When I received my first salary as Junior Field Service Engineer (see previous post for details), I decided to upgrade my PC. Office laptop I had from the beginning of student life was already too old and too weak for calculations and math models of my diploma. But the main reason I wanted this upgrade was that laptop was too weak for the games 😂
So I found used PC with 95-watt quad-core Intel and discrete video card. It was real monster for that time, and also had significant heating bonus. Luckily, owner of this PC lived not far from the campus, so we agreed to meet on weekend and I didn't need to get any transport. I bought the PC on sunny Saturday and carried it to the campus, enjoying the deal and the walk itself. But when I came to my room and plugged everything, I realised that I have several missed calls from my boss.
"Why we were not able to reach you?" - boss asked after I called back.
"I was busy bying new PC, and it's weekend" - I replied. I didn't expect any work this day.
"You know, we are providing service to very demanding clients. You should be available even on weekends, because we might want to take you on urgent calls" - boss said.
At that moment I understood that I will not work on such a job for a long, but I agreed to inform the boss about "busy weekends" when I'll be 100% unavailable.
So, the second important lesson I took on this job: keeping work-life balance is your own responsibility. We are not obliged to fulfill all demands of our employer, but we need to protect our position.
Moreover, we have to report to the boss only things mentioned in the contract, and in the rest we are free.
For sure, for almost 1 year in field service I also enhanced some of my hard skills: work with electrical equipment, soldering, troubleshooting, installation, wiring and so on. It also helped me in future. But I've taken initial decision after that Saturday call. We ended collaboration on the winter low season, and I've never regretted about it. I don't recommend winter field service work at all 🙂
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4moWould you consider someone on an OPT visa that graduates in May?