Getting burned out on controls

[whatnoise]

I've been involved in some level of the controls industry since I graduated from college (1986). I have been a project manager for the last six years and this stuff is just getting old. I used to be interested in all the new technology but now all I want to do is finish the next job.

Anyone else hit the wall? What did you do to make it interesting again?

[jogas]

I've done Project Management and IMHO, it's a PITA.
There are so many other jobs in this industry, find one that interests you.

[lwarren]

Well I am burned out on driving an average of 3 to 4 hrs a day, but I don't know what else I would do.

If you are not doing Tridium Ax I would suggest trying to get involved with it. There is so much to learn, and your imagination is the limit with what you can do with it.

If I was not using AX right now I would probably go back into service.

[whatnoise]

Our programmers and techs work with the software, PM's are the babysitters. I make good money doing the job and I will keep on doing it especially when service tech pay is almost half of what I make. I just wondered what keeps you interested in the job.

[davetec]

Our programmers and techs work with the software, PM's are the babysitters. I make good money doing the job and I will keep on doing it especially when service tech pay is almost half of what I make. I just wondered what keeps you interested in the job.

I used to be fascinated with controls but now it's a job. I think at certain age things change and what got you interested is old hat now. I look forward to things I do outside of work and hope I can retire before I die. My dad retired a few years ago and he is as happy as a pig in sh*t.

[shifferbrains]

I retired a few months ago but my old job is still open.

Try this on for size....

https://hr.mycareer.ucla.edu/applica...=1199251515972

[srobinsn]

I used to be excited about controls but lately it is just a job. I used to love to go to work and now I can’t get out of bed to save my life. The pay is good and nobody really hassles me, it has just gotten old.

I'm attending a Tridium course next week maybe that will inspire me.

[codewriter]

I'm attending a Tridium course next week maybe that will inspire me.

In more ways than you can currently imagine...

[whatnoise]

Interesting you mention Tridium. I was talking to our VP of controls about my situation and he suggested getting back into programming. I haven't done much of it for the past 5 or 6 years but I think it would get me back into the technology. He me wanted to look into the Tridium package and do some research to see if it would work for us. We do more plan and spec and I don't see Tridium in the list of approved manufacturers on most jobs. Ho do you apply it in that circumstance?

[beer30]

Tridium does not have field controllers that I know of, unless you count the Jace with NDIO. They do have a very good supervisory controller capable if integrating multiple field protocols into a single, easy to use, web accessable format.

And after 20+ years in the controls business, I was getting burned out big time. A change of scenery gave me a boost, and learning the Tridium product was a big part of that.

[lwarren]

Interesting you mention Tridium. I was talking to our VP of controls about my situation and he suggested getting back into programming. I haven't done much of it for the past 5 or 6 years but I think it would get me back into the technology. He me wanted to look into the Tridium package and do some research to see if it would work for us. We do more plan and spec and I don't see Tridium in the list of approved manufacturers on most jobs. Ho do you apply it in that circumstance?

90 percent of what we do is plan and spec. We are a Honeywell ACI contractor but they are rarely listed in the specs. We call the engineers and talk to them about what we have. As long as it is not a flat spec it has never been a problem getting it on the approved list.

Think about, alot of control mfg's are utilizing Tridium now.

[osiyo]

I've been involved in some level of the controls industry since I graduated from college (1986). I have been a project manager for the last six years and this stuff is just getting old. I used to be interested in all the new technology but now all I want to do is finish the next job.

Anyone else hit the wall? What did you do to make it interesting again?

Is it that you're tired of CONTROLS work? Or perhaps you're just tired of doing what Project Managers do for a living?

Just wondering.

I retired from the Navy after 23 years of active duty. One of the problems I had for the last several years of that period was that I'd moved up in rank and position to a point where my duties and responsibilities were primarily supervisory, managerial, administrative, and dealing with personnel issues. I was far removed from any hands on work with equipment.

Didn't realize the nature of the problem at the time. Just knew that while my performance at my assigned duties was rated at the top 3% of my peers ... I wasn't a happy camper. Had to work at it to keep myself self-motivated, engaged, involved and interested.

Upon retiring from the Navy my first civilian employment put me in management, again. At a level where I again had little direct involvement with the equipment involved. Made good money .... excellent money. But I was still unhappy and not looking forward to each day. Bored, not really liking doing what I was doing. Did it well, exceptionally ... or so I was told. However, I had this bad habit. When something (equipment/facilities for which I had managerial responsibilities) took a dump, or had serious issues ... I had a tendency to jump in and want to take over resolving the problem or fixing the item myself, personally.

On a number of occasions I was reminded by those higher up in the food chain than myself that I wasn't supposed to show up on a site with a tool or instrument in my hands, or spend time on a site suggesting to a technician that since his way was obviously not working, how about he try again using my way? Etc. And that such things (wastes of my time given the position I held) were causing me to be late with IMPORTANT stuff like updating the latest spreadsheets and project completion forecast files or to miss IMPORTANT meetings like the one where a committee was to resolve the issue of the cost-benefit ratio, and pros and cons, of standardizing the type of file folders and folder labeling system used throughout the corporation. That last item being at least somewhat important in that corporation-wide it seemed like an item that might save the corporation as much as $1.7 million annually. But, somehow, I just had trouble mustering up any enthusiasm for spending a few hours in such a meeting, reviewing all the data being presented by the bean counters to justify their position on the subject. Not to mention, $1.7 million to that corporation had less impact than a penny, more or less, in your or my pocket.

In the end, I turned in my walking papers and applied for a lower position opening. As a field engineer. (Glorified title for a senior tech)

Took a pretty severe pay hit. But I had reviewed that. Could still make the bills and put food on the table with enough left over for buying some bait and enough gas for the fishing boat to suit me.

But the end result was that I was a happier camper. New duties meant that I got to directly plan and supervise new projects, do acceptance testing and inspections, and even got to use a tool or instrument time to time whenever the site technician(s) needed help or were stumped by something. (Had to give them first shot at fixing the problem ... union rules. But could jump in if they asked me for help.)

I'd found my new home ... I was happier doing that sort of work than what I'd been doing. Yeah, like anyone else there were times when I b*tched and moaned and griped and wondered why in the world did I ever choose to do this kind of work. But there were also the times when I got the satisfaction of having something I'd had my hands on purr like a charm ... works fine, lasts a long time. Or had a control/monitoring system I'd designed work just as I'd envisioned it working. Or had that program for a controller working just as it was designed to work. And those things gave me a sense of satisfaction, and happiness, that my previous duties had not.

My point is ... that one can be good at a particular job, and make lots of money. But still not actually LIKE the kind of work one is doing. When that happens, it's decision making time. And no one else can make the decision for you.

I'm also sure that I'm not the only one who feels like this. I've known too many others, personally, who've found themselves in the same boat.

At the same corporation as the one I refer to above, I knew several examples. One fellow had worked his way up from being on a construction crew to being a regional manager of vehicles/construction machines. Last several years in the job before he retired from there he wasn't much of a happy camper. After retiring, he bought several used ditch-witches, back hoes, etc and started a little independent contractor company. Just himself, a son, a nephew, etc. Had his wife working as the company accountant, sales person, business manager, receptionist, and girl-Friday. I ran across him one day, seated in a back hoe going at it hard and heavy, sweaty and dirty as heck ... but he had a big smile on his face. He was back at doing the kind of work that he LIKED.

Etc. I know many real examples.

Perhaps it not CONTROLS that's boring you. Maybe it's being a project manager, the kind of thing a project manager does for a living, that's boring you.

[hotrod53]

I know what you mean, I went thru that back a few years ago. I can't help but remember what a good friend told me when I first took a PM job. He said "I know what those people do for a living and it can't help but change your personality and who you are". He was right, the travel, the late nights, the phone never quits ringing, wondering just how some people can sleep at night after the crap that they pulled on you that day, being away from the family while on the road jobs, the wife complaining about you not being there when you WANTED to be there, no appreciation for you personal sacrifices, no doubt....it gets to you!

I was forced into a different position due to company growth, I went from PM to Service Manager, in many ways it is the same crap but it's different crap from different people every day. The phone still rings constantly, the hours still suck, the travel still sucks, sometimes you're still under appreciated, but hey its' a living and not a bad one. I'll take service over PM any day of the week.

Some day I'm going to give this all up and I'm counting on getting some hair back, losing some weight, my stress levels will drop down, my wife will quit bitc@#ng, and I'll once again become the calm mild manored guy that I once was. Who am I kidding, I'll be dead before that!

[alertontech]

Project Management is tough. You get it from both ends. From the contractors and from your company. I was offered a PM job and turned it down.

If I had to do it all over again, probably would have just become a inside wireman. Put in conduit and run wires. DONE.

[Overtake]

I have to admit this field can be really dry sometimes. Annoying too. Whether its working on the programming end or fixing problems I find myself less motivated than I used to be. At my last company I loved the job I had and the people I worked with especially. But the company was paying me and others heavily below what we were qualified so a bunch of us left. I ended up at a new company that kind of does controls on so many different systems and now I am kind of like what the heck because one day I can be working on something modern like Trane and then the next will be some blast from the past like ancient Andover. I know its not so bad if you started in this field back in the 80's or early 90's because you got to grow with this technology. For a guy like me who has been doing it less than 10 years it can still take a while when you have to constantly figure out why someone would do such a thing (referring to ancient systems).

[LynxBob]

Our company is an OEM of Tridium and makes the JACE product under the name JENEsys. If anyone wants to try the product out, contact me or visit www.lynxspring.com

[HVAC Teacher]

I hear you. I got pigeon holed for 3 years as "the pneumatics guy". I got stuck with every job. Everyone wants to learn the DDC & no one is interested in pneumatics. Bottom line: there is tons of it still out there and the stuff lasts forever!

[joeatcs&e]

I'm a DDC tech, and if offered, I would more than likely turn down a PM job. Sure, the travelling sucks, but I think working in the office like our PM's do would be a fate worse than death. I can't remember who went on the rant about the office people, but I'm sure the grass is always greener on the other side. I get ragged on all the time when I show up to a construction site with my laptop and start looking for something I can make a table out of. We've all heard it, "Man I wish I could sit on my a$$ all day." Go ahead buddy, you learn all the stuff I know and you do my job. There are days I spend 8 or more hours programming and am physically exhausted at the end of the day, even though I barely got up from my bucket. There are good jobs and there are bad jobs. Just look for something you can enjoy. Work is only a four letter word to those who aren't smart enough to do something they enjoy.

[viceman]

hey joe,
i am the guy with the "rant". i spend alot of time in the office and many hours sitting on a bucket. i came from construction and service side of this trade. i have worked both sides of this industry. i've been in this industry for 20 years. many have been at it for alot longer.
my point of the rant was "appreciate what you have". i don't know how much time you spent on the business side of a torch or a chain fall, or a hammer drill. if you have been there, you know damn well we have it made.

i have no grass is greener mentality. i have been on both sides of the fence. i aint going back without a fight. it has been pretty cold in the burg lately.

i have never gotten frost bite in front of a laptop. as matter of fact i haven't gotten burned,cut,wrenched my back, crushed a toe or gotten sliced on a sharp piece of metal in a couple years.

maybe you should put a couple 8 hour bucket days in the cathedral and finally get that mess to work.

[sysint]

Sometimes it's nice to just pipe something all day go home and forget about it instead of programming, testing, and setting things up and wondering how it worked all night.