How can you be stupid and be an engineer?

Kyna - Lost City

Just what the title says. For those of you that don't know, I work in a factory making what used to be a quality product >_> Our company got bought by a larger company and since they've been slowly getting rid of the skilled labor and replacing it instead with cheap labor, so our quality is really taking a nosedive. Then to top it all off, they go and pay big bucks to hire these "engineers." Those guys are about as sharp as a balloon yet the company makes any and every change they propose, even though so far any change they have made has done nothing but hurt our production numbers. So as a result we all have to work 10 hour shifts monday-friday and 8 hours Saturday indefinitely.

One of the engineers in particular is a REAL idiot. First day at work he destroys an air hose because he wanted to cut it to make it shorter. He didn't turn the air off first so you can imagine what happened next. Since the hose was so horribly damaged, they had to replace it and the only thing they had to replace it with, was a longer hose. So he successfully did the opposite of what he wanted to do... and this was DAY ONE. While it was amusing to watch him get beaten half the death with a flailing rubber hose, it wasn't amusing to realize that he gets paid probably twice if not three times what I get paid. He also cranked up one of the hydraulic machines to dangerous levels when it "didn't work for him." Right, you can't use the machine properly so you crank up the pressure to 650 psi because that's totally going to fix it. Instead it ended up warping the two inch thick hardened steel base that the machine uses. The whole shop calls him Crash. He thinks it's cool because he's too dense to understand that we call him that because he destroys ****...

How could anyone that stupid graduate college with a degree in engineering????

/end rant.

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Didn't read what you said sorry, but ye they are really stupid.

Kyna - Lost City

that made no sense .... lol

Xx_BeLLa_xX - Harshlands

Where i was working a engineer designed the room where we was going to work and didn't put a door to go out and it's not a job, they are really stupid, with a pencil on a sheet they can do everything, but they don't think if that's gonna work in real. xD

Kyna - Lost City

lol I hear you on that one... One of my friends is going to college to be an engineer and I'm like "DUDE! make sure that someone gives you common sense pop quizzes every once a week at least so you don't end up losing it."

laloner

Are their degrees in Mechanical Engineering? The other engineers call that Mech Easy.

Ancris - Archosaur

He paid his professors to get his degree?

Kyna - Lost City

DAYUM spam much? I hate people sometimes....

and I'm sure that our "engineer" did something extra for his degree, something that doesn't require a brain...

Limeball - Heavens Tear

That's why I keep telling people that college/uni degrees don't mean anything these days. :I

Also my boyfriend says this:
"Because you don't need to know engineering to graduate, you just need to put the right answers in the multiple choice box. "

Kyna - Lost City

I have a theory, this guy had to sit next to an Asian kid in college.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Saying that college/uni degrees mean nothing just because of some loud albeit memorable idiots (there is always someone in anything you do) is insulting to those of us who worked our butts off and know what we are talking about.

Anyway, do you know what his specialization was in college? Different types of engineers learned different things. A lot of employers for the jobs you want to end up in won't hire you unless you have experience in the field. So people take any engineering job they can get, even if they have no ability to perform that job because it had very little to do with their major besides some tiny basics.

It used to be if you majored in something, you could more easily find a job in that field. But employers like cheap/free labor. So they force some of the most competitive degrees into unpaid internships (you work for free, you know because of the valuable experience of being a whipping boy/girl learning nothing important) or paid internships with very small stipends. Problem is that there are only a few internships but hundreds of people majoring in any given area. So how is someone supposed to get experience in their field? By taking any engineering job they can get, especially in this global economic downturn. To make matters worse, many employers see college degrees as a sign you have leadership skills. So they place you in charge of everything, regardless if it had anything to do with your major. People take the jobs because they gotta eat, and because they want job experience so they can get better jobs. But they end up doing a **** poor job at it, and then people come under the impression that college degrees aren't what they are cracked up to be.

Limeball - Heavens Tear

I didn't say it purely because of this one instance. It's something I've been aware of since year 10 in highschool due to a very flawed education system.

Kyna - Lost City

No seriously, some degrees aren't worth anything. You can read things in books you can write things down on paper but when you put them into action it doesn't always work and THEN you actually have to use your brain to come up with a solution that works in the real world. That's what both the new engineers they hired at work, have issues with.

The thing I find most annoying about this one guy, and I've met a number of people like this, is that he acts as though his **** doesn't stink because he has a college degree. He THINKS he's a great leader and that he knows it all, although yesterday, poor little me, without a college degree, had to show him how to use a surface grinder. He's broken a number of machines because he thinks he knows how to use them because he's armed with a piece of paper that says he passed some classes in school. People at work are frustrated with him and with upper management because they seem to value college with no experience over actual proven skill.

For those that don't know, I work in a factory that makes handguns. 1911 style handguns to be more exact. Making something like that is more a craft than anything, there are no parts that go perfectly together all the time without fail, you have to have a competent gunsmith to put it together and do it right otherwise you'll end up with a gun that could go full auto on you or something dangerous. Our company has even hired a lot of people from a gunsmith school that can't build a gun worth a ****, so they end up in other positions around the shop that don't involve actually having to put one together. It's absolutely stupid how much more they pay for and value school when it's been pretty well proven around our workplace that school doesn't automatically make you amazing.

Don't get me wrong, higher education is a good thing, I want to go to college myself but I'm too busy paying bills and trying to feed myself. Not all of us have the luxury of just focusing on getting a degree and that doesn't make us stupid just like having a degree doesn't automatically make you smart. The only reason people go to college these days is so they can get paid to work less.

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver

the thing is, the aim is (usually) not to minimize your working hours; it is to maximize profit.
if this involves replacing skilled labor and changes that result in having *you* work more to achieve the same (or inferior) result doesnt mean that it's not the optimal solution to maximize profit.

as a sidenote, it is usually recommended to seperate the facts from your feelings if you expect not to be misunderstood as a butthurt simpleton that's jealous that those engineers make more than him

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Limeball - Heavens Tear wrote: »

I didn't say it purely because of this one instance. It's something I've been aware of since year 10 in highschool due to a very flawed education system.

That literally doesn't mean anything. There are probably millions of people out there getting college degrees. It all depends on individual people. Degrees are not worthless. Different degrees train you in different things and in different ways. The cultural climate in your area is not true of the millions of people out there with college degrees who are smart, educated, and went to college to learn. And how use their degree wisely. Whenever you have millions of people doing anything, results will vary. Some areas it will be a waste of time, some areas its will be the only sensible solutions. Some college students drank their way through college and didn't learn a thing. Some worked incredibly hard and came out smarter, more resourceful, and well trained for the job that they are doing.

Kyna - Lost City wrote: »

No seriously, some degrees aren't worth anything. You can read things in books you can write things down on paper but when you put them into action it doesn't always work and THEN you actually have to use your brain to come up with a solution that works in the real world. That's what both the new engineers they hired at work, have issues with.

The thing I find most annoying about this one guy, and I've met a number of people like this, is that he acts as though his **** doesn't stink because he has a college degree. He THINKS he's a great leader and that he knows it all, although yesterday, poor little me, without a college degree, had to show him how to use a surface grinder. He's broken a number of machines because he thinks he knows how to use them because he's armed with a piece of paper that says he passed some classes in school. People at work are frustrated with him and with upper management because they seem to value college with no experience over actual proven skill.

For those that don't know, I work in a factory that makes handguns. 1911 style handguns to be more exact. Making something like that is more a craft than anything, there are no parts that go perfectly together all the time without fail, you have to have a competent gunsmith to put it together and do it right otherwise you'll end up with a gun that could go full auto on you or something dangerous. Our company has even hired a lot of people from a gunsmith school that can't build a gun worth a ****, so they end up in other positions around the shop that don't involve actually having to put one together. It's absolutely stupid how much more they pay for and value school when it's been pretty well proven around our workplace that school doesn't automatically make you amazing.

Don't get me wrong, higher education is a good thing, I want to go to college myself but I'm too busy paying bills and trying to feed myself. Not all of us have the luxury of just focusing on getting a degree and that doesn't make us stupid just like having a degree doesn't automatically make you smart. The only reason people go to college these days is so they can get paid to work less.

1911 gunsmithing is probably not what he majored in, and as such he is unlikely to have had any training with the equipment he is using. You can't know what you were never taught. The problem is that management put him in charge without actually teaching him what to do. I've seen it before. I've been in management. I've seen people get hired and think that whatever their experience is, they will automatically know more than the people who worked there because they have training or field experience and all work zones are alike. That has nothing to do with his college education and everything to do with his personality. Some people don't handle power and expectations well. And it sounds like everyone around him expects him to know what he is doing. So he's thinking to himself, "i'm a smart guy, I can figure this stuff out," and doing whatever without asking because his degree has made him arrogant.

I understand your problem with him. I can't stand people like that. They make everything harder than it needs to be. But that personality type isn't limited to people with degrees.

PotatoHeadQR - Dreamweaver wrote: »

the thing is, the aim is (usually) not to minimize your working hours; it is to maximize profit.
if this involves replacing skilled labor and changes that result in having *you* work more to achieve the same (or inferior) result doesnt mean that it's not the optimal solution to maximize profit.

This part too. The last part was unnecessarily insulting. If someone was placed in charge of you, who had no idea what they were doing. You might feel the same way. It's just important to step outside of yourself instead of resorting to ugly and nasty stereotypes when faced with this kind of thing. A college degree is more likely to produce someone who meets that description because they are more likely to be made manager. But if you look at people outside of work that have college degrees, you will find that they are just a diverse mix as everyone else. There are morons, bad workers, and jerks in every walk of life. Just as there intelligent, hard working, and nice people in every walk of life. Degrees are not worthless, it's just what people expect you to have learned and what you actually learn are two very different things.

Selak - Dreamweaver

I am a fully qualified Fitter and Machinist who has spent over 25 years in the mining industry turning engineering plans into reality, before going to UNI to study Biochem.

And unless they have actually practiced the skills they wanted me to apply to making their projects work, they are on average useless for the first 5-10 years of their careers.

But if they persist, learn from those who do the work, what is possible and what is not, you can end up with an amazing person who is very capable and worth having on new projects.

Just a thought in the apprenticeships system you skim the cream off the milk, but with college graduates you have to wait for it to rise to the top.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Selak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

I am a fully qualified Fitter and Machinist who has spent over 25 years in the mining industry turning engineering plans into reality, before going to UNI to study Biochem.

And unless they have actually practiced the skills they wanted me to apply to making their projects work, they are on average useless for the first 5-10 years of their careers.

But if they persist, learn from those who do the work, what is possible and what is not, you can end up with an amazing person who is very capable and worth having on new projects.

Just a thought in the apprenticeships system you skim the cream off the milk, but with college graduates you have to wait for it to rise to the top.

If they create the plan, and you build the plan, aren't both necessary to innovation? There would be no progress without both parts. Nobody is useless.....circle of life. yada yada yada. We all get better with time....nothing can replace experience and skill. First 5 years of any career is mostly learning.....

Selak - Dreamweaver

Sry, but nowhere in my previous post did I say they come up with ideas.

For those who have not worked in this industry you do not realise their real role.

They do not come up with the ideas, they take suggestions from others about how to improve the overall efficiency of the systems from the operator to the manager, then draw up drawings, material plans, labour plans and costs.

As part of my trade training I had to spend 6 months in the engineering section and was even offered the chance to drop my apprenticeship during my 3 rd year to take courses in mechanical and electrical engineering at the company's expense.

This did not suit my needs I had fallen in love with the excitement of breakdown maintenance, nothing like hanging 20 metres about the ground in the steel work of a large scale blasthole drill at 4 in the morning at -5 C, or test driving a 280ton Electric face shovel to make sure you fixed it right.

The reason my trade is called Fitting and Machining and we are not called Mechanics is because we have to come up with ideas how to make engineering projects work when they dont fit,

With our training in chemistry, physics, and maths we can understand what they want and even can drop 2 years of the degree time to become one if we wished.

Trade selection 5000+ applied for 5 apprenticeships with 1 company, ~400 get tests and interviews, 5 get jobs, 1 passes and gets trade certificate. One heck of a selection process.

VenusArmani - Dreamweaver

Selak - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Sry, but nowhere in my previous post did I say they come up with ideas.

For those who have not worked in this industry you do not realise their real role.

They do not come up with the ideas, they take suggestions from others about how to improve the overall efficiency of the systems from the operator to the manager, then draw up drawings, material plans, labour plans and costs.

As part of my trade training I had to spend 6 months in the engineering section and was even offered the chance to drop my apprenticeship during my 3 rd year to take courses in mechanical and electrical engineering at the company's expense.

This did not suit my needs I had fallen in love with the excitement of breakdown maintenance, nothing like hanging 20 metres about the ground in the steel work of a large scale blasthole drill at 4 in the morning at -5 C, or test driving a 280ton Electric face shovel to make sure you fixed it right.

The reason my trade is called Fitting and Machining and we are not called Mechanics is because we have to come up with ideas how to make engineering projects work when they dont fit,

With our training in chemistry, physics, and maths we can understand what they want and even can drop 2 years of the degree time to become one if we wished.

Trade selection 5000+ applied for 5 apprenticeships with 1 company, ~400 get tests and interviews, 5 get jobs, 1 passes and gets trade certificate. One heck of a selection process.

Engineering plans generally come from engineers, do they not? Plans are ideas in their own way, even if they get input from others. Most successful things require good plans of action. Where would you be without engineering projects to work on, where would they be if nobody had the expertise to make those projects work? Everyone plays their part. Few positions are truly useless. And it sounds like you have a lot of technical expertise, very tough and selective program.

JinxRake - Momaganon

Something bothers me in what you said.

From what I understand, you have CNC machines over there that you use to manufacture different components, is that right?
And yet, for all that you're complaining about this guy of yours, you have the gall of telling us that "parts don't always fit together"? By what **** standard of quality have you been trained then? Who ran the department before hand, Yogi bear?

Yeah, his experience is nill and he's probably straight up from college with zero experience in the real world. But apparently what he's supposed to learn from you "pros" is that after years of experience, it's ok to get pieces that don't fit together, regardless of tolerances, regardless of machine precision, regardless of everything.

No offence mate, but if you're gonna call someone an idiot, don't make one out of yourself by pretending doing a **** job is ok if you're a "pro". That part that doesn't fit together may cause a jam or a structural weakness at one point and may blow someone's fingers off. Yeah, he's the only idiot there.

Just a short edit:
I've had an internship this summer and was asked to do some submarine / ship doors in 3D from what the company producing them had sent documents. Apparently the "pro" idea of work is that if you have 10 000 types of doors, some sharing some SIMILAR components, you can just drag those components from other projects and all's ok.

As a result I've spent 2 weeks fixing 3D models and 2D plans because nothing fecking fit together, to the point where I had to redesign some of the parts from scratch. All the while to find out that said company was complaining about doors sticking...yeah, cuz if you had an ounce of brain, like maybe we had, you would've known, even from PURE THEORY, that you're supposed to make sure everything fits in the damn project before you sent it off to the machines.

Sometimes a piece of paper is not worth anything.
Just as well as sometimes 20 years of workplace experience is still not worth a cold onion in the rain.

Selak - Dreamweaver

JinxRake - Momaganon wrote: »

Something bothers me in what you said.

From what I understand, you have CNC machines over there that you use to manufacture different components, is that right?
And yet, for all that you're complaining about this guy of yours, you have the gall of telling us that "parts don't always fit together"? By what **** standard of quality have you been trained then? Who ran the department before hand, Yogi bear?

Yeah, his experience is nill and he's probably straight up from college with zero experience in the real world. But apparently what he's supposed to learn from you "pros" is that after years of experience, it's ok to get pieces that don't fit together, regardless of tolerances, regardless of machine precision, regardless of everything.

No offence mate, but if you're gonna call someone an idiot, don't make one out of yourself by pretending doing a **** job is ok if you're a "pro". That part that doesn't fit together may cause a jam or a structural weakness at one point and may blow someone's fingers off. Yeah, he's the only idiot there.

Just a short edit:
I've had an internship this summer and was asked to do some submarine / ship doors in 3D from what the company producing them had sent documents. Apparently the "pro" idea of work is that if you have 10 000 types of doors, some sharing some SIMILAR components, you can just drag those components from other projects and all's ok.

As a result I've spent 2 weeks fixing 3D models and 2D plans because nothing fecking fit together, to the point where I had to redesign some of the parts from scratch. All the while to find out that said company was complaining about doors sticking...yeah, cuz if you had an ounce of brain, like maybe we had, you would've known, even from PURE THEORY, that you're supposed to make sure everything fits in the damn project before you sent it off to the machines.

Sometimes a piece of paper is not worth anything.
Just as well as sometimes 20 years of workplace experience is still not worth a cold onion in the rain.

That all may be so, but you have not taken into account a mans age, lol
I first learnt CNC Machining during the time when Engineering plans were first programmed by using a mouse with a cross hair on points in sepia drawings, unlike today we did not have 2d or 3d modelling computers to do the work for us or double check our work.

That was our responsibility.

Today I understand much more is done with PCs and networking solutions as it has its advantages in high risk projects or large volume runs and a large number of people who operate those machines are called machinists, but most are really production workers, ok that I acknowledge and it really makes me wonder what the future holds.

Oh well, maybe its bye bye for the guy who fits things together, and if they do not, he makes what he needs without pestering others with stupid questions. b:sad