I don't work for amateurs or idiots, but they are everywhere now.
That's an issue that's currently making me look for 'other opportunities' before I get the boot. My current situation is a textbook example of being able to read the writing on the wall:
Our St. Louis satellite engineering office was going to downsize to a smaller office and move on November 1 (original space was leased 10 years ago when we had 20 people vs 7 now). Headquarters kept humming and hawing at the lease. We were told "the lawyers are reviewing it, it's going back and forth, they're negotiating, etc.".
Then, this past Monday, 1 month before we move, we were suddenly told that they were not going to sign the lease at the new place, because the St. Louis office is going to become a project management office, rather than a production office. They're supposedly scrambling for a new space (I'm sure they've known before they told us). All future significant design work will be sent to another office (this other office head has always had it in for the St. Louis office ever since it was founded 10 years ago). They are also looking to downsize the new office even further.
The St. Louis office head claims "it'll be business as usual, with the same people, as we're currently doing design work for small projects, but major projects will be designed elsewhere."
The thing is, there isn't anywhere near enough work to justify the 7 people we have on staff for the occasional small project. And you only need 1 or 2 of them for project management.
Oh, and the client that I was the project manager for is suspiciously being somewhat taken over by the St. Louis office head and his favorite employee (who is maybe worth his weight in used paper). Of course, I'm not told this - I just suddenly become CCed on e-mails that the office head sends to the client, or he lists himself as the PM on a new project without even saying a single thing to me.
The best part (related to Ed's comment) - apparently plumbing and medical gas engineering isn't anything special, and anyone can do it. So the office head and his favorite try to play plumbing engineer (my position) on some questions that come up on another project that someone else designed, and discuss their crazyass ideas that don't work and aren't applicable right in front of me in the conference room, as though I'm not even there. They don't bother looking at me and asking me directly "MooreBonds, would it work if we tried X or Y?" They simply throw out a crazy solution, talk to each other, and run with it. "Go call that vendor you know and see what you can come up with."
And the headquarters is grooming a new hire to learn plumbing engineering - a recent college grad who worked at Target for 2 years after graduation and has been at the engineering company for 1 year. In other words, no prior experience. You'd think it would be logical to at least have an experienced plumbing engineer (who also has a lot of valuable experience on the construction side) to at least mentor her and pass on at least SOME knowledge. Nope - they'll simply let her make mistakes she has no possible knowledge of and learn the extremely hard way, and make the company look like assclowns with the variety of mistakes they're bound to make.
Oh well. Have already sent out my resume to one firm that has several former co-workers working there. Will follow up next week to see if there's any interest.
Other than the above 'virtually guaranteed looming layoff', I wasn't fired or laid off from my only prior full-time position (family construction company).
