cadengnr
Aerospace
- Dec 18, 2006
- 11
See what you make of this:
An aero with 9 years' DOD experience had to take a medical retirement with SSDI + partial pension. Improved health affords him the chance to get off the SSDI portion. Single and without debts, he need only earn half his former salary; school and industry folks assure him a well-paid part-time market exists in the private-sector. So he pursues an A.S. in CAD with a good dose of shop, plus a SolidWorks cert' and picking up Pro/E along the way. He also hopes his former career will carry some weight.
The AE/CAD-E is first hired by small contractor for $30/hour. In two weeks, with minimal time spent training himself in Inventor, he hands in his first completed task - on the way out the door, because the company prez' has scorched the VP for hiring someone with a disability.
Undeterred, though in shock, the woefully-disabled finds a family machine shop doing aircraft spares. He passes their test doing scan-traces of 1960s blueprints that look worse than GD&T: then, takes their $18/hour foot-in-the-door offer. Now, with family buddies being hired while business is sagging, surely no raise is in sight.
I love the work and it beats living off the taxpayers, but I also wonder if I'm being utterly sucker-punched.
If you tallied my CAD-only experience by the hour, I'd say $18 isn't far off-base for two-odd years, considering what temp agencies pay here in So-Cal. I don't design much, per se, and appreciate the tight ship of business and my own learning curve. But after six months of using ALL my new training, PLUS calling on my prior aircraft experience, I'm excelling compared to many around me. I also know my boss was right when he almost-proudly confessed to know nothing about what I do. Nor do I think he would if he could. Recently he said if I didn't know how to order metal stock sizes, I wouldn't get an engineering job anywhere: this to someone who'd spent his prior career, in part, designing and ordering parts for his own $1M Navy program.
Yes, it's another machinist vs. engineer thing, but am I getting really getting hosed here, or just paying my dues, and how long should I expect either to continue?
An aero with 9 years' DOD experience had to take a medical retirement with SSDI + partial pension. Improved health affords him the chance to get off the SSDI portion. Single and without debts, he need only earn half his former salary; school and industry folks assure him a well-paid part-time market exists in the private-sector. So he pursues an A.S. in CAD with a good dose of shop, plus a SolidWorks cert' and picking up Pro/E along the way. He also hopes his former career will carry some weight.
The AE/CAD-E is first hired by small contractor for $30/hour. In two weeks, with minimal time spent training himself in Inventor, he hands in his first completed task - on the way out the door, because the company prez' has scorched the VP for hiring someone with a disability.
Undeterred, though in shock, the woefully-disabled finds a family machine shop doing aircraft spares. He passes their test doing scan-traces of 1960s blueprints that look worse than GD&T: then, takes their $18/hour foot-in-the-door offer. Now, with family buddies being hired while business is sagging, surely no raise is in sight.
I love the work and it beats living off the taxpayers, but I also wonder if I'm being utterly sucker-punched.
If you tallied my CAD-only experience by the hour, I'd say $18 isn't far off-base for two-odd years, considering what temp agencies pay here in So-Cal. I don't design much, per se, and appreciate the tight ship of business and my own learning curve. But after six months of using ALL my new training, PLUS calling on my prior aircraft experience, I'm excelling compared to many around me. I also know my boss was right when he almost-proudly confessed to know nothing about what I do. Nor do I think he would if he could. Recently he said if I didn't know how to order metal stock sizes, I wouldn't get an engineering job anywhere: this to someone who'd spent his prior career, in part, designing and ordering parts for his own $1M Navy program.
Yes, it's another machinist vs. engineer thing, but am I getting really getting hosed here, or just paying my dues, and how long should I expect either to continue?
