Graduate Civil Engineering dealing with Difficult Draftsman 27

[ukbridge]

I'm a graduate structural/bridge engineer learning the ins and outs of the UK construction industry as I go along. I wasn't sure if it is obvious, but I find it difficult dealing with draftsman, particularly the senior ones. I think by looking at the focus on my posts here, anybody could tell I'm a very technical guy. In this post I do not mean to generalise all draftsman like this.

Some days I can find it exhausting looking after particular senior draftsman who often try to dictate the way a particular drawing is going, and certain details either myself or senior engineer has suggested. I absolutely understand they have far more experience than myself, and will often know "what seems about right". There are many instances where a draftsman will suggest something, and my senior engineer is out of the office where I am unable to give a valid explanation as to why his/her solution is not valid. This typically applies to smaller non-structural things like manhole chambers, ducts and the like, which probably require a good few years more experience on my part. There are times where I feel unrespected by certain draftsman, maybe I do not deserve this respect yet but I find it difficult to challenge them on the basis that they have many years more experience than I.

Has anyone ever felt/feeling like this? Is there anything I can try to improve the situation? Is it a problem of being more assertive, or is it just part and parcel of the early days? Do I need to change my attitude etc. Even if I were to be assertive, I would likely get played back at and don't want to look like a stand-offish office a*hole. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[IRstuff]

MortenA,

Where do you get that?

"I find it difficult dealing with draftsman, particularly the senior ones."
"particular senior draftsman who often try to dictate the way a particular drawing is going, and certain details either myself or senior engineer has suggested."

Seems pretty clear he's talking having problems with more than just stuff from a senior engineer.

TTFN
faq731-376

Need help writing a question or understanding a reply? forum1529

Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

 

[ukbridge]

Hi all,
Thank you very much for all of your replies. I've read through all of them and want to address them when I have time due to moving out etc, as many of them have contained excellent advice.

I think some of the earlier posts were difficult for me to stomach, since starting out I've felt probably frustrated how little I know despite being an engineer in the early days. I think it pretty much comes down to communication, a skill I could probably do a lot of improvement in. Chilling out probably wouldn't hurt either! And accepting in the early days of course I'm going to know sod all!

Thanks again, I will summarise the things I've learned from this thread soon.

 

[MortenA]

@IRstuff,

2. paragraph: "Some days I can find it exhausting looking after particular senior draftsman who often try to dictate the way a particular drawing is going, and certain details either myself or senior engineer has suggested. I absolutely understand they have far more experience than myself, and will often know "what seems about right". There are many instances where a draftsman will suggest something, and my senior engineer is out of the office where I am unable to give a valid explanation as to why his/her solution is not valid. This typically applies to smaller non-structural things like manhole chambers, ducts and the like, which probably require a good few years more experience on my part."

But then again, the man is still following the tread - he might be able to clarify himself.

 

[ukbridge]

Morten,

"But the problem described is that he's supervising the implementation of the work by SENIOR ENGINEERS - and when the draftsman deviates from the design the SENIOR ENGINEER is often not around. At these times hes not able to say exactly why the alternative design cant be used!"

Yes, thats usually a pretty good summary of what I feel at times. This probably comes down to me not asking enough questions from my senior engineer so I can have a chat about it with whoevers drafting it when I get poked on a particular aspect of a sketch I've to hand.

Whenever he/she is not to hand, I remember and probably panic a bit that they're probably going to want a checkprint to look at when they get back and its not going to look particularly good if we've spent ages chatting about it.

 

[MacGyverS2000]

When dealing with the drafting/tech folks where you're not the person making the final decisions, your verbiage can have a huge impact on how you are perceived. I would choose my wording carefully. For example, if the draftsman is being hardnosed about a particular format, I would say "I think the senior engineer had 'X' in mind for this part, and I was envisioning this method, but let me pass your idea along to him and see which direction he'd like to go."

It's non-committal, non-threatening, and let's the draftsman know his input will be used to help make the final decision. It also sets up the scenario where the draftsman does not get to make the final decision on key points, and you get to act as the draftsman/engineer go-between who has a more intimate grasp on what the engineer was thinking (i.e., you cannot be left out of the final decision).

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[1gibson]

Dan, I just heard you say that you don't need that drawing any time soon, so shelve it until I hear back from you on exactly what you want.

Is that what you meant?

That's the risk with non-committal language like that.

 

[SLTA]

ukbridge, sometimes the folks on this board get a bit cranky and immediately say "oh stupid young 'un, bow to your elders" and don't actually read the post to see what's going on. So please read these responses with a grain of salt.

I've definitely gotten the "no, I'll do it MY way" from drafters, notably two folks who wanted to be engineers but couldn't pass the FE exam (first step here in the USA). They absolutely COULD NOT DEAL with the fact that a woman with a master's degree and years of experience might actually have some knowledge that they didn't. Really, for those folks, there was no amount of kind words or let's-get-a-beer that would make any difference at all. So, I made sure I was durn sure of what I needed on the drawings and got the drawings the way they needed to be. In the end, it was my design and my stamp. Now before folks get all cranky again, yes I was happy to listen to good and useful suggestions, but I wasn't about to let myself be bullied.

I've also worked with some brilliant drafters who had great ideas, and were happy to be part of the team instead of us-vs-them. GOSH is life better that way. Those folks, I learned a ton from, and am glad to know.

Best of luck. I hope things get sorted out.

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[MacGyverS2000]

gibson,

Without explicit instructions, the draftsman is going to do as he pleases. He can start drafting up his version immediately. Should the senior engineer decide the draftsman plan is not what was envisioned, the draftsman soon learns his time was wasted (by his own fault) and the junior engineer "should" gain a little more respect by knowing the "correct" answer (assuming the draftsman isn't a petty jerk). If the draftsman's version is valid, the draftsman is happy he hasn't wasted time, the senior engineer is happy, the junior engineer learns something new, and the junior engineer also (hopefully) looks better in the draftsman's eyes for being respectful about it all.

If a draftsman chose to sit on his ass out of spite, he wouldn't last long at any company I've ever worked at.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[TheTick]

...switching sides for a moment, in defense of draftspeople...

A key role of draftsmen is to be the guardians of drawing standards. The best understand it is more than an arbitrary set of rules. It is about clear communication and thorough documentation. A drawing needs to adhere to standards, not just so it's "done right", but so that it can be read by others who are also drawing-literate.

Problems arise when those with less drawing literacy try to do odd things to make things "clear". They add unnecessary views and cram on additional information that really belongs elsewhere. Such things can make life easier for a select few persons, but can heavily detract from actual communication of design.

 

[berkshire]

I will second what The Tick says.
As one of the " great unwashed" I defer to the " engineer" in charge, however at the end of the day the drawing has to be done so that it can be read by others who are also drawing-literate. It also has to conform to the standards set out by the engineering codes and specifications of the country in question. Do you have any idea how many different manhole covers there are ? Do they all meet " your " code ? Because your draughts-person has done this job a considerable number of times, he/she may have a much better idea than you, what works and what does not, unless you have information you have not given him /her.
B.E.

You are judged not by what you know, but by what you can do.

 

[beej67]

Dave's post up top with the 8 (so far) stars is a great one, and you need to read it. HOWEVER, there are going to be times when you are absolutely right and they are absolutely wrong. When those things happen, try and nicely explain why they're wrong, but avoid any nasty confrontation, and explain the issue to your superior if they decide not to listen to you.

I'll tell you a story of when I was a green engineer and struggled with a particular draftsman.

It was the latter 90s, and I was working civil site in a large, reputable engineering firm. I was green out of undergrad, had maybe worked a year. We were working on a large 18 hole golf course community, doing road layout and grading, in AutoCAD with Softdesk as an overlay. Most of the designers in the office were either engineering or landscape architecture grads, but there was one guy who really knew CAD systems well, and drafted very pretty drawings, but had no degree.

We had a scan of a hand drawn road layout from a land planner, and were trying to lay in roads with actual geometry that fitted the thing. I was doing half of it, and he was doing the other half. The task basically consisted of dropping centerlines down the scanned tif, and filleting them in such a way that they closely matched up with the land planner's road layout, then joining the lines into polylines, assigning those as "alignments" in Softdesk, and then using those alignments to do more complicated tasks like running grading templates down them / etc.

Well when I was trying to work with his stuff in Softdesk, funny things kept happening when I labeled the PIs and PTs on the horizontal curves. It turns out, this draftsman clown was grip-editing the polylines after they'd been filletted, to drag them over top of the curves the land planner had in the tif. In essence, his "Points of Tangency" weren't actually tangent. Huge no-no. Completely wrong.

So I went over to his desk, and asked him what he was doing. He showed me. I told him he was wrong. He got defensive, and accusatory, and started pulling the experience card against me. I said, "no, look, I'll show you why it's wrong" and leaned over his keyboard to show him why, on screen, and the guy flipped his computer screen off to prevent me from showing him.

So I walked away, did whatever work I could on my half that I knew wasn't screwed up, and told my superior about the whole thing the next day. Guy was fired half a year later due to his overall attitude, despite him being a relatively talented and experienced draftsman.

So yes. Listen to the old farts because they have experience. That's how you grow as an engineer. But there are going to be times when your degree is right and they're wrong. At these times, talk it out with them, don't step on their toes, and then bring the issue to a superior. That's what the superior is for. Particularly if he's the guy that's going to be stamping the plans.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[MikeHalloran]

beej67, thanks for that example.

Your experience might have been less memorable, had you said of grip-editing a polyline, something like "not compatible with what we are trying to do in Softdesk", rather than "wrong".



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[JNieman]

Point of nitpickiness. Your degree is never right. You can be right, but your degree will never decree correctness.

Otherwise that's a perfect example and a good post. I hated to nitpick because it's one little iota of "but..." out of a good long post, but it's one point that I believe sums up the whole thread:

Degree, or lack of degree, will not decide who is correct. Both sides should remove their ego and be able to admit the better solution, and keep a mind that's open to seeing the other side.

The only exception is when an engineer is faced with two comparably effective solutions but "feels better" about one or the other. In that case "My stamp is the one going on it and I feel better with this one" is 100% valid because it's his ass on the line. The engineer just has to make sure it's a decision made without ego, but rather regarding the content of the deliverable.

_________________________________________
NX8.0, Solidworks 2014, AutoCAD, Enovia V5

 

[ctopher]

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
-Mark Twain

Experience only can take you so far, experience with degree can take you further.

beej67,
A pic to post on his wall.
Link

Chris, CSWA
SolidWorks 14
ctopher's home
SolidWorks Legion