IN THE CLUB (Part 1) - Or Not

So, my life as a child centered around school and I eventually went to college and studied Civil/Geotechnical Engineering. Geotechnical engineering is concerned with the soil and foundation side of construction and development. When I finished college, I went to work for a geotechnical engineering company. I worked hard and obtained my professional engineering license. My work was respected and I became a Senior Engineer. A senior engineer means that you have a strong technical level of functioning and can do most things on your own. The only higher technical levels are the level of principal engineer who has at least 10 to 20 years of experience or the level of industry leader who is a guru in a specific technical area.

Now completely separate from the technical side, is the management side. Managers are middle people between the workers and the owners. Among other things, they hire and fire workers, coordinate day-to-day operations, and are accountable for the finances/profit of the people or group they manage. Managers have authority over the technical personnel. They may or may not have technical training.

Now separate from the technical side and the managerial side is the ownership side of the company. The owners have control of the company. Among other things, they make the decisions on what work the company does, how it is structured, and the atmosphere of how the company operates. They also have their personal money invested in the company and reap the reward of profits and suffer the damage from loss. Owners have authority over everyone in the company including the managers and technical staff.

The first company I worked for as an engineer was an employee-owned company. This means that the employees owned stock in the company rather than the company being owned by a single person, or a family, or a group of investors, or a public group of stockholders. The control of this company was structured in two levels. At the top level were the Principals and at the lower level were the Associates. Membership in these groups was based solely on money. If you invested $80,000 in the company, you became a principal. If you invested $20,000, you became an associate. You would receive yearly dividends based on how much money you had invested (stock ownership). Specific employees were offered stock which meant that if you invested your own money in the company, you could get dividends (a share of the profit) too. The structure was that employees would buy stock over time and when you had hit the investment targets, you became an associate or principal.

This company was an intermediate sized company consisting of headquarters offices in four countries and around 30 regional offices.

Now being naïve, I thought that if I was a good engineer and a good employee, I would eventually be included in certain management functions that I was interested in and would be good at. These included training of technicians/staff, technical training and development, and market development. Whoops. Just fell off the turnip truck again. Four things happened that I finally put together over the course of many years. First, I was very good at my technical job and good at managing the specific projects I was in charge of; however, I was never included in any of the management functions that I showed interest in. The vice-president would fly into town and go into the office manager’s office and close the door. They would only come out for lunch and dinner, of which none of the technical staff were invited to. I was never included in any of the management issues that I was interested in, and only served in a technical capacity.

Secondly, once or twice a year, the president of the company would also visit our office. He would come into my office and sit down and politely chat. He would ask about my family and how things were going with me. The conversation would always end up with him telling me how great the stock was doing and him asking me if I was going to purchase more stock. I always replied that I couldn’t buy much stock since I had 2 young children and a house and didn’t have much income left over to buy stock.

Third, all of the office managers were engineers and some were fairly bad at managing. The first staff engineer I worked with at the company quit a week after I started. She said she got tired of being yelled at by the manager before 8:00 in the morning every day. Luckily this office manager was replaced fairly quickly.

Fourth, the offices I worked for all did very well financially. The managers would say that hopefully there will be a big bonus at the end of the year (for the non-associates and non-principals). However, at the end of every year, there were no big bonuses, just small ones.

Eventually, I understood how all this worked. All hierarchal structures are run by a “club” at the top. The “club” at this company consisted of principals and associates. Membership in the club was based solely on money invested in the company. They reaped the benefits and rewards. To be an office manager, you had to be in the club. To be any part of management, you had to be in the club. When the president came and talked to me every year, he didn’t give a crap about me. He was just testing me to see if I was a candidate for “The Club”. He chatted with me to see what my life situation was and my attitude toward buy enough stock to be an associate or principal. My response was that I was putting my money toward raising a family and didn’t have the interest to “do whatever it takes” to buy stock. Since I was not “club” material they kept me in my technical role and kept me out of management. Also, there was little money allocated to bonuses since the goal of the company was to pay as big of dividends as possible to the club.

Once I figured this out, I had to make a decision and I had three choices. The first choice was whether I wanted to stay where I was, with no hope of advancement and subordinated to management. Secondly, I could put forth the effort to buy enough stock to get in the club. The third choice was to quit and look for a more suitable job.

On the first choice, I was too young and didn’t want to dead end my career in my early thirties. I wanted more. Also, I didn’t like the subordination of just doing what I was told with no influence. I wanted to use my talents and express myself and have input. On the second choice, I didn’t want to make the effort to buy into the club. I would either have to make extra money which would take away from the family or move the family to a small apartment to save money. Also, if the club is full of people who are just concerned about money, I don’t want to be in a club of shallow assholes anyway. I feel hollow when I do things just for money and they don’t have any other meaning for me.

I picked the third choice. I quit and looked for a more suitable job. Grass is greener right? About to fall off another turnip truck.



When I was young, I was taught that you should go to school, including college, so that you can have a career. A career is not just a job to make money, but would allow you to make enough money so that I wouldn’t be poor and had opportunity to do things that I enjoyed.

Clean and Simple.