What should be expected of a new engineer? 6

[spongebob007]

This summer we hired a guy right out of college. The ink on his diploma is barely dry. I was assigned to be his mentor, and frankly the guy is driving me nuts. Sometimes I wonder how he managed to make it through engineering school. He does not have any projects of his own. I am the "project engineer" and I assign him subtasks from my projects. I have kept it as simple as possible, giving him mostly engineering change orders to process. I also have given him some very simple CAD modeling tasks to do since he has no real experience with any 3D modeling packages. The thing that frustrates me is that I have to show him how to do these things a half dozen times, and he still doesn't get it. I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, but we are going on three months here and he still doesn't seem to be with the program. A task I could do in ten minutes takes him two days. It's frustrating because we are facing real deadlines and he's just dicking around, and after having things explained to him multiple times, he still seems to have no clue what he is doing. I can show him exactly how to do something, and literally ten minutes later he will ask me how to do it again.

This is my first real mentoring experience and I don't quite know how to handle it. I haven't said anything to my supervisor yet because I really am trying to give this kid the benefit of the doubt, but after three months, I think he should be able to at least process an engineering change notice. It seems like nothing sinks in and he is as clueless as the day he walked in. So are my expectations unrealistic or is this kid maybe not cut out for the job? How should I handle the situation? I was thinking about taking him aside and having a face to face before going to the boss. Good idea or no? What should I do?

 

[TheTick]

I've mentored a few budding guitarists and a few budding engineers. I've come to believe that true potential does not hide. Potential is evident early. In both fields, I've never seen a great one that didn't get off to a blistering start.

At my current workplace, we have a sophomore intern and a newly minted associate degree designer. Intern's potential has been evident since high school, and his abilities and usefulness increase exponentially. New designer has trouble figuring out which end of a screwdriver not to stick in his eye, and is slo-o-o-o-w to grasp and apply concepts.

 

[KENAT]

I agree Tick. The really good ones will swim no matter what. The really bad will sink regardless.

However, there is a band in the middle where I think good mentoring etc can make a difference.

Plus, some people do take a while to get going but once there are fairly useful.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...

 

[salmon2]

I totally understand your frustration because I have worked with some really slow colleagues but I was not their mentor or boss, especially when they are really talktive but never done a simple thing. I really hope my boss can cut them out and give only 10% of their salaries to me, I will do everything a lot quicker.

Somehow, I want to say you were lucky. I was a new hire several years ago, and unclearly assigned to two engineers to help them. So I understood it as they were my mentors. But they didn't show me anything unless I asked specific questions. They also stood me up many times - they said they will meet with me to tell me something, then they would either absend from work or reshechedule when I went up to ask, then some other excuses.

I was so boring because I got nothing from them, so I went to our common boss, expressing high desire for something and the fact that I couldn't get anything from the two. So the boss specifically asked the two to give me some tasks from their hands in a way that I am at the same level as they are, no mentoring involved anymore. They did and I didn't know how they feel. By the time, I also made a good friendship with our chief engineer who is the same level as we all are but much more knowledgeable. So I ended up getting all the help from the chief engineer, not from them. Soon later, I think I became a better engineer than the two. Some time around one year or so later, the two left. Their work is all on me.

So your case is that you are trying to teach the kid something but couldn't. I hope I had you as my mentor. So I think you didn't do anything inappropriate because my case I can clearly feel the resistance from the two, maybe because of my high education. I have to disagree with the idea not elevating to your boss. I think it is time to discuss this with your boss, otherwise, it will reflect even worse on you. To me, it is already a bit late. I understand it is bad reflection on you. But it is already, can getting worse if you don't talk this over with your boss.

 

[TheTick]

One can substitute "work ethic" for "potential" in my previous post, as well. Regardless of skill, a good work ethic is always clearly evident.

 

[csd72]

Otherwise find something they can do and get them to do that task until they are so bored of it they are begging for a new challenge. Then tell them they have one chance otherwise they will be stuck doing the old task.

Have to be cruel to be kind!

 

[TGS4]

csd77 - That reminds me of a co-op student that I had working for me. I had him doing some stuff that, in the grand scheme of things, was interesting. Only he was doing the "grunt" work - day after day of repeating the same calculation with a small tweak here and a minor adjustment there.

At one point (about half-way through the work), he asked me if there was any more "interesting" work to do. I responded that he was doing interesting work. He complained a little bit more about the repetitive nature of his work, at which point I kinda lost patience. I told him, "In 10 years, when you have a co-op student, then you can get him to do your repetitive calculations". At which point, he realized that he had his place in the hierarchy, and it was near the bottom.

(I do recall the little voice in my head saying "suck it up, princess", but I managed to suppress that...)

 

[DesignerGuy16]

I hated when I first got into design that I never had a say. Nearly 10 years later I'm kind of glad I didn't.

Theres a lot that can be said about taking notes, paying attention, and knowing your role.

Star for you TGS4!

James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP

 

[GregLocock]

My first real job was estimating the performance and fuel consumption for a proposed car, which involved working out how much power and what rpm it was using at each point in the operating cycle, looking up the BSFC on the map, and multiplying everything out and adding it up, with a calculator.

The idea was interesting, the actual process was agony. Each iteration of gearing and so on took a couple of days.

So I wrote my first Fortran program... when I left the department 4 years later they were still using it.

If you are prepared to accept drudge work, good for you, but I am a lazy person, and would rather do something once, properly, and then get a computer to do it from then on.

Cheers

Greg Locock

SIGlease see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[Sideswiper]

A lot of companies, large and small, realize that a new employee straight from school will actually require more work to train that the amount of work that will come out of the engineer. Companies that do this have to rely on loyalty and decency of the employee to stick around once they are well trained.

Other companies aren't willing to gamble on loyalty and decency and never hire new grads at all.

I guess your company just hired someone cheap without realizing the task at hand?

With you coming in, asking for something simple to be done, he may not think he understands what you are asking for. He may be thinking "That sounds like a ten minute job, I must not understand!". Or maybe he's thinking "That makes no sense, but he's too busy to answer my questions, and he'll come back in two days and do it and show me how it is done."

Not to make too many excuses for him though. He needs to tell you when he is stuck on a project instead of sitting on it watching it die. He needs to ask questions and he needs to write the answers down. If he asks the same question again he should be at least able to point at the sentence he wrote in his notebook that he hasn't figured out.

 

[SomptingGuy]

"train"

What a demeaning and pointless word. You train dogs to do tricks.

New engineers, fresh out of the mould, can and do bring vitality to the workplace. They often challenge established ideas and practices. They may re-invent a few wheels here and there, but that's where the older guys come in.

- Steve

 

[KENAT]

Sompting what?

I train interns and some new employees in all kinds of stuff, how to do some of our companies procedures, how to use certain of our CAD settings etc. They do online training for a couple of things too.

Am I/we treating them like Dogs?

I don't get your point.

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently?

 

[SomptingGuy]

I just don't like the word. Sure, people can and should study and learn new things, but training sounds so passive.

Training and experience are too often confused: "Once we've got these new engineers trained up, they can go and work on project XYZ."

I guess basic training on how specific tools and procedures work is ok, but you can't train someone to be a free-thinking problem solver. You can't train someone to have great ideas. You can't train someone to develop new practices and procedures.

Rambling now and probably contracting myself left, right and centre, so I'll stop, except to state my belief that...

Training is for people that can't learn properly.

- Steve

 

[DesignerGuy16]

Sometimes it's more important to know where to look than anything else. This is the kind of thing that needs to be "trained" in the workplace. Know how to work the system, and how to use references effectively.

If you don't know what you're looking for you'll never find it.

James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP

 

[KENAT]

Sompting, maybe I'm starting to see your point.

Part of what I do/have done here is to formalize some of our practices/standards etc so we have something in writing to follow so that we can try and get some consistency. These documents have been released but, only maybe 25% of people make any effort on their own to do it right.

The rest either do it the way they always did it, or dodge the tasks, or moan complain and procastinate till the deadline is critical and it gets let through as is and many variations there on.

It has been claimed that this is because they need to be trained in how to do it, they can't just read a procedure and follow it. However these are people with engineering or scientific degrees, in many cases masters or even PHDs.

I dont' get this, at my last employer and here I mostly taught myself all the processes by either reading up the relevant documents, or asking the relevant experts or muddling through the first few times and learning from the experience... I am no where near as smart as most of the people that can't just pick up a procedure and follow it, or read a set of guidelines and follow them etc.

So I guess I agree up to a point but still don't quite get why you're getting your knickers in such a twist about the word 'train';-).

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently?

 

[DesignerGuy16]

If you think about it Kenat, being "smart" is relative. =p

Just because you can imagine it doesn't mean you can do it right. Sometimes there's a disconnect from the idea and the actual documentation and manufacturing. That's why everyone always complains about drawings because they are the link to say "This is how I want it!", but rarely nowadays is the time actually taken to convey ALL of the needed info in a consise fashion.

That's why you and me will always have a job, because someone's gotta clean up the messes and keep everyone in line!

James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP

 

[KENAT]

But I went to university so I could be the one making the mess;-).

KENAT,

Have you reminded yourself of faq731-376 recently?

 

[DesignerGuy16]

I've already got a bachelors and working on starting a masters. I still end up fixing more messes than creating though. Although I very much enjoy making a good mess of my own though. They're usually like a firecracker compared to a nuclear blast in size that I end up cleaning up though, but who doesn't like some firecrackers.

My bachelors is in industrial engineering though so I guess my mindset is more of fixing messes and streamlining than anything else. I'm going for a masters in mechanical engineering though.

James Spisich
Design Engineer, CSWP

 

[unclesyd]

This is how it is supposed to be done.

http://www.jflf.org/pdfs/papers/mentoring.pdf

 

[Gymmeh]

Spongebob,
(I hope this was not already asked)

Are their any other relatively new hires you could pair him up with?


When I first started with my current job, if was seated away from everyone and just asked to do calc's and update drawings. I worked really slow and actually was quite, low moral so i made alot more mistakes then I normaly would.

When I moved next to another new guy, we were both competitive which helps and both of our abilities took off exponentially. We even came up with a stupid point system for quality designs/concepts. Literally projects that took me a week I started doing in two days.



Official DIPPED Member -
Drank in PP Every Day

 

[TurbineGen]

There goes a saying I have heard dozens of times "there is no such thing as a bad student, only a bad teacher". While I don't totally agree with this, perhaps your mentoring style is the problem? Have you considered you might be intimidating this new kid?

Is he afraid to screw up or does he really not get it? I was that guy once and was "mentored" by a horrific micro manager. A coworker realized the problem and was kind enough to take me under his wing and help me. I caught on in a flash, no problems. I just didn't connect with my mentor, that's all.

I have since been asked to be a mentor. I am not a very good mentor and I acknowledge that. So if I am forced to mentor someone my first question to them is: "How do you learn best?", and then proceed with that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
If it is broken, fix it. If it isn't broken, I'll soon fix that.