are we soft? 6

[rowingengineer]

When did the engineering world go soft? I know I'm going to ruffle a few feathers with this post, probably even get red flagged!

I am seeing a lot of posts about crappy jobs, sh*t bosses and the likes.

Grievances are usually under paid, over worked, boring jobs, unethical behavior and unappreciated. Most of these posts are followed by a justification, like:
1. I wouldn't be able to get a job anywhere else
2. Engineering is boring
3. There are no ethics in the office

I willing to put it out there that this only happens if you let it (to an extent). Why not take action;
When the boss says do this and you know it is unethical, well tell him to stuff the job.
When the pay is no good, take action and confront the boss, or next time you’re on site as the laborer how much he makes an hour, then watch him for a few minutes. Maybe your pay is good, compared to the rest of the world, not just lawyers and politicians.

When you get bored, take a new job be willing to look under all stones, good jobs don’t fall from the sky.
But whatever you do, don’t let the world beat you down, put up a fight.

As one of my favorite quotes goes “my heart is for my family, my balls are for business”, start using your balls (if you have them).

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it

 

[IRstuff]

We're not soft, just well-upholstered...

I don't see that anything is really that different. People have griped about their jobs pretty much always. In fact, even a century ago, most people probably hated their jobs, but really were unable to get anything better.

I think that our perspective here is severely warped, not unlike a doctor who thinks that everyone is sick, because everyone he sees is sick and the healthy ones don't bother seeing the doctor. The people that get out of their ruts are probably too busy working to be bothered with posting answers here.

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[racookpe1978]

So, what did the engineer who had to put up with his client's requirement for the "Bent Pyramid" have to complain about?

6000 years later (and he had "free" slave labor to play with!) ... and I'm still using it as a design example of project management, client desires, structural strength of materials, and design progress .....

 

[TDAA]

I would appreciate you not commenting on my weight, but yes, I have gained some around the middle.

Most of the gripes are a sign of the times. My little vent on one of the other posts was just that - a venting. I know it is up to me, and I will make it happen when the time comes. But that is the thing, many of us are currently stuck due to the state of the industry.

There is also a generational shift occurring. This is having a huge impact on engineering, I believe. In some ways this career is well suited to baby boomers, who wanted to work, work, work, to get ahead. Gen X (card carrying member) wants a bit different, more of a work to live. The Y, or millennium, have living as the priority, even more so. i have read that they are more likely to work contract, and do not want to be tied down as much. They are more willing to scrap a job, just because it interferes with life. I have seen two brothers willing to quit over going to a Phish Festival.

 

[patprimmer]

Row

By your definition I am not soft, but I went from quite well off to quite poor. The two are somewhat connected.

I believe I have a strong sense of right and wrong and am strongly committed to what is right in word and action. It does have its small rewards and large costs.

Regards
Pat
See FAQ731-376 for tips on use of eng-tips by professional engineers &

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm

for site rules

 

[Ron]

RE...I've observed the same. Good post!

It's a bit sad in some respects. I see engineers with no confidence in their abilities, with no initiative to do better or change their lot, no striving to exceed the status quo....those are people that you wonder why they chose engineering.

I like the stress. I like the pace. I can't imagine doing anything else. It's never boring. I'm always learning. I try to always teach.

Engineering is an honorable profession. I'm proud to be one. Understandably, the personality traits that make one want to be an engineer are the very ones that cause some to be reticent and even whiny.

But you're exactly right....you don't have to sit on your a$$ and complain..you can always do something about it.

 

[IRstuff]

finding engineering lumps on a log is not new in the least. At my first job, the company had this amsuing habit of going off and hiring new grads, and then deciding what to do with them. So, one year, a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new grad from USC shows up, and we spend the next convincing our upper management that a Computer Science major was of very little utility in a semiconductor R&D group.

So, they agree, and change out the CompSci for a 4.0 GPA EE from Berkeley. Turns out he was less than useful, having ZERO desire to do much of anything, and quite happy to sit in his cubicle reading trade magazines. Supposedly, not long after I left the group, he departed to help is family run their restaurant business.

In retrospect, we should have kept the CompSci...

TTFN

FAQ731-376

 

[FeX32]

lmao. ..what a dingle


Fe

 

[mauricestoker]

Maybe it's because people get grumpier as they get older. The kids today are so soft, they have to have "Air Jordans". Well, when I was young, we didn't have shoes. We used to have to strap babies to our feet.

I may be getting soft, or it might be all in my head.

 

[JLSeagull]

fEx32
Please use all caps when posting acronyms. I saw the L as an I and tried to sort your post. OK, I can be a bit slow ...

 

[jmw]

I think we are just settling in to the familiarity of these forums.
In new forums/websites I tend to be more polite and defferential but Eng-tips has become more like a real work place with real colleagues, perhaps like somewhere down by the coffee machine. I would not normally expect such whinging and grumbling but here it seems OK, comforting.
So I don't think we are collectively becoming soft, just more relaxed.
Not a problem.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[DRWeig]

I really liked IRStuff's "We're not soft, just well-upholstered." Kinda made my day.

You haven't seen me ranting much in the forum. I was raised with really good examples of integrity all around me, and I guess it somehow stuck in spite of my wanderings. I've had the same in my career. In my current position, I'm the guy they come to with ethical or otherwise sticky problems. I have no problem with starting each conversation with, "Putting all money and ego aside, what's the right thing to do?"

I can't say that the bosses always follow my recommendations exactly, but they don't just discount me either. One of the founders of my company had only two original rules: 1) Give the customer what he paid for, and 2) If something's wrong, make it right. He said that strict adherence to those rules guaranteed success. I have been fortunate to stay here a long, long time with full permission to avert bad stuff.

Enough reverie. In my well-upholstered way, I'll hopefully keep plugging a few more years.

Oh, and you keep on plugging too, patprimmer!

Good on y'all,

Goober Dave

 

[kelowna]

I do not see a lot of softness here. I see a lot of whining, but that's fine by me, I do it too, everybody has once in a while. And I see some double checking, kind of 'do you guys think the same as I do or am I going nuts here'.

I also see some young kids kind of lost once in a while, but I am also OK with that. I wish I had had a couple of old timers to go to when I was starting.

 

[Twoballcane]

My theory is that most engineers are modest and uncomfortable tooting their horn in the face of so much animosity. The engineers who are doing well will not start threads on how well they are doing. Hey I never started a thread “I got a new job with a 25% raise and promotion and on top of that the raise got me into the six figure range” back in 2008. Or, “I got a bonus of 5% of my salary and a recognition letter from my GM for writing a white paper and having it recognized and presented at a symposium” last year. Or, even all of the little bonuses I get for fire fighting engineering problems. I have the feeling that what you are seeing are the minority of engineers who are moved to vent and do it on Eng-Tips. My other theory is that misery loves company. What kind of response would you thing you would get if you started a thread of negativity and venting? Not positive ones.

Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."

 

[oldrunner]

It may be informative as to the state of our profession to read ENR'S article in their 3/15/10 issue - page 24 - "Pressure, Layoffs and Long Hours Generate Post-Traumatic Construction Disorder"

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Maybe some of us don't realize how bad we have it until someone starts to complain about their situation... ;-)

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[Yagonyonok]

I think it may be the opposite for me. Having read some of the posts on here ("Post Your Worst Boss" for example) have helped me to improve my attitude and made it easier to overlook the small annoyances that can get to me sometimes.

Engineering is the art of modelling materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyse so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess, in such a way that the public has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance.
-A R Dykes

 

[moltenmetal]

RowingEngineer: I couldn't agree more with your admonition to seize the bull by the horns and deal with things head on. But it's not the people who are venting that bother me. The people that don't mind, or actually seem to ENJOY standing neck-deep in sh*t are the ones that annoy me to no end!

The first step in solving any problem is acknowledging it AS a problem!

All the people here are doing is a little venting. Venting to a receptive crowd is actually quite therapeutic. They're also doing a little cross-checking to see if their problem is really as serious as they thought it was. They're gaining a little perspective, rather than curing dandruff by decapitation.

 

[rowingengineer]

Point taken about venting, everyone needs to do it every now and then. However some people on this board are either lying or they have the worst jobs on earth.

There are a few posts were I am left scratching my head wondering how in the hell they do it each day. Given a lot of these are in the “bitter about work” thread, but I would like to see some resolve. I would like to see them heading in a direction, some even seem to be scared to be the one that stands.

Not knowing the situation that brought about Pats unfortunate change in wealth, I would like to think that if more engineers had jump up and stood their ground Pat would still be quite well off.

I am watching (from the outside) a company crush a group of engineers/drafting souls. They got a pay cut, a reduction in required notice period, then increased required hours, yet they just take it, no fight, no attempt at negotiation, nothing. If only one had stood up then they would have all been better off, but no one was willing. Now they are all paying the price.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it

 

[rowingengineer]

And i don't just mean to aim this at the people I also calling out the companies. I was talking to some lawyers recently for a large project that got fouled up. I started a discussion about fees, and how they figured out the fee’s they were going to charge. Simple, they found out what the guy down the road was charging and charge 5% more, because they would need that for marketing.

Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud. After a while you realize that they like it