Raimond is also a graduate of the Faculty of Engineering in Hunedoara. He currently holds the position of Engineer at a company in the Hunedoara area.
The story you are about to read is told in fragments and transmitted on WhatsApp after a discussion at a sports event promoted by the Faculty of Engineering in Hunedoara, Politehnica University of Timisoara.
,,Every stage of my life is a struggle for me, as it is for these students who need motivation in this world of tik-tok, of their reels where everything is beautifully packaged. I recently had a television interview for a bike sharing project, but it was a little easier because I didn’t have time to make movies in my head, the director came and said: you have the tie, go because you have an interview, I said what I said, he explained something but I didn’t understand anything…. but after I finished I was more confident.
I am sending you a message inspired by real facts, my life, but adapted a little engineeringly based on what you said when I was at the event, when I was referring to some aspects of my life with the commute and the time planned to be at faculty and work. At one point you said something with a strong impact that changed me and I was amazed: ,,time management”, this aspect made me try daily to become a better version of myself in communication and to associate every experience of my life with an engineering analogy.
First of all, I want to emphasize that I have parents who did everything they could for me and my brother: they fed us, clothed us, and helped us with money for the school commute. My mother was a housewife, and the only motivation I received from my father was: ,,You have a diploma, you can do it.” At that time, I was a frustrated child, eager for money and respect. I judged the tasks given by my mother or going with my father to the plumbing/gas works because I wanted to earn money quickly and I didn’t see the value in practical work.
If I had listened and helped more at home, my life would have been much easier after graduation engineering. The practical exercises and exposure to real work would have helped me develop technical skills and learn to find solutions from the field, not just from theory. But at the time, I didn’t understand this and I paid the price later.
There were hard days when I was a child: I would only eat french fries or go without electricity for a week. I would go to the scrap yard with my brother or collect snails for money to buy wafers, but there were also good days when I had a computer, a bicycle, a scooter, this experience taught me that when you have little, you have to use resources efficiently and find creative solutions. And when you have more, you have to value each resource, its value matters as much as how you manage it.
This experience helped me in my first year of college, when I was left without financial support from my parents. ,,You have an ID, you can manage” became a reality. I worked three shifts, commuted between three towns without a car, and tried to be present at college, at work, and at home, to help my parents.
Here I began to build two essential skills: time management and money management. I learned what real responsibility means, not from theory, but from constraints, a tight schedule, and daily decisions that could not be postponed.
But it wasn’t easy. I had friends who were making money quickly through the wrong methods, but I chose to continue the right way. Again, I learned an essential lesson: time, money, and energy must be managed responsibly, and long-term decisions give stability and secure results.
I’ve been down, but I’ve also been up. That’s what happens every day, like in a well-designed process: variations occur. We’re not aiming for instant perfection, but for a controlled evolution. As long as the direction is right and the curve is going up, every step, even the downward one, is part of optimization.
Life is a process. Lessons learned from hardship, work, and resource management shape us and empower us to become who we want to be.
There is a lot to say, the idea is that every day is an opportunity to educate yourself both practically and theoretically if you pay attention to that day. Why I say this: for example, my father was a plumber/gas installer, it seemed like a dirty job to me as a child. My first job, a maintenance engineer, where I had to take care of the maintenance of pneumatic installations and design for a new assembly line. It was incredible to do the same work as in installations as I did with my father, but now I was much more motivated to do this just for the simple fact that I called myself an engineer. Last year in the fall I managed to replace my entire heating system and all the bathroom/kitchen plumbing systems with a condensing boiler by myself with minimal costs, I renovated the bathroom and kitchen with masonry, tiles and stoneware, calling on friends who were indebted to me and without my father who is no longer there. It was a challenge to go to work, live in an apartment with a 10-year-old child, efficiently manage all the family’s needs, laundry, personal needs while the entire bathroom is broken and to plan each stage of the work by day. On day 7, almost finished with the installation of the tiles, I broke a pipe in the wall during the new installation, then it was very difficult for me to manage the struggle with myself to overcome the emotions of speaking in public.
There is a lot to tell, in the second year I wanted to give up college, I ended up at the Sibiu Land Forces Academy. I passed several qualifying exams in sports, medicine, psychology, mathematics, but I failed English. You can see that I returned home broken in every way, physically, mentally, morally. I already had arrears at college, but still with the help of my teachers and my willingness to continue I successfully completed my higher education.
At the same time I was still working at SEWS, on minimum wage as an electrical wiring test operator, then gradually I participated in interviews within the company for an engineer position, but it didn’t show up at all. I managed to access the position of electrical test mechanic, I got 1st place in a competition within the company, then I participated in Morocco where I got 4th place although I was the favorite for 1st place on speed times I missed a detail.
I was a little upset, I didn’t feel fulfilled, I continued to attend about 7 interviews after which I got a technician position at Draxlmaier. I was happier, I attended 3 months of courses in Timisoara where I stayed with 5 fellow technicians in an apartment. It was a beautiful period, in which I was greatly helped by the teachings and tasks dictated by my mother. The project for which I was hired was canceled and on this occasion I attended an interview and obtained the engineer position. I left working under European conditions for the position of sub-engineer and ended up as an engineer but under communist conditions.
Up until now, I’ve been put down, wrinkled, cursed at many times, I’ve done my job and evolved into an engineer-quality specialist-technical manager.
Currently, it is necessary to maintain my professional position, considering that you are annoying when you evolve, but I am already hardened and now I just play with the mischief of some people. If I lose my job, I can start from scratch, the important thing is to be healthy and learn to be human.”
