Rob, I think you're on to something...

Success_Machine, I don't know what kind of engineering you were engaged in, or what sort of CAD files were yanked from your office system... but I don't think the details matter. I've been there/had that done to me more times than I even want to contemplate. In fact, I spent around 27 years bouncing from one engineering gig to another on the assumptions that [a] those were the only skills I had to sell; [b] the size of the paycheck was the sole criterion of a 'career'.

Since before my last termination from an architect/engineer firm (8 months ago), I've also held two part-time jobs (the reasons need not be gone into): at a convenience store with a Subway franchise, and as a data entry clerk at "the world's largest commercial weather service". After a year, I just landed a full-time job with the weather folks as a graphic artist, to draw maps and assemble weather pages for newspapers - on the strength of 14 years of AutoCAD experience teaching me how to learn other graphic software quickly, and then asking for the chance to prove it.

About the conveniece store: the phrase menial labor is an elitist term used to denegrate necessary work some people wouldn't stoop to sully their hands with. I bitch sometimes about the folks I make sandwiches for - and sometimes I have good reason to. But, y'know... you meet some good people, too, customers and co-workers alike. In 'my' store, management pitches in and does all the same work the rest of us do, right down to cleaning the bathrooms, and are paid damned little more for their additional responsibilities for the paperwork, the inventory and the monthly balance sheet.

They hire on the basis of attitude, too: whoever seems like they'll get the work done, and 'make a good fit' with everyone else, gets a chance. I've learned a lot from them, and from the public contact in general - and I've surprised myself by discovering I feel some loyalty; not to the absentee corporate owners of the chain, but to the people I see every day. So, full-time weather gig or not, I'm staying at the store, too.

There may be something inherently wrong with the profession of engineering, or how the business end of it is practiced - there may not. It's obviously cyclical, and if you stay in it you'll spend your entire life on the rollercoaster. Maybe this is the time to buy a ticket for a different ride: one you might enjoy.

Fox