Bit of advice as im stumped......

[WorAl]

Ok i'm 25 and have a fairly decent wage coming in, but to be fair its debt for my car which is keeping me in my current job as im sick of working in an office (apart from being able to access PH for most fo the day ) and have completely lost interest in what im doing.

I left School and went to college to study in an engineering course, passed that and went to Uni, now have a degree in Maring Engineering Hons in Offshore Engineering.

While I was studying I was building houses with my dad (built 3 from scratch apart from electrics and plumbing).

Now i have a job as a design engineer and work in an office all day and desing the same equipment over and over and over again, just in different sizes *boring*.

So a bit of advice would be good......i have tasted the "working outdoors" scene and the "working in an office" scene and woking with hands and on a computer and much prefer manual work outdoors to computers indoors.

Now you may be thinking, well go back into building, but, i dont have the "qualifications" to be a builder even though i could run rings round the scumbags that leave College with their NVQ's and also the market for housing isn't exactly at its best right now. Also I cant afford to quit my job and go back to college but i cant stand working where i am.

So, what im asking i suppose is, What the HELL could i do?
What do you people do for a living? may give me some ideas.

Thanks

One bored mother fker

[jr6yam]

Architect
That way you get to work in and out of the office

[Stu R]

Have you actually got any offshore experience or just the qual's?

[V8mate]

Structural engineering? Civil engineering? Must be transferable skills from what you do, to those two (land-based) areas?

[WorAl]

Stu R said:

Have you actually got any offshore experience or just the qual's?

No sorry should have said, no offshore experience just the Quals but the design work i do is for offshore equipment.

[WorAl]

V8mate said:

Structural engineering? Civil engineering? Must be transferable skills from what you do, to those two (land-based) areas?

this is the thing, i probably could go into that area but, am i going to be stuck in an office just in another sector by jumping to civil/structural engineering?

having said that, at the moment anything is worth a try as i would rather be cutting the grass outside of where i work than sat in here.

[Munter]

An engineer who builds things? Like a Commissioning engineer.

On site. But you need to make the sodding thing do what the design says it should. Involving the use of spanners/logic and diplomacy with the client as well as some fiddleing with PLCs and HMIs. If you are good at chemistry and process design that'd be a bonus.

I used to do all that with these guys.

http://www.kennicott.co.uk/

I think what they need at the moment is a GOOD process engineer. Who's not afraid to go on site and get wet.

I dont know what you are doing currently. But I suspect if you move into bigger engineering you'll be out and about much more.

[Stu R]

WorAl said:

Stu R said:

Have you actually got any offshore experience or just the qual's?

No sorry should have said, no offshore experience just the Quals but the design work i do is for offshore equipment.

No worries, if you did I could have thrown you a few contacts that all, but they all want experience.

If you've got some good contacts now's the time to be plundering them WRT offshore stuff, things are getting a little tighter these days but there's still lots of money changing hands. I started out doing engineering, moved into marine engineering (merchant navy), ditched that and moved into oil and gas, wangled a few extra qualifications and courses there, and started doing bits of work on the side doing consultantcy and comissioning. Eventually got enough work my way to make a living from it, can't say I've looked back.

If you want work in the offshore industry it's just a case of finding an area of the industry that interests you really, I've not dealt with the design side of things all that much so haven't really got any pearls of wisdom.

A lot of lads I know flitter between power generation and offshore, so there's another avenue for you to explore. Comissioning is good fun but you can get lumped in some right minging places for months, kinda like the merchant navy in that respect.

Get yourself on the multitude of offshore websites out there, as well as the regular job sites, you'll no doubt get innundated with rubbish jobs that are nothing like you're interested in, but you do get the odd bite that's worth chasing up, just be a bit loose with the 'engineering' terminology and the search results come in thick and fast. The one saving grace of marine engineering is it's very easy to sidestep into a lot of other industries as you tend to be well versed in many skills (in theory).

[WorAl]

Stu R said:

WorAl said:

Stu R said:

Have you actually got any offshore experience or just the qual's?

No sorry should have said, no offshore experience just the Quals but the design work i do is for offshore equipment.

No worries, if you did I could have thrown you a few contacts that all, but they all want experience.

If you've got some good contacts now's the time to be plundering them WRT offshore stuff, things are getting a little tighter these days but there's still lots of money changing hands. I started out doing engineering, moved into marine engineering (merchant navy), ditched that and moved into oil and gas, wangled a few extra qualifications and courses there, and started doing bits of work on the side doing consultantcy and comissioning. Eventually got enough work my way to make a living from it, can't say I've looked back.

If you want work in the offshore industry it's just a case of finding an area of the industry that interests you really, I've not dealt with the design side of things all that much so haven't really got any pearls of wisdom.

A lot of lads I know flitter between power generation and offshore, so there's another avenue for you to explore. Comissioning is good fun but you can get lumped in some right minging places for months, kinda like the merchant navy in that respect.

Get yourself on the multitude of offshore websites out there, as well as the regular job sites, you'll no doubt get innundated with rubbish jobs that are nothing like you're interested in, but you do get the odd bite that's worth chasing up, just be a bit loose with the 'engineering' terminology and the search results come in thick and fast. The one saving grace of marine engineering is it's very easy to sidestep into a lot of other industries as you tend to be well versed in many skills (in theory).

Still wouldnt mind you throwing them over if thats ok, you never know, something might come of it.

Been scouring the job sites for many moons and there are plenty of jobs there, just seem to get many many agencies coming back with design engineer rolls which i want to get out of....would love to get into commissioning equipment and REALLY dont mind getting my hands dirty.
As you can guess from my OP, manual work is deffinately more for me, just like using my hands and brains to solve problems than staring at conceptual drawings on a screen all day.

[Stu R]

drop me an email via my profile mate, I've got a couple of things which might be useful to you

[JJCW]

Royal Engineers?

[WorAl]

JJCW said:

Royal Engineers?

Has crossed my mind to go to the RAF but i wanted to be a pilot but couldnt as i have scars on my lungs.....so always feel that if i was in there i would only be dissappointed that i didnt make it to the best career of all time.

[anonymous-user]

Get a job in a fabrication yard, working for the fabricator, not the client, if you want outside, overseas if possible as weather is better (not caspin Sea Norway etc), lots of time outside during the construction phase, and good money. Oil sector is not to bad at the moment judging from the jobs I'm being asked to apply for.

[Mr POD]

If your company does offshore work, talk to them about managing the offshore team

[Jasper Gilder]

Go to sea. There's an international shortage of good engineers for the ever increasing number of cruise ships. If you've half a clue what you're up to you should make first engineer by age 40

[mikey_p]

WorAl said:

So, what im asking i suppose is, What the HELL could i do?
What do you people do for a living? may give me some ideas.

I was trying to get a thread running that answers that very question.

Take a look at - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

There have been a few replies (non from Engineers so far I don't think) but the more people that post the better a resource it will become for people looking for ideas.

[hidetheelephants]

mikey_p said:

WorAl said:

So, what im asking i suppose is, What the HELL could i do?
What do you people do for a living? may give me some ideas.

I was trying to get a thread running that answers that very question.

Take a look at - http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

There have been a few replies (non from Engineers so far I don't think) but the more people that post the better a resource it will become for people looking for ideas.

I've just added my speil about moving to Marine Engineering from having previously been made redundant as a cadmonkey; it may be worth considering. Would be a big paycut while you're a cadet, but the job is SERIOUSLY hands-on...

[JJCW]

WorAl said:

JJCW said:

Royal Engineers?

Has crossed my mind to go to the RAF but i wanted to be a pilot but couldnt as i have scars on my lungs.....so always feel that if i was in there i would only be dissappointed that i didnt make it to the best career of all time.

I looked at the RAF very closely for a while but think i prefer the army from what i've seen so far - went on a visit to the Royal Engineers and it looked great. (They let me blow stuff up... can't get much better than that!)

[Taita]

Get yourself down to the Army Recruiting Office

I'm in the same boat and you and am going down the Officer route. Exciting times!

[zollburgers]

I work for a very small company that does energy reduction projects. We work with Utility companies, pharmacutical companies and breweries mostly and do BIG projects, like installing or optimising CHPs, cooling towers, pumping installations, chillers, steam systems etc. My time is split 50/50 between working in the office and a client's site and it can be hands on (playing with pumps and valves, taking flow, pressure, temperature etc. readings).

I get to work on big stuff with other engineers and also do smaller projects on my own and I really enjoy it. In the current economic climate it's also a relatively secure sector. May not be for you but something to consider.