Change career at 28?

depressed_but_determined

I'm a firefighter, what area are you in? Recruitment is definitely picking up.
Try the fireservice forum, they have all the info on up and coming campaigns. My service just took on over 100 trainees.
Best of luck to you, I changed careers at 32 so you are def not too old!

Careerdeathspiral

dcouponzzzz wrote: »

I think the air of superiority you're displaying by referring to other people's degrees as 'Mickey Mouse' degrees and reducing management to only the interactions they have with you or that you see, definitely marks you as a problem.

It is not my intention to put others down and I do not look down on anyone whether they have a degree or not. However the people who grade your performance are HR staff who do not have degrees in engineering or even basic knowledge of the job they are grading. In this sense they are not qualified to judge.There is no denying some degrees are pretty much useless in the work place and only exist to get people in through the doors to earn money for the university. If you find this offensive then that's your issue the truth is the truth even if you don't like it.

dcouponzzzz wrote: »

Also, you obviously don't know how to communicate well and have an underdeveloped ability to influence people. If you can tell me the flow of an interaction with someone who you know opposes your idea before you approach them, to be able to change their mind, I would be very surprised.

Your assuming that the problem is me and everyone else is ok and its just me who disagrees. If you read my OP it mentions that most staff do not agree with the management but put up and shut up for an easy life. The management of my department can't be influenced by anyone. This is not some issue limited to me Iv'e seen my boss argue with 5 or 6 far more senior staff with 20-30 years experience each. All of them telling him he is wrong but there is no telling the boss he's always right (in his mind) and those 5 or 6 experts are all wrong about the same thing in the exact same way every time. This is why the customers satisfaction is continuing to fall year on year. Actual performance demonstrates my and many others point of view.

dcouponzzzz wrote: »

On top of these you may even have a lack of respect for people whose knowledge and intelligence doesn't match yours, without consideration for the fact that they have more useful life skills than you do, which is why they're your boss. This instantly puts you at a disadvantage because disrespect is never the solution to any problem.

Not sure how you can say im a disrespectful person having never met me or claim I lack life skills or possess a poor ability to communicate you have never met me and do not know me from Adam.

You assume that the management are all amazing stars with fantastic life skills have you met any of them? however if having a messiah complex and believing your opinion can be the only right opinion EVER is a superior life skill then yep my boss has that. If continuing to follow failing strategies in the spite of advice from more experienced staff because you can't admit to being wrong is a superior life skill then yep the boss has that too.

And no I do not reduce the management to my experience of them. You realize that people talk?

dcouponzzzz wrote: »

Consider the fact that these personality traits or missing life skills will transfer to wherever you choose to work in future, and decide whether you should improve yourself, or work for yourself.

Never had these problems in any previous job. If you read the OP it says I did another role for a few years prior to this without any problems. You have basically assumed that the company and management are perfect and I'm just some socially awkward weirdo. Quite the assumption having never met.

FBaby

In many you are right in feeling the frustrations you are experiencing at your jobs. Indeed, a two hours meeting to discuss obvious health safety matters seems ludicrous.

What you are missing though is a lack of experience and understanding on managerial processes. Indeed, the above seemed a waste of time and everyone agrees BUT when you face being sued by employees who despite the fact that they should know the steps to avoid obvious injuries and the blame is put on you for not providing obvious health and safety training, you just get on and offer training that ticks all the boxes just so that employees can take responsibilities for their obvious errors.

There are many processes and decisions involved in management that is hard for those not in management to fully comprehend, that does mean that all of it is pointless and unnecessary. Your problem is that you are likely to find out that most of the frustrations you have described above, you will find in other sectors.

Your best bet is to do what many do. Go along with it and trust your company for implementing them and then aim to become a manager yourself so that at best you can have some more say in implementing better policies or at worse, have a better understanding as to why the current system has to operate as it does.

Having an employee constantly pointing out to colleagues/managers that they don't what they are doing/talking about when most likely it is them who don't really understand the system is very wary after quite some time, hence them becoming a 'problem'. Don't assume you know better than everyone just because something doesn't make sense to you. The people you report to were at the same level than you once upon a time, and if you believe that they have all been promoted despite being idiots, then you can be assured you will struggle to adapt in any industry.