u/ResortNumerous1910

I've been passively looking to answer this question for a while now, but I'd be curious what you've found? There's been countless bands influenced by all the forms of Thee Oh Sees, but it's hard to find stuff with similar vibes before Thee Oh Sees. It's obvious that John Dwyer is a pioneer, but what are his influences? What bands and artists captured the same vibe in the before time?

My favorites that I've found and love are Can, Swans, and NEU!

Also just found this post from 2 years ago asking the same question: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheeOhSees/comments/1c5vyy0/what_are_their_influences_can_anyone_give_me_a/

so much good fucking music out there

This might be more of a trauma dump than I'd like, but maybe I just needed to get this off my chest?

37M, western Colorado. Geology BS in 2019, earned while interning in construction materials QC testing (CMT) for an aggregate/HMA/concrete supplier and contractor.

I hated CMT from the day I started in 2017, and still do. In 2020 I switched to a consulting firm doing more QA-focused work, which was a huge improvement in every way, except I was still doing CMT. That's also where I first heard of geotech. The firm had zero interest in sending a geologist out to log holes on a drill rig, which still baffles me, but about a decade earlier I'd spent 3+ years on an underground directional drill crew and have known several of our drilling contractors most of my life. So the engineers reluctantly kept me around for drilling, effectively as a laborer: bare-bones drill logs, minimal training, no exposure beyond daily tasks.

For almost four years I did the field work on multiple drilling projects a month, though CMT/QA testing was still the bulk of my time. The whole time, I heard from the engineers that I'd never be able to do real engineering work without a civil BS. I asked repeatedly about a path up the ladder with just a geology degree, and the answer was always some version of "not good enough without civil." Classic gatekeeping, and I was regularly getting this information while training less experienced new-hires who made at least $10 per hour more than I did.

Around the end of 2024, every local engineer had quit or retired. Around then, another geologist at the company mentioned, almost in passing, that I was probably eligible to certify as an EIT. I had no idea. In Colorado, a STEM degree plus (I think) 4 years of progressive engineering experience qualifies you to sit for the FE. Four years of me asking, and not one of the five engineers I'd worked under ever mentioned it was on the table.

I signed up in early 2025, studied for three months, and passed on the first try. If you didn't know, the FE is equivalent to the BS exit exam for civil engineers. As a geology undergrad, I'd estimate I knew maybe 10% of the test content going in. I got glowing references from every engineer I'd worked for. But, by then there were no more engineers left in western Colorado for me to work with.

I can run field and lab work on a broad range of drilling projects solo, start to finish, with good feedback to show for it. But most of my track record with the company is CMT QA lead work across the western states (mostly airports, but quite a bit of commercial and CDOT), plus a fair amount of CDOT inspection. Lots of good industry experience and exposure, but not a lot of focused geology or geotech work.

Since mid-2025 I've been traveling constantly to support our Front Range and Southern California engineering teams. I'm slowly picking up the "why" behind drill log information and lab data, what to actually do with that information, and starting to draft reports myself. I've also gotten some exposure to landslide remediation and monitoring, which is novel but I'm not really meaningfully involved.

The core problem: I have no manager and no mentor. Corporate keeps saying they'll assign me to someone, but a year in, it hasn't happened. I don't think anyone really wants a remote report. In practice, I'm just backfilling for staff engineers while they take PTO or rotate to other projects. Meanwhile, the company has hired three different local senior engineers in the past two years and fired all three shortly after for incompetence, dishonesty, aggressively bad business practices, and/or on-the-job drinking. I caught wind of serious red flags within the first hour of meeting each of these individuals, and I don't think there's much real effort behind finding a permanent local senior engineer beyond a few job postings that came and went. No job postings in 2026, I check occasionally.

I know this vacuum could be a huge opportunity for career development. But without a mentor, background experience, or someone locally invested in my development, it feels more like I'm stuck doing remote support work. Aside from occasionally working with some drillers and regular Teams meetings, I spend all my days completely alone. But hey, I'm no longer doing any CMT work. So that's nice. 👍

It's the best job I've ever had and the pay keeps improving. Nothing in my local job market looks relevant, and I'm not in a rush to leave. Still, I keep coming back to the same questions: Am I actually building toward something here, or am I doing myself a disservice by staying in a spot with no mentorship and no apparent trajectory?