How to get non-engineers to understand what an engineer knows? 22

[CheckThePlug]

Hello,

I've had a problem the past few months at my new job. I am the only mechanical engineer on staff at a product development department that is part of a larger service department, yet my bosses, etc. never seem to want to listen to what I say about matters of mechanical function. It's almost as if they think I have a degree in Solidworks drafting. When I worked in the oilfield, when an engineer spoke, everyone listened, but here, they treat me like I don't know anything and will run anything I say past the service techs and side with them if they say something different. How do I get people to understand the intimate mechanical understanding a mechanical engineer has without making people belligerent or defensive and just ultimately make come off as an egomaniac? It's very frustrating for someone to say something objectively wrong in contrast to what I'm saying and then their response is the one taken as fact.

 

[mbt22]

Who did your roles in the department before you - another engineer? How did they work? Is there a history of parts failing to meet spec?

What do you go to the techs to learn?

Advise, by all means; tell/order if you have the authority and responsibility to; if your advice is ignored and you are proved right, don't say I told you so. People will notice and remember, and after a while your stock will rise.

I do not know you or your background, and appreciate you are frustrated, but *telling* people that you are smarter than them, they could not understand your calcs or have learned from your elders and surpassed them is unlikely to endear you to them.

Matt

 

[MadMango]

Sounds like you are fighting a horrible work culture, your co-workers are the least of your concerns. They are behaving in the manner in which they were shown, now you are trying to turn their world upside down. That won't work long, and something will have to give, either them or you. You haven't stated how long you've worked there, so my guess is everyone else has seniority over you, which means you might be the one escorted to the door.

Don't try to win the Big War, but settle for smaller victories... a fastener change here, a flange detail there, whatever the case may be. It seems that while you have experience, you're still viewed as "The Kid". You're going to have to prove yourself to them, and throwing your degree and age around is not the way to handle it. You need allies. Try being more personable with the people making your parts.

At one job I had to deal with the R&D head machinist that everyone called a hard-ass. He was 6'2", burly, fiery red hair, with an attitude to match. He was intimidating, and I walked on eggshells when he was around. He would constantly throw my drawings down on my desk, "This'll never work!" and walk away. I'd waste my time talking with other engineers on how I should change my parts, make the changes, and try to get the parts made again.

Eventually I learned that if I went to the machinist and "sought out his experience" while I was designing the parts, he was much more approachable. He just wanted a feeling of ownership, that he was contributing rather than just making parts. I learned a great deal about machining and manufacturing from him, including some considerations I never concerned myself with before, and also learned why he had preferences for certain things (most had to do with his limited resources, not his skill). I came to understand why he had a chip on his shoulder, and learned how to work around them while still getting the parts that I wanted and needed. He became a great ally after that, and would actually go out of his way to ensure my parts were done when I needed them. In return, I fought hard to get some POs approved to get him better equipment.

We all started as The Kid, even those 40/50/60+ years old people you work with now. Try to understand their concerns with your suggestions, and one day you might have a long engineering career and be one of those 40/50/60+ years old people yourself.

"Art without engineering is dreaming; Engineering without art is calculating."


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[SomptingGuy]

Work somewhere else ... with engineers. I'm a damn good engineer with very good qualifications, but I'm just average (or below) here.

- Steve

 

[SLTA]

somebody buy Snorgy a drink...or give him/her a hug. burned bad by an MBA, were ya?

I love having homeowners tell me how I should write my report about fixing their structural problems. and send me details and say "stamp this" when I've already said it won't work. luckily, homeowners are usually a one-shot deal. I am able to just walk away from the worst of the jobs, saying I'm too busy or whatever. love having my own firm.

 

[SteveMartin]

It sounds like your job situation has more than its fair share of challenges/difficulties, but your tone/attitude as gathered from your posts in this thread is not helping your case.

My suggestions:

Drop the "my mechanical understanding is superior" attitude. Your degree & experience make your understanding different, not inherently better. I'm relatively low on the experience scale (12 years) but I still learn a lot from people who did not go the education route I chose. The best older engineers I've known still attempt to learn from the various non-engineers they work with.

Involve your expected detractors/opposition in design conversations as early as can be reasonably done. You're much more likely to get agreement if the stakeholders feel they've had a chance to contribute. You may learn a bit or get some additional ideas too.

For the times you need to push an issue, put together a cost/benefit analysis for your management. "Bob's way will cost XX and do YY; my way will cost AA and do BB." You still won't win all of these, but sometimes it will help - sometimes people will go with one option only because they understand it better, and having the pros and cons laid out will help their decision. Make sure to fairly include any potential negatives of your preferred solution as well - your detractors will quickly latch on to any perceived attempt to skew the comparison.

I absolutely agree with not signing anything you feel will not work. Make a distinction though between "will not work" and "is not the best way to make this work." If I had a (what I felt was) better way to do something but my suggestion was overruled I would still be willing to sign the second option so long as I felt it would work (if clearly not as well as my plan would).

Remember that this company and these people were succesful before you came on scene, and likely could continue to be so should you depart. Maybe what they're doing isn't as good as it could be, but it's obviously worked, and it is hard to push against that sort of inertia. Unless things are obviously unsafe, choose your battles.

Not a suggestion, but I feel that I should point out that of your list of "specific examples that any half-witted engineer would clearly recommend against" you hardly gave enough detail to make that obvious. I have products in succesful service right now in spite of (and in one case because of) violating your purported obvious choices. I expect that in the cases you are thinking of the examples may be obvious and the decisions correct, but you did not give us sufficient information fully understand that. Putting forth your opinion as fact without sufficient proof as you did will immediately put people up as defensive, especially if you're relatively new to the group/team you are presenting to.

 

[ornerynorsk]

What's the old saying about teaching pigs to sing? It works both ways, though. Even stubborn old ba$tard$s have a few tricks you can learn from. Age and experience trumps youth and knowledge almost universally, right or wrong. You just need to discover a clever work-around in those instances where you need to prevail for the sake of safety and design.

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

 

[SNORGY]

Thanks to all engineers for the drinks and hugs sent my way.



Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[nuche1973]

Don’t whine. Don’t expect to be worshipped. Don’t lose your composure when confronted. Don’t complain in secret to others about small issues. Don’t try to explain complex mathematics to people who can’t understand nor care. You have to earn your place with a group that has been working together for a long time and as I am sure you have experienced this while in the oilfield: it is “put up or shut up.” And the best way to beat that is to be able to use your experience to point out potential problems, efficiently fix current issues and perform well under pressure.

"I drank what?!" Socrates?

 

[lacajun]

I've learned a lot over the years from those uneducated people because they've been running it for soooo long. They have seen things I haven't even with years of experience. They may not understand what happened fully but they could certainly help me solve their problems by explaining what they saw. I am very grateful for their help because it made my job much easier many times. A couple of them saved my bacon. Needless to say, I expressed my gratitude quickly to them.

Gratitude for your co-workers goes a long way regardless of age. I concur with others about getting buy in and all that human dynamics stuff. It's important to get them on your side. If you act like a stuffed shirt, you'll not succeed. In my line of work, those uneducated people can make or break you. I had to help a young engineer understand that once. He believed me after he had an "experience."

SNORGY, a hug and drink from me to you because you are not in any way bitter.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[TenPenny]

I notice several attempts in this thread to point out that the tone of the OP, if duplicated in person, is likely half of the problem, and that some, no, I'll say most, of these attempts to point this out have been treated, by the original poster, with contempt or complete disregard. This, I think simply emphasizes the point.

One can be the smartest, most capable engineer in the world, yet, if one acts like the south end of a north bound horse, one won't get the respect and adulation that one is seeking.

Around here, expecting people to sign a form that essentially says they disagree with you would get you laughed at in the short term, and probably fired in the medium term.

 

[kirrer]

I agree with the sentiment of getting the workshop guys / technicians on your side. I've done the same many times & it helps me make a better product. Then they're more willing to listen to you & work with you.

I also agree with showing your work regarding any engineering claims you're making - the technical documentation and background is the way of showing both that you understand what's going on, and you're willing to explain to others to understand what's going on.

Both of those are relatively obvious, to me. So, suffice it to say the real reason I responded to this thread is to thank TenPenny for the best insult I will be able to use in the future "south end of a north bound horse". I really have to work that one into daily conversations at least once a week. Thanks!

Kevin Irrer
Northville, MI USA

 

[SNORGY]

Trust me...not that I'd know...

It is even much, much worse to be at (Y-1524 mm) at the south end of a northbound horse.

Thanks lacajun...

Back to the thread...

Don't ever underestimate the brains of the guys holding the tools (particularly the big ones) and doing the grunt work of taking things apart, putting things together or building things in general accordance with drawings that have hitherto undetected errors. I've said before, some of the smartest guys I know are just farmers - they can get pretty much *anything* that ain't supposed to work to work. No engineer starts out smarter than they are, but the good engineers become (at least almost) as smart as they are once, they have learned what those guys (and gals) already know. Getting on their good side early on accelerates the engineer's learning curve, because once they understand you are on their side they'll be more than happy to download things to you.



Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[scone38]

@checktheplug

Many good posts in reply to your "problem" in this thread. Hope you take the advise of many of us who have been there and done that. Work together with your co-workers and soon they will value your opinions when they realize you value theirs as well.

 

[KENAT]

Late to the party but here goes.

You can't really control how others act etc, only your own behavior and approach to them.

So, if management are getting techs to second guess you, talk to the techs before you talk to management. You could be a real smart ass and have semi formal 'design reviews' with some of the techs but this may be too much of a waste of time from their point of view. Either way get their agreement up front.

Second, as subtly pointed out by others, your communication skills need improving as even to most of us you're coming off as somewhat arrogant. Even if you are actually arrogant improving how you communicate with folks may help make this less obvious. I'm not yet a gray hair if it helps swallow the pill.

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[TobiBaker]

I think it would be usefull perhaps to put together a brief presntation for dispalying the differences.

Alternatively type something up.

If that doesn't help perhaps you should talk to somebody and voice your concerns !

 

[ports394]

Sorry i didn't read the whole thread, I'll come back to it later.

Right now you're fighting a group of people, and people are stupid. You need to take them down as individuals. Approach them one by one, tell them what's wrong and how to improve it. Let them take credit for your ideas.

Funny thing

 

[ports394]

Funny thing.. they're going to take credit for some of your ideas at first. But they won't be able to explain why, very well, and will fail at follow ups.

Like a person uearlier... stupid people will bring you down to their level and beat you with their experience.

 

[patprimmer]

OK I am going to be a bit repetitive here, oh, and very late to the party.

Not having studied engineering does not make them stupid.

Also as others have said, they maybe have valid reasons. Maybe not valid re engineering but valid re assembly, cost or maintenance or marketability. You may well be as ignorant of their job as they are of yours. Hence they probably call you the stupid engineer who doesn;t know $h!!t.

If so who is right and who is wrong. My guess is both are wrong.

Learn things like that seam that has to be welded cannot be reached with the welder or that 3" long bolt needs a bit more than 3" clearance over the hole to actually be able to insert the bolt in the hole or whatever you might unknowingly be doing that makes their life hell.

Co-operation and consultation works a lot better than confrontation or even passive confrontation via a third party in such circumstances.

That process needs to start somewhere and as you are the new guy, and according to you, the smartest and best educated, guess where it needs to start.

Regards
Pat
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[mfgenggear]

check the plug

You are wise in getting advise.
it is a frustrating situation. it can get worse or it can get better, It is a management issue.
Your management is more interested in saving $$ instead of safety first. Since you have the experience & the degree. look else where. It is walking the line. It becomes an issue when the tail is telling the head what to do. I do believe it is imperative that you get advise from the floor. because hands on it a must for our jobs. but ultimately the Engineer is responsible for Safety Issues, Fit Form & function.

Mfgenggear