Engineer folks?

Thread Starter

dMoser

Joined Aug 25, 2011
30
Hi,

I'm new to here, and introduced myself in another thread.

I'd be happy to discuss with other engineers here any of the daily routine issues that engineers encounter during their work.

I study electric engineering (I'm to graduate in one year) and I fill the position of a validation engineer.

Cheers :)
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
While we have our share of engineers here, this is a pretty eclectic group, covering everything from students to technicians (like me, 30+ years) to retired engineers to doctorates. Being the internet, you never know who is who.
 

t_n_k

Joined Mar 6, 2009
5,455
Depending on the culture in which you were raised, engineers were often considered as an inarticulate bunch lacking even the most basic artistic appreciation.

Reminds me of the old self-deprecating joke "Five years ago I couldn't even spell engineer and now I are one."

There are of course, more informed societies where engineering rates very highly as a vocation. No engineers = no modern world as we know it. For better or worse....?
 

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I'd be happy to discuss with other engineers here any of the daily routine issues that engineers encounter during their work.
I'm not an engineer but I work with a handful of them (in production) on a daily basis. I may be able to satisfy your conversational needs.

daily routine issues that engineers encounter during their work:
1. Engineers (or at least the one I work with) conceptualize some grand production process and perfect every aspect of it on paper. They then schedule a time to execute it, but do not actually talk real-world aspects of it or the availability of resources for it with anyone outside their little engineering team. After it took them weeks to plan said event from behind a desk, they will drop an email (to a technician, i.e. ME) a day before the event with a massive list of setup requirements, of which most are outright impossible and/or unachievable for the given time frame. They will then show up the next morning after I worked through the night to get as much done as possible and have the balls to complain that it's not ready.
2. In order to be an engineer (for my company) you have to constantly express panic. If something is not going right, widen you eyes, point, shout to nobody in particular, maybe make a rushed PA system announcement that nobody understands. grab your hair with both fists and walk in circles looking upward, but with your eyes closed. Your panic has to be so convincing that it spreads panic to all those around you as well.
3. In order to be an engineer (from what I've seen), you need to know how to do everybody's job better than them and you need to make sure that they know that you can do their job better than them. If you are a chemical engineer, it is your job to stand over a plumber's back and tell him how to adjust the complex pipe wrench device because that will make things go faster.

Ok, I'm done. Before you reply, I know that engineers aren't all the same. I just highjacked your thread to rant about MY engineers. Please understand that I do love my engineers (notice MY engineers) but it's a love/hate relationship sometimes. I want to be an engineer myself some day.
 
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