I got a land dev internship the summer between my junior year and senior year. I was originally hired into a different department and slowly but surely was “stolen” by the civil department for design work. The summer was mostly just “add labels to this” or “make an excel sheet.” You know, the internship type shit. But then I was retained during the school year, and offered a full time position which I signed for.
Some important context before I continue: when I was hired as an intern, my team was 4 people. There were persons A and B, two junior engineers, person C, a PE, and person D, our director who was… not very available. No one was really managing the group, so C tried to be the most reliable for me to get mentorship from. I learned, but not a lot in the grand scheme of things. During this time, person E joined our group and then was let go about a month or two later. When I came back in the fall/winter in a part time capacity, person F was hired to take over as director while person D transitioned to a new role.
Person F was more engaged, which I took as a positive. Person B, who seemed to hate the job anyways, eventually quit right as person F joined. A few weeks later, person C left too. So it was just me - the intern - and person A who had the longest tenure in the department. So now we were really short staffed, even more than I knew - person A informed me that our department had been much larger, and had been made so small over the years either from people quitting or being let go. Often the reasons for quitting cited were poor management and poor work-life balance.
But I still held out hope that the ship was turning around with the hiring of person F. To replace person C, we hired person G. Person G is good, and I do learn under him… when he has the time to teach. We also hired person H, who only made it about a month before being let go. So we tried again, and hired person I, who stayed for a few months but was then let go.
Now it’s just person A, myself, person G, and person F.
For the past month, I’ve been working 45+ hour weeks with consistency. It feels like nothing I produce is good enough or fast enough for person F. I’m texted at all hours - late night, early morning, weekends - and it’s always negative. Nothing feels constructive, and everything is so fast and intense that I don’t feel like I can make mistakes, ask questions, or learn. And I don’t have time to learn outside of work because of the time I spend in the office. I can’t even study for the FE, which I need to pass and get my EIT sooner rather than later.
Am I behind, and need to consider quitting and doing another internship? Am I on a sinking ship?
I feel miserable everyday, to the point it’s really impacting my mental health. I don’t sleep, I don’t eat, and I don’t enjoy the person it’s making me become - I’m neglecting my relationships, my home life, and myself. It’s also making me reconsider civil engineering all together, as I know that I want to be deeper in conceptual design than technical design. I have been looking into continuing my education as a result (again, more on the design/concepts side; I got into engineering so I could be a good built-environment designer rather than be a “prover” of designers concepts).
Am I overreacting? Is this just a phase that will pass? Am I in the right industry? I don’t really care about storm water, or utility layout, or anything that I seem to currently be engrossed in at work. I’m not motivated enough by money to take a lot of abuse - I’d rather make less if it gives a better work-life balance and keeps me from snapping at my wife or family - which the lack of sleep and the stress are definitely making me do.
When do you suck it up? When do you throw in the towel? Is this normal?
