L1011GE
From your posts I assume that you are SNCO Ground Eng who works on transports. You believe that an Eng O career is not worth it based upon your experience. Without trying to be insulting, you are not really qualified to make that statement. You are only privy to a small part of the engineering world. Regarding unit life, my own personal experience is that Tonkatechies statement is nearer the mark for sqn work. However, less than 1 tour in 3 is on a Unit, more of your career is in staff work and you probably do not have any insight to what goes on out there.
PA
If I was you, I would give your desk officer a shoeing. If you can choose your last 2 tours wisely, it will make the transition much easier by taking posts with transferable skills. Since leaving the mob, I have worked as an engineer and as a project manager. Project managers get paid a lot more than engineers out here. And strangely, I have had to beat job agencies off with a big stick because of my experience as a an eng o. Cannot tell you what I get paid but it is a lot better than a Sqn ldr post pay 2000.
Regards
Retard
PS also I do not have a degree, so am not really an engineer. Being able to do it, instead of having read a book about it does help in the real world.