Eng-Tips is the largest engineering community on the Internet

Intelligent Work Forums for Engineering Professionals

Register Log in

Can you even avoid affirmative action employers anymore? 79

Status
Not open for further replies.
WARose

WARose

Structural
Mar 17, 2011
5,581
0
0
US
I had a buddy talk me into applying to the same place he's working....and I take a look at the place later (nothing like looking after you leap)....and in a company that's 90% male....they've got women in just about ALL the lead positions. I know at least 2 of them.....and they are nowhere near as qualified as some of the other people there.

Is there even a way to avoid this now? (Except at the smaller companies.) I am not anti-female in any way....but this sort of thing has resulted in chaos everywhere I've been that had it.

 
Replies continue below

Recommended for you

Sort by date Sort by votes
Going to get worse, you ask me. Glad to not be in the "workforce" anymore. I'd strangle the next HR type I came across :)

Edit: in Bold

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
If I had to do over again I'd try real hard to be self employed.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's unavoidable. In the USA, there are even tax credits for, let's say, hitting certain quotas. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) is one example of federal involvement on the issue. I suppose it's an optics thing. Have to make the industry look equitable. I think that's why Carol Drucker's mug is on so many AISC Steelwise pages.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
When I was a manager at McDonnell Douglas, working in our Detroit office, one of the people in my group, a female engineer (BS Aerospace from Georgia Tech), was on what they called the 'fast-track'. Instead of doing an annual performance review, for her, I had to do one every six months. Now don't get me wrong, she was the real deal and had very good promise. In fact, just before I transferred back to R&D, taking a staff position to the VP of software development, she got a chance to move to a corporate level job at the company headquarters in St. Louis.

Now it looked like she was finally going to move up into a job she really wanted, when a few years later, she up and quit and moved back home to Atlanta. It turns out that we shared birthdays, only she was exactly 10 years younger than I was, but after she left my group and I went back to SoCal and she moved to St. Louis, we'd always exchange phone calls on our birthday just to see how things were going. The first call after she left the company I found out what happened. She was being sexually preyed upon by a high ranking corporate executive in the company (note that she was a good looking women and had a great personality). Anyway, the guy was married and she said NO WAY, but he kept hounding her and HR refused to get involved as he was a long time employee and an old high school classmate of the company president. Now I had heard rumors because she used to work for me and people would tell me stories, but I wasn't in a position to do much of anything and she never complained to me directly, at least not until after she had left the company.

Now, she ended-up OK, but she never married. Instead she put all her effort into the company she started back in Atlanta. Her father was a general contractor and her brother worked with him, so she started a paint and drywall company, doing subcontracting for them and other builders as well as some repair and restoration work on her own, but that experience in St. Louis really took its toll on her. Note that this all took place back in the late 80's.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
When I was a manager at McDonnell Douglas, working in our Detroit office, one of the people in my group,..............
Click to expand...

Ok but your story is about sexual harassment (as far as I can tell). That's a separate subject.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Small companies essentially. Still have to listen to them talk about being underpaid (although in my case, APEGA"s statistics and my anecdotal evidence shows that my female peers have out earned me for the same work for all 10 years of my career). Come on now, I know the type of people that own engineering consulting firms. If they could pay women 77 cents on the dollar they would only ever hire women.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
This is my experience (anecdotal, of course): the women I know who made it far in engineer just on their merits almost uniformly despise affirmative action.

============
"Is it the only lesson of history that mankind is unteachable?"
--Winston S. Churchill
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Large companies can't afford to hire for anything other than productivity as well.

Unless you know something beyond "nowhere near as qualified as some of the other people there" you have no basis for making any judgements. Lead positions are not just about technical competency; people skills, leadership, etc., all play into such decisions.

I consider myself "qualified" technically, but never had any interest in management, i.e., herding cats, BTDT; not fun, not rewarding to me.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
IMO Affirmative action is a bad solution to a much worse problem. Lots of unintended consequences, but I don't think we can fully right the ship without some measure of direct action.

The worst to me is the eminently qualified women and POCs that must bear the "affirmative action hire?" question mark hovering over their heads at all times.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
IRstuff. That simply isn't true. Large companies are more likely to have more minimally productive "bodies" and other results of pandering/nepotism. It's an unavoidable fact.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
IRstuff. That simply isn't true. Large companies are more likely to have more minimally productive "bodies" and other results of pandering/nepotism. It's an unavoidable fact.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And even in large companies, having a bunch of voids sitting in production positions just puts more weight on other people.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
The proliferation of "protected classes" is discouraging.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

NOLAscience
  • Locked
  • Question
Eng-Tips.com Has Been Sold to WTWH Canada, Inc.
Replies
18
Views
19
SnTMan
SnTMan
Geotech-ing
  • Locked
  • Article
Geotechnical Engineering - The Great Divide between Younger and Older Engineers 14
Replies
17
Views
20
CWB1
CWB1
Space car
  • Locked
  • Question
Can lithium batteries power all cars in America? 23
6 7 8
Replies
158
Views
287
cranky108
cranky108
ekalfwonS
  • Locked
  • Question
Professional Governance Act (BC, Canada) 4
Replies
16
Views
17
geotechguy1
geotechguy1
bridgebuster
  • Locked
  • Question
Is your employer turning into your nanny? 13
2
Replies
37
Views
69
CWB1
CWB1
Back
Top