Question for PE's with own practice or freelance PE's 5

[boome006]

To the PE's out in the work force, either with their own practice, or at very small firms (Structural Engineering Field): When encountering an issue or problem that you require direction and help, and no co-worker or employee can help surmount the task, where do you go for help? What resources would you use, or who would you reach out to?

Are there engineering forums like this that you mostly go to? Memberships to certain groups? Websites? Books? Reach out to colleagues in the business?

Thanks for any responses.

 

[phamENG]

All of the above.

 

[EngineeringEric]

If its a technical problem, I research online which sets the ground work for finding publications and manuals and more. I have reached out to others I've worked with to get free advice on where to look. I have hired a specialized engineer once for a bunch of crazy FEM work that was out of my comfort. What you listed is usually what I aim for.

For professional/business, I've talked to close clients and non-client relationships.

 

[KootK]

1) I have every book imaginable but I find that this forum is the most important source of technical help for me. Quite often, I'm moving so fast that there's no time to really dive into the books. And, with due respect to my local, in person engineering friends, they mostly don't wield the kind of technical horsepower that can be mobilized here. I'm doing this right now in this thread: Link. Some of the best people on the planet for this kind of thing are helping me for free. That's tough to beat.

2) For business stuff, anybody else that's also doing it, or has done it, can be a good resource. Lawyers and accountants can be helpful too. Most large urban centers will also have clubs for entrepreneurs and small businesses too which can be helpful both for information and for commiseration.

 

[phamENG]

but I find that this forum is the most important source of technical help for me.

I'll second this one. In my area, a good engineer who is also a good businessman/woman is almost as rare as a unicorn. And as I've directed myself toward business, most of the mentors/colleagues interested in helping me have tended toward the business side. I'm not saying they're bad engineers - they're quite good, but tend to be either more conservative generally or tend to stick to the "tried and true", "this is how we've always done it" methods so they can devote their brainpower to business interests. Some of them actually call me for technical help. So if I need business help I go to them, but if it's technical help I need to come here.

 

[boome006]

Thank you guys for the great responses!

 

[KootK]

With respect to the kind of help that one can get here, you'll find that folks here are very generous with their time, even you contribute nothing at all here other than the asking of your own questions. On the other hand, if you can spare the time to pay it forward and help others here as well, you'll find that the responses to your own questions will level up significantly. It's kind of a gentleman's quid pro quo. When I ask a question here, I usually get all the king's horses and all the king's men. And that serves me extremely well. If it's phamENG asking the question, I'll want to help so badly that the real problem becomes restraining myself from just making stuff up to try to help.

 

[KootK]

In the interest of being truthful, I'll add that my most important technical resource is the confidence that I have in myself being, generally, as good as most anybody else within the range of work that I typically take on. Without this, I think that solo practice would be a pretty stressful slog.

 

[phamENG]

KootK - thank you for that. Feel free to make stuff up. The stuff that comes out of your imagination has a better shot at being right than some of the crack pot ideas I don't share with the general public (and, let's face it, several of the ones that I do).

boome006 - sorry if my first response came off a little short. I'm beginning to understand that eng-tips is sort of an addiction for me. I don't have much professional interaction outside of this space, so it fills a need, but I need to be better about how often I check in here. Sometimes short answers a compromise between the work I should be doing and the need I feel to be here and contributing...probably not healthy...

In the interest of being truthful, I'll add that my most important technical resource is the confidence that I have in myself being, generally, as good as most anybody else within the range of work that I typically take on. Without this, I think that solo practice would be a pretty stressful slog.

This is really insightful. And I think it plays into the need I feel to be here. Struggling with a feeling of professional inadequacy and self doubt is not unknown to me. Posting here and at least not being shot down and occasionally being praised for being right helps shore up my insecurities. Validation not only by proof of concept but also by fellow professionals is important. It's easy to feel lost in the dark if you're on your own. eng-tips is a good light in that darkness.

 

[BAretired]

When I was active in a one man consulting company, I would consult with engineering friends in a similar situation when another opinion was needed; they would do the same. A site like this would have been very much appreciated.

BA

 

[Aesur]

I agree with what everyone is saying here. I have a handful of good friends who are fellow engineers locally, of all ages who have seen most everything at this point that I can ask a question of or they reach out to me with questions. I also use this forum quite a bit for things that are new to me, and even in some instances have reached out directly to a specialist to hire them for consultation, some of which participate on this forum.

Can you imagine the engineering company we could create if we combined a group of engineers from this forum into one company - that's a fun thought.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

It probably doesn't happen for me as often as others (because I'm not working on design projects much anymore). However, I had a network of friends / engineers that I've worked with in the past that I try to maintain relationships with.

I like to meet one of them for lunch occasionally and "shoot the shit". Sometimes asking (or answering) a relatively detailed question about something. Sometimes just to catch up on what's going on in each other's lives.

This includes a couple of people I went to school with. A number of people from my first employer (most of whom have moved onto other companies), and some from one of my more recent employers.

 

[KootK]

Can you imagine the engineering company we could create if we combined a group of engineers from this forum into one company - that's a fun thought.

I've been doing a super small version of that for a couple of years now, as you know. Over the last year, several other forum members have reached out to discuss similar arrangements. The mechanics of it are tough but the dream is big. Basically a distributed, shared ownership team with lots of horsepower and, hopefully, the ability to accept larger contracts without to much stress.

 

[HouseBoy]

I was partners with two other engineers for about 10 years. We had worked together at another firm previously. We did fine together but there was a tendency for each of us to want to do things OUR way. We were not happy and we respected each other enough to decide that we would be better off separated. Now, we are doing things the way we each want to and we are all much happier. I contact them occasionally with technical questions and they call on me for things that we each have more knowledge about. We catch up on family news etc. I refer work to them also if it is not something I'm good at and they are. Only good projects though. I like them....

Of course, I love this forum for the breadth of knowledge and the especially insightful responses.
ONE THING I can't figure out is how some of the players (KK, pham and a few others) seem to have so much time to respond here. What they provide is thoughtful and truly impressive.

 

[KootK]

ONE THING I can't figure out is how some of the players (KK, pham and a few others) seem to have so much time to respond here.

I deliberately sacrifice things that most others would not in order to make the time required for that. It absolutely does reduce my work & personal life capacity by 15-30 minutes most days. If I'm embroiled in a hot debate that's truly interesting to me, it might be as much as an hour each day. Thankfully, that only tends to happen for a week or two once or twice a year.

It's like everything else in life, you make time for the things that are truly important to you. My big uptick in activity started around 2015. It's no coincidence that's about the time when my last kid became a surly teenager and ceased wanting anything to do with me short of $$$ and driver's ed. I spent the first 15yr on this forum as mostly a lurking, occasional asker of questions and accrued a rather large debt of obligation that way.

Occasionally, a grateful poster here will shower me with kindly praise including the obsequious "however did you come to be so knowledgeable about XYZ?". By and large, the answer to that is that I read a lot and I've spent 15-30 minutes on this forum learning from others almost every single day for a couple of decades. That's how. I've learned comparatively little from my actual work experience.

 

[BAretired]

Of course, I love this forum for the breadth of knowledge and the especially insightful responses.
ONE THING I can't figure out is how some of the players (KK, pham and a few others) seem to have so much time to respond here. What they provide is thoughtful and truly impressive.

I'm impressed by that too.
KK's and pham's contributions are much appreciated; 15-30 minutes a day seems like an underestimate to me.


BA

 

[phamENG]

I make time for it because it's the part of the job that I really like. I think I make a pretty good engineer...but I think I'd make a better teacher of engineering. Not saying that knowledge has reached the level necessary for it, but the research and training side of the job is really fulfilling for me. Do I enjoy designing and watching a the building I designed grow out of the ground? Absolutely. But most people involved in that process don't care about my contribution, and more than once I've seen pictures the ribbon cutting ceremony for a building I designed on LinkedIn...two days after the event that I wasn't invited to. So the personal satiisfaction has some limits there. (I'm not looking for public acclaim, but the architect/owner acknowledging that what I did was useful and letting me sit in the back row would be nice.)

On the other hand, when I contribute here people care. They appreciate it. It makes me feel good. And I learn a lot. More than a few questions come up that I don't really know the answer to, but I know enough to have a good idea where to look. So I'll take a 20 minute break, read up on some stuff, and come back with what I find. I've hit a lot of snags in the field that I was able to address quickly and efficiently because somebody else asked the question here and I researched it to find out. I love learning this stuff, and I really enjoy teaching it and explaining it to others.

Maybe I'd be better off as a training manager for a mega firm, but I like the flexibility that comes from a one man shop.

 

[KootK]

Not saying that knowledge has reached the level necessary for it, but the research and training side of the job is really fulfilling for me.

The key there is that it's not just the knowledge but, rather, the combination of:

1) Some knowledge.

2) The ability communicate complex knowledge effectively.

3) More than anything, the willingness to spend your time helping/teaching.

You're in fine shape on #1 in my estimation but, more importantly, you've got #2 & #3 in spades, all day long. No sane person could argue otherwise. You'd excel at teaching, I'm sure of it.

Maybe I'd be better off as a training manager for a mega firm.

Interestingly, as of January, that is what I'm doing although not for a mega firm. It's got it's own challenges of course as nothing is ever quite as cools as you think that it will be. At the least, it never is if you naturally tend towards optimism.

 

[KootK]

K's and pham's contributions are much appreciated; 15-30 minutes a day seems like an underestimate to me.

It depends how you look at it I suppose. Regardless one should not underestimate what can be accomplished with small amounts of effort put forth consistently.

Another place where I put forth small amounts of effort consistently is with my exercise regimen. I do about 40 minutes most days and it will be weight training, elliptical machine, yoga, or road biking. Of those four activities, I detest all of them except for the road biking. And even there my mind wanders. To be able to tolerate these activities I basically have to think about something interesting while I do them. So here's what I do:

1) While on the elliptical machine or between sets of weightlifting, I use my tablet read pretty much every word that is written on the structural engineering general discussion forum. This really doesn't take very long because there's just not that much activity here, much to my chagrin.

2) When I've read everything, I'll spend the remainder of my elliptical and strength training dead time thinking about what I've read and how I might contribute to those discussions. If I'm on my bike or doing yoga, I'll spend 100% of my time thinking about eng-tips threads (can't read on my tablet during those activities). I also tend to take uncommonly long showers which buys me another 15 minutes of thinking about structural engineering problems every day. Ditto for any time spent in my car.

3) When I get to my computer I'm pretty much just pounding out ideas that have been ruminating in my mind for some time. It's high RPM typing, bare bones blue beam sketching, and answering the occasional clarification. It's really only this last step that takes me 15-30 min per day. But, then, all of the rumination time that I've described above is basically free from my perspective. Sure, I could be spending that time thinking about supermodels or my 401K plan but I don't; I think about structural engineering problems. It's just what I do.

 

[Celt83]

Echo KootK's statement Pham, as well as HouseBoy's.

I get technical engineering satisfaction researching and sharing here. This space allows for the opportunity to be wrong with only a chip to your ego as the consequence and more often than not gets you on the path to being correct via a focused research path that someone already went down, an old document that a member collected along their years of experience, sometimes a full outright explanation of the solution, and just giving you enough of the right terms to get your google fu up to snuff.

I had a similar experience to Pham where I worked on a memorial for the WTC was one of the more complicated things I had worked on up to that point in my career. Project went on lag for a bit and then we got an email with pictures of the entire design and construction team each taking turns tightening the bolts to the foundation, was a bit of a gut punch.

I'm making a thing:

http://www.thestructuraltoolbox.com

(It's no Kootware and it will probably break but it's alive!)