I have went in at 7 in the morning and not walked out the door to go home until the sun was coming up the next day. Not a safe thing to do but I did it. My biggest concern is major mechanical design flaws. I keep addressing them, making suggestions but nothing is being done. The customer is the least of my worries to be honest the majority seem to be pretty pleased with my work and they normally request me to come if they are having a new install or problem. My company is way too cheap. Lean manufacturing does not = cheap made. At least we normally use AB processors. Indramat servos are not to bad either (nice programming software) I can pull wire and terminate and do my IO checkout in 3-4 days per machine not fun if I have 6-7 machines. Then I deal with the same HMI/PLC/Servo programs with the same problems. When I am done and it works I give the program to the designer, and what do you know when I go to a new install its the same old program without my changes. They never bother to use the program that has shown to work. oh well this is probably not making any sense my brain is on overload right now
take it easy

Take a long vacation. Burnout happens to all of us and we need down time to recover. Jobs are hard to get these days, but you can not replace your health.
Cut the hours to 50 and find a way to keep it there. Simply packup and go to the hotel. At worst case you will get fired. At best you will get help. You are (or will be) endangering yourself and others by working long hours with out a break.
I have been in that situation twice and did not have the sense to get out. I was helped out by being laid off in one case and fired in the other. Being fired was the best thing that every happened to me. I have my health and sanity back. I am still doing what I like, controls and engineering problem solving.

Hi EKG, sorry to hear that what I warned you about those folks has come true...strange, but when I unpacked my bag down here Monday night, there was one of their hats at the bottom...I will now go out and burn it...maybe the flame will singe head b..ches butt. Don't worry, do your homework, and remember that hotel lounges can be a real learning environment, listen well.
Send me a PM w/ your resume, I may have an opening in BG,ky for you.
BTW, even though I mainly work in BG, here I am in Baton Rouge, and then next week I will be in Lexington, Frankfort and Hopkinsville, Ky...Ahh, windshield time....

David

Dallas,

I sent you an email but not sure if you received it.........maybe your spam blocker got it. Anyway, I thought I would let you know that we have a couple of opportunities here in Cleveland, Ohio in a factory environment. I know it's not your preferred area, and I can't guarantee that you'd be doing controls work 100% of the time, but the work is stable with little to no travel. Usually the only travel involved is when you're sent for off-site training. If you think you might be interested, send me your resume at [email protected] and I'll get it into the right hands here.

Jeff

Wow jshiepe, that's a nice jesture!

Anybody in Fort Worth wanna make a jesture like that?

Siemens Energy & Automation

We're looking for an AE in the southeast. Lots of travel, but it would fit into your TN search (Johnson City). Learn more about the job, by going to Monster.com and searching Knoxville, TN, keyword "Siemens". It is titled "Sr Application Engineer". S7-200 experience would help a lot.