Working and Life Balance
How the engineering career has treated me so far
Last updated
How the engineering career has treated me so far
Last updated
My first job out of school is as a Project Engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory. It has been an interesting experience to say the least because it has been such a unique perspective as to how the an engineering project develops over time.
Though it has not been what I expected (at all), I cannot say that it has been unenjoyable. The people that I have gotten to work with have been amazing and the work I have been exposed to has been eye-opening. The scope of work out there to be done is broad and endlessly deep.
The liaison between the management and implementation of facilities, requiring technical knowledge and some management skills. For large projects, this is essential for so many moving parts that otherwise would act independently and conflict. There are so many aspects to implementing new facilities and interfacing between disciplines that having a functional knowledge of all of them is essential.
Additionally, knowing the limitations of your knowledge and when to say "I don't know" will take one much further than blindly living in the valley of ignorance of the Dunning-Kruger confidence curve.
1. Clean out personal belongings from your cubical/desk. 2. Delete anything personal from your work computer, purge the cookies. 3. Make a personal copy of any CYA stuff and any contacts you wish to keep. 4. Double check if your vacation time is use it or lose it. 5. Double check if your 401k match is vested. 6. Double check any outstanding expenses on your company card, cancel any reoccurring charges like professional memberships. 7. Write your resignation letter, save as PDF. Stay factual, state your notice date and your intended final date. Do not explain or justify your your reasons. be polite, be professional. 8. Give two weeks notice unless there's a good reason not to. 9. Call your boss, tell him/her thanks, but it's time to move on. 10. After call send resignation email with PDF, cc HR, bcc your personal email. 11. During your last day or two, send a email to your coworkers thanking them and wishing them the best. 12. Send the people you like info how to stay in touch. Linkedin, personal email, phone #, Facebook, whatever. 13. If they do a formal exit interview, stay factual. Now is not the time to air dirty laundry. If you saw room for improvement tell them, but don't go into personal details about anyone. Good luck.