Hate my new job.

[knaveman]

So I've been an unemployed electrician for the last eight months. A former apprentice and friend of mine called me up and said he could help get me a job, but it's not electrical. It's drafting. His company would train me to design fire sprinkler systems, but it pays well has great benefits and is fairly stable. I thought about it for a few days and decided it would be in my best interest to have a steady income and all that. I went through several interviews and with my friends help I got the job.

 

I knew it would be a change. I went from working in the field day after day to sitting at a desk clicking a mouse for eight hours. I already hate it after four days. I'm an electrician and nothing else.

 

Am I an a-hole for telling my friend thanks for all your help, but I made a mistake and have to leave?

[RA1]

Am I an a-hole for telling my friend thanks for all your help, but I made a mistake and have to leave?

I don't think so. If you are certain you will never enjoy it, then it's probably better for the employer if you resign now than in a few months time because they haven't invested much in training you yet.

 

But 4 days is not very long on which to base your decision. This new job sounds like a step up. Are you sure you could never come to love it?

 

Do you actually have an electrical job to go back to? That would be another consideration.

[Citizen Erased]

As you have been unemployed for the last 8 months, I think it would be incredibly unwise to leave any job you have at the moment. Unless you're financially okay to support yourself for the next 8 months or so without work.

[knaveman]

I thought that getting out of the field would be a step up too, but it doesn't seem like that now. I need to be active. Yeah, I can go back to my old job but I don't know if it will be for a month or a six or what.

[broken umbrella]

You should give it some more time. When I started my new job, in a new field, I HATED it for the first week. I truley loathed it, and had all but made the decision to abandon post. But I didn't quit, because I needed to work, and I have found that this job is so much more than I thought it was going to be. 3 months in and I am loving it now. Change is hard, especially if you did not dislike what you were doing before. I say stick it out, at least while you look for something else. You never know, it may grow on you...

[Quinch]

It's a big change from what you're used to and all change is difficult at first. If you really feel that you can't get used to it, are there any other more practical jobs in that company that you could do?

[Ariadne]

from working in the field day after day to sitting at a desk clicking a mouse for eight hours.

 

That sucks.

 

Any chance that you can get used to it of find your way around it?

 

Say, don't work so hard and take it so seriously but go for walks in nature, take breaks, talk to people, make friends, and so on?

[Thaddeus]

I'd suggest to give it more time. If you've only been there for four days, that's not really long enough to establish a routine.

 

I had a similar situation about a year or so ago when I was contracted by a government department to do some consulting for them. For the first two weeks, I absolutely HATED it. Hated the atmosphere, the other people in the office, the commute, etc. But once I got "rolling," it turned out to be a really good place to work. I just needed time to get in a decent routine and get a better indication of what the expectations were.

 

So I'd suggest to hang tough for at least a couple of months.

[BUENG1]

So I've been an unemployed electrician for the last eight months. A former apprentice and friend of mine called me up and said he could help get me a job, but it's not electrical. It's drafting. His company would train me to design fire sprinkler systems, but it pays well has great benefits and is fairly stable. I thought about it for a few days and decided it would be in my best interest to have a steady income and all that. I went through several interviews and with my friends help I got the job.

 

I knew it would be a change. I went from working in the field day after day to sitting at a desk clicking a mouse for eight hours. I already hate it after four days. I'm an electrician and nothing else.

 

Am I an a-hole for telling my friend thanks for all your help, but I made a mistake and have to leave?

 

You also might be burning bridges, its not necessarily that he'll stop being your friend, but its probable that he'll think twice about recommending you for future employment opportunities.

[knaveman]

So now, at the end of the week a new issue is showing it's self. I might not actually be any good at this job. Although I am experienced in many different aspects of construction and I understand more than I have actually done, translating that sort of thing into little lines on a computer screen or a print is hard for me to grasp. It might have something to do with my distaste for the job, but I always try to do things the best that I can.

 

I'm sure I'll figure something out by the end of the next week.

[Left in a Lurch]

I was in a very similar situation and here is what I found;

 

I switched jobs after doing something similar to what you did as an Electrician and I took a job working on software after 12 years (I worked alongside electricians a lot of the time in my old career). It was the same type thing, I was used to working on different sites, used to the type of people I worked with, liked moving around and being mobile and there was a good deal of hard labor and working with tools that I liked.

 

For the first month or so at my new job behind a desk, learning new software and feeling like I wasn't doing very well, it was very different than I had imagined. After about 3 or 4 months I still felt like I had so much to learn and felt like I was struggling to just be competent and just didn't see myself as an "office person".

 

I have changed jobs 5 or 6 times in my life and have always found that after 6 months on any job, even if you hated it all along, you will find out that it feels like you have been there forever and with the comfort level you no longer hate it, you may not like it, but realize it could be a lot worse. I found my stride after 6 months at my current job and now a few years later I am at the top of my field and it is my dream job

 

A big difference for me is that I deal with CEOs and CFOs as customers and not lower level office managers, project managers, Generals or IT managers. There is a huge difference in the respect I get because I get treated as an equal that they rely on to guide them through the job and a valuable source for them. Working in a professional environment and being respected as opposed to working on a job site with (no offense to anyone) office managers that treated me like a McDonald's worker has made a lot of difference. So I don't know if you have a more professional atmosphere, but that eventually will become a big plus if you get acclimated. A lot of times I feel more like a customer to my customers than a vendor. It was just a whole atmosphere thing.

 

I also don't miss the traffic because my office is a closer drive than 90% of the places I worked before and I don't get caught in construction that takes 2 hours to get home instead of one. The free lunches are nice, and in a more professional work environment they respect your time a lot more. I am used to working from 7am-7pm during the week and finding out Friday at 4:30 that I had to work all day Saturday and it wasn't optional. At one time on my old job I worked on average 10 hours a day over a year and had a total of 6 weekends off counting holidays, and could only use 2 vacation days for that year. If I tried to make a dentist appointment and leave at 5:00, I'd get read the riot act. In a professional setting there are a lot of perks with your schedule and usually you can have a more flexible schedule and set hours which can allow you to have a life which still seems too good to be true to me.

 

Based on my own experience I would be willing to bet that if you stick it out you will find out you are just as good at this job as your other, you just need to get your legs. Once you do, you know you have a good work ethic because you had to in your old field and you'll be at the top before long. Once you feel comfortable and prove to yourself you can do very good at this job, you'll start to notice that the perks of your new job are very nice compared to what you did before.

[RA1]

I might not actually be any good at this job. Although I am experienced in many different aspects of construction and I understand more than I have actually done, translating that sort of thing into little lines on a computer screen or a print is hard for me to grasp. It might have something to do with my distaste for the job, but I always try to do things the best that I can.

How long did it take you to learn to be an electrician? Why do you expect to be able to learn drafting in just a few days? What training plan does your employer have for you?