Yes, We Can Be a Quirky Bunch - Career and Worklife Advice in the Automation World
We've all heard of company culture. That set of shared beliefs, behaviors, and personalities that makes each place at least a little unique. If you fit the culture, you can feel like family after working someplace for a week. If you don't, you can feel like an outsider even after years. And while each company has a unique culture, I would also argue that industries have cultures, too. A common customer base, common problems to solve, usually a similar evolution of how a company in the industry is formed and grows, all combine to give each automation company a baseline worldview that serves as a foundation for the unique company culture to build from.
I have technically only worked at four unique companies in my life, which, on the surface, may damage my credibility in giving generalized advice in this post, but two of the four companies were multi-site, large organizations that grew via acquisition of standalone automation companies which, despite a lot of effort to homogenize, still retained a fair amount of their original culture. From my cross-site experiences, I have had the opportunity to closely observe the equivalent of 10-15 "companies" plus have talked to senior managers of many more at trade association meetings, etc. I think what I am presenting is pretty solid. I'm not saying all companies fit every bullet point exactly, nor am I saying you can't be successful if you ignore all of the advice I'm throwing out there. Culture evolves, and some of the things I will mention are a little archaic and probably need to change. But change doesn't come easy and most of the senior staff in the industry have had their opinions formed by 20-30 years of real world (sometimes painful) experience, so you may have to wait until we all skip off to greener pastures before some of these things don't apply anymore.
Authors Note: As I re-read the bullets below prior to posting, I realized at least half of them sound like my advice is centered around just working your tail off and doing things you don’t really want to do in some brutal, uncaring industry. But try not to read it like that. I have had a blast throughout (most) of my career and the vast majority of the people I’ve worked with and around have been bright, funny, hardworking, and they have genuinely cared about the people they work with and have cared about making their customers happy. It really is a great gig and I believe you’ll have a lot of fun doing it, too. The reason why the bullets lean towards the “just do more” vibe is because they are meant to be a way for you to differentiate yourself from your peers, and, since this is work we’re talking about, some of that will only come by outworking them. But I think you’ll find that even following the advice in the bullets closely, the “extra” effort doesn’t consume a lot of your time nor is it particularly taxing. So without further adieu, my observations and comments on what you should know to navigate our world and some skills experiences you should try to accumulate to accelerate your career...........
Learn new stuff whenever you can and its corollary, get your hands dirty, too - If there's one thing that drives me absolutely crazy, it's when I'm in a meeting and a question is asked and someone with years (if not decades) of experience in our industry says "I have no idea...that's a controls thing and not my area." Hey, what we do isn't easy, but it's also not theoretical physics. A reasonably smart person with curiosity and the desire to expand their horizons may never get as good as someone educated, trained, and experienced in a given area, but come on, you can learn a pretty fair amount almost by osmosis! So if you're a mechanical designer, take a PLC programming class, or at the very least, ask a controls engineer to show you the code for the equipment you just designed. Learn to read schematics. Know the basics about communications networks, hardware capabilities, analog and digital devices. If you're a controls engineer, understand basic mechanics and learn things that work and don't work so you can at least spot issues and maybe fix some things in the field when you're the only person there. Find out why sometimes a dial is better than a conveyor is better than a robot so you can participate in broader conceptual discussions. And no matter what discipline you are, be actively involved in the making of your product, at least every once in a while. Help assemble a station, wire a panel, set up stops, flow controls and regulators. Even learn to run a mill and/or a lathe. If you approach it correctly, I can't imagine you will be turned down by the people you are asking to learn from. As far as I can tell, it's only ever strengthened my relationships with others. Also, learn about your customers' problems and their products. I've seen total station concept changes based on someone engaging a customer about a widget on their part because they understood what its function was and didn't just go by what the spec told them to do. Knowing their biggest problems in their plants can guide your solution and even generate additional sales. And this bullet doesn't just apply to inexperienced people. Never stop. Once you have a good mastery of the technical, learn more about the business side. If you leave design and become a project manager or sales person or applications engineer, keep your toe in the nitty gritty details. Always take a little time to be curious. It will make you better at what you do and more prepared for what comes next. Besides, you'll be more interesting to talk to at parties.
Your company may tout flex time as a benefit of working there, but if you're showing up later than 730, you are likely being judged by at least a part of the crowd (and I’m not talking about your boss) - is that fair? Probably not. Why have the policy if it's actually frowned upon and why is it frowned upon? Well, the answers to those questions are twofold. The first is historical. The vast majority of automation companies evolved from tool shops or small automation startups run by people that have a tooling background. If you know many toolmakers, you already know that they tend to like to show up at 530am so they can get out early, and anyone who comes in later is a slug. 730 was sorta the compromise between the 9-5 banker life and the 530-230 toolmaker life. We've tried to evolve and implement some flexibility to attract broader talent, but in the end, we're creatures of habit, so you will always see an eyebrow raised if you are pushing the door open at 815 or 9am even if you're staying until 630 that night to make up for it and even if you are behaving within policy. The second reason is more reality based: you are part of a team to get out a rather complex and difficult product that's never been done before. There is no drop-in backup for you due to the uniqueness of the project. If the team gets in trouble in an area you are responsible for while you are reading the paper (or whatever the current equivalent is) at a coffee shop and well within the flex time rules, the whole thing grinds to a halt and that can cause frustration. I’ve seen this run the gambit of “no big deal, we really mean flex time is flex time” to creating serious friction, so just be cognizant that it can be an issue and make sure you feel out the “reality behind the rules” culture prior to taking full advantage of the policy.
Special assignments are your friend - Automation companies tend to run lean. So, when a project in the field goes off the rails or they want to chase a new market or they've just acquired a new company and want to integrate it, there usually isn't a surplus of people to throw at these unique circumstances. If you have shown initiative and drive and smarts and success in what you've done, your name is probably being discussed behind some closed door somewhere in your building as someone who could help. If they ask, say yes. If they don’t ask, even volunteer. Will it suck? Maybe. Special circumstances almost always require extensive time away from home, long hours (and I'm talking 80-100 hour weeks kinda long), possibly loud, hot, and dirty work environments, and doing things you may have limited or no experience doing, so it can be difficult and uncomfortable. But there are almost always three long term benefits: First, you will learn in dog years......no normal job assignment will match the intensity or the volume of learning you will get, and usually in a much broader sense than your normal job. Second, you will always be seen as the person that can get things done after that, even if it maybe didn't even go super well. Old school managers respect the "sign me up, I'll do it" mentality and you will always come to mind when it comes time to promote someone. And beyond those benefits, maybe most importantly, I think you will find that despite the difficulty in the moment, you will form some of your closest and longest lasting professional and personal relationships and you will experience a level of camaraderie when you are a part of these assignments that is very difficult to match in normal office/shop life.
Travel when you can - I guess it's at least partially how a person is hardwired. I love to travel. I've maybe been to 20 countries and certainly 20+ states on business over my career. Some people hate it and would rather never leave the building. You definitely aren't sightseeing when you travel on business and a lot of times, the traveling part itself is a hassle, but you will see things that enrich your life. There's almost always something you experience that will give you a broader viewpoint, both in business and personally. I can tell you with 100% certainty that a German engineer thinks differently about a problem than a Chinese engineer than a French engineer, than an American engineer, or even a Michigan engineer versus a Utah engineer versus a South Carolina engineer. Seeing how they approach problems, deal with office politics, implement processes in their companies, and how they see things with their own cultural biases really does help you hone your own problem solving skills, and more importantly, teaches you to respect different viewpoints and communication styles and will better prepare you to lead teams or even companies in the future. And, even in the most harried, high stress, intense trip, there is almost always a chance to have a local meal (I have a personal credo that you have to drag me kicking and screaming into a chain restaurant when I travel.....why eat at Applebees when you're someplace you've never been and may never go back to?!?!), a good drink, and some time to walk a city and see a little of the sights. So even if you fall into the "I hate to travel" crowd, go. A little bit to the point above, it's good for your career to say yes when called on. But more importantly, it will make you a better person by expanding your horizons.
Long hours and willingness to cancel personal plans are still badges of honor - Mainly due to historical boom/bust business cycles, servicing large, high volume production plants, and that toolmaker background I mentioned above, the automation industry has always tended to run on long hours and on-the-fly responses to problems. A significant shortage of engineering graduates over the last decade and the current booming labor market has softened the “work extra or else” edicts of the past, but just be aware that the underlying reasons for those past edicts still exist and in fact, may be increasing. There is a lot of competition in our industry. Missing a delivery or shutting down a customer assembly line can literally cost you a relationship and a ton of future business, so that frustration you feel from your boss when you say you can't work late this week or come in on Saturday (or even Sunday) or can't make that emergency trip to Indiana tomorrow because you have other plans is not just his or her sadism of wanting to ruin your personal life....it's borne of real business concerns. Understanding the real world consequences of not taking a "whatever it takes" attitude may help you to see why you are being asked to do something that certainly appears to be unreasonable on the surface. For one thing, our business is cyclical. If people won't put in extra time during boom, the only way to deal with that is to hire extra people, which has very obvious and painful side effects during bust. Your flexibility creates long term stability across the organization. Also, the globalization of our business has put incredible pressure on companies. Our customers can demand a lot and if they don't get it, they will try someone else. Just like all of the articles on employer/employee loyalty, a lot of customer/supplier loyalty has eroded. And memories tend to be long. The best example of that is one of the divisions of one of the companies I worked for had a bad experience with one of their customers and they were unofficially blackballed from that plant. Twenty years ago. Thinking enough time had passed, we decided to try to pursue them again. The informal sourcing ban was still there, even though no one involved in the original project was still around in either company. As a matter of fact, no one in either company could even say for certain what had happened. Yet, we were still on "the list." So if you don't think shutting down a line or refusing service or being late has impact, I will tell you it does. The upside for you is again, people love people that make their problems go away, so your willingness to jump in will propel you much more quickly in your career. I'm not saying turn into a work zombie or be taken advantage of. I'm a big proponent of work hard, play hard. When it's needed, go all out, but when it's not, scale back and enjoy life. See my post on work life balance for another self serving reason you may want to be on board with this.
Even if you have career aspirations beyond your current role, embrace where you are now, today, and become a master at it (or at least some of it) - I've always been a restless spirit. That has pluses because it does keep you open to the next thing and is usually good for gathering life experiences and advancing your career, but it can come with a side effect: you can find yourself wishing away the present and even feeling a little depressed in the process. So my advice to counter that is to find a couple of things at work in the present and focus on being excellent at them. It can be a fundamental element of your current job or something that is being neglected or could be improved elsewhere in the company. Seek out experts and ask them questions. Debate, dig, research and practice. Don't let yourself off the hook on doing those things "well enough," but always ask how you could have done them better, faster, more efficiently until your knowledge is literally unparalleled in the company on those things. You may not think it’s possible to be the company “expert” at anything when you’re just starting out, but this industry tends to be more broad than deep when it comes to knowledge, so it is very possible that you can be 23 and know 10x more than a 45 year old sitting next to you in a narrowly focused area. I think doing this is beneficial because there is a very real feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction when you know you did something as well as anyone can, and also, it never hurts to be the expert at something and being called on by others to help out. That's valuable exposure and can actually help with those career aspirations that started this whole bullet. Finally, by the time you have used this technique for 8-10 years, you'll actually have a pretty deep knowledge of a lot of stuff and that will help combat the perception that everyone's skills are superficial in today's fast track career path world.
Remember to enjoy yourself - engineers want to be problems solvers. That's good. But, it also tends to foster the tendency to see a cloud inside every silver lining. We can list a thousand things that could be improved, processes that are impediments to us getting something done, or people that just don't get it (yes, accountants, we're talking about you), and that lens can make the world look like a pretty screwed up and dismal place. So step back once in a while and remember you're doing something pretty cool. You get to invent things that haven't been done before. Yes, it has to be done on a budget and a schedule and it can be stressful and hectic and a lot of times, it's messy and imperfect, but there aren't many engineering jobs that have as much freedom of expression and decision making latitude as what you have. Take the time to make some friends and have several laughs a day, say hi to people in the hallway and take at least a few minutes each day to wander the shop floor and see what other engineers have created. Ask them (or the assembler or machinist or whomever) questions about what you see. You'll learn a lot, and along the way, you'll find out that the real key to success is the relationships you form because nobody is better at what they do alone than they are as a part of a group that trusts one another and has some fun together. But the vast majority of engineers are pretty extreme introverts, so that part doesn't come easy. Work at it. It's worth it.
OK, I've been told there's an ideal length to a post to convey information but still hold interest, and I'm guessing I blew by that 400 words ago, so I'll stop pontificating, even though I'm sure I could come up with several more bullets of random musings. I hope at least a few things hit home and the advice helps you reach your goals and enjoy your work life a little more.