eng-tips promoting laziness? 6

[nickelkid]

I can't be the only on who has these thoughts. Do people own and/or read/study handbooks anymore? Why is it that individuals want (or need) to be spoon feed? Etc…

I realize: that mentoring on the job is not what it once was, immediate gratification is an epidemic in the world today, and eng-tips helps me (I am very glad it exists and is active).

With that said, are eng-tips promoting (contributing to) laziness?

NB My underlying objective of this thread is to improve myself when dealing with others when I rightly or wrongly perceive laziness or lack of qualifications. I know I am not alone.

Thank you.

 

[jmw]

Pat, that's how I got most of mine.
Pretty soon Eng-Tips will allow posters to trade stars for air miles...or did I just invent that?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ctopher]

"...trade stars for air miles" ?
That means we would have to pay to login.

Chris
SolidWorks/PDMWorks 08 3.1
AutoCAD 08
ctopher's home (updated Aug 5, 2008)
ctopher's blog
SolidWorks Legion

 

[jmw]

Nah, that's why there's advertising.
The better we are, the more advertising the site can sell and the more valuable we become and hence deserving of air miles.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[MechEng2005]

Sure! Then the airlines can advertise too! Book your flight on this flight, we have 4 high-caliber, 300-star engineers on board! Surely a flight with that many good engineers can't have technical difficulties!

-- MechEng2005

 

[Unotec]

MechEng, it'd have too much hot air on it

<<A good friend will bail you out of jail, but a true friend
will be sitting beside you saying ” Damn that was fun!” - Unknown>>

 

[btrueblood]

Nah, they'd just use it as an excuse to bump you. "If we lost that many good engineers, the economy would screech to a halt"...oh, wait.

 

[cranky108]

Who among us has all the answers? Why not ask a question and recieve several possibilities, and comments that we hadn't thought of.

Besides not all the questions are technical, there's also questions of methods, and situations.

And for the few who are the locational one of a kind engineers, it helps in the learning of new ideas.

 

[electricpete]

The ostensible purpose of the fora is to enable engineers to obtain help from other engineers.
However, I am sure many (I hesitate to presume most)engineers find more satisfaction in being the supplier of wisdom rather than being the recipient.
That being so the only laziness that offends is that which does not challenge or surprise, even the taboo students get away with it if they ask interesting enough questions.
Eng-tips may or may not encourage laziness in others but for most of us (I'm more sure of this)it has greater compensating values. We only get upset at laziness when it fails to stimulate us, whether the questioner is lazy or not is their problem and if they don't too obviously make it ours, we tolerate it.

Great post. I couldn't have said it better myself and in fact I'm sure I cannot express it as eloquently as you. I think you are 100% right about what motivates most of the participants. It is not efficiency in responding to questions. It is keeping our intellectual interest.... whether it be brushing up on our basic skills, solving challenging problems, learning new things, or occasionally being recognized for our contribution.

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