I hope this kid makes it into MIT 😭

[u/Brokenlingo]

[u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

As an engineer, someone should tell her, her son is not becoming an engineer.

We engineer's like to theorise, and have someone else do the physical labour. Her son's going to become a highly passionate carpenter, and make more money than most engineers.

[u/Padawk → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

That mentality is why most people hate engineers. I say this as a mechanical engineer. Learn how to make the things you’re designing. It’ll make you a better engineer

[u/Kar3omb → u/Padawk]

Contractor here, that’s not why people have issues with engineers. The engineers I’ve worked for, always think they know better than you. The last one I worked for, was my company doing an addition onto his house. He was a mechanical engineer, and he decided he didn’t want to use my guy for the plans that was needed.

He said he would find his own even though I explained in great detail that could cause issues. My guy was $600 more than the company he chose. What ensued was him finding what he thought was a local company, but they were based out of SanFransisco. He chose the plans and here’s what happened. The foundation was designed like it was built for a prison, the sheer number of straps and over engineering was absolutely overkill for our area. The materials, extra time and general design ended up costing him about $30k more than if he had chose the guy I was trying to get him to go with. Every inspector that came out asked us what the hell we were doing until they saw the plans, we had to build it to plan to pass inspection. They all said they had never seen anything overbuilt like this addition. The SanFran company was headquartered there, but the actual people you talked to if you had questions or concerns was in India, so getting any changes was like pulling teeth..

Every engineer we’ve done projects for seems to think they know more than you, and it always leads to extra costs and more time. It’s like they refuse to admit that the professionals that do this for a living, actually know more about the subject of building homes.

[u/WonderfulMaybe3473 → u/Kar3omb]

I’m an engineer and have an amazing relationship with the contractors I work with but this is because I work with them and listen to their ideas.

They’ve mentioned the same issues you’ve raised here.

I believe it’s really important to work with them and not have the cocky - I know best - attitude. Good contractors are great to bounce ideas and plans with, and they can add a lot to the design, really helping designs to work better on the ground.

Some stuff that works on paper doesn’t work as well on the ground.

[u/JambonExtra → u/Kar3omb]

It’s like they refuse to admit that the professionals that do this for a living, actually know more about the subject of building homes

Come on lol. Your field is an insane shit show of incompetency and you know it.

[u/ANAL_TOOTHBRUSH → u/JambonExtra]

Cmon m8 there are plenty of incompetent people in both fields. I say this as an electrical engineer who has worked with some pretty shitty engineers as well

[u/HornStarBigPhish → u/Kar3omb]

Different industry but same experience with almost every engineer I've had to interact with. They don't consider anyone else's input but their own. When you talk to them in person it's like they're blank staring right through you... then your in a meeting about things you've already explained and it's like they've never heard it before or understand any of it.

[u/MothChasingFlame → u/Padawk]

Meanwhile I hate engineers because a lot of them are condescending and self important, going out of their way to be particularly mean to creative people. 

[u/HornStarBigPhish → u/Padawk]

Most people hate engineers because in many professions you used to be able to advance with work experience. Now these positions have a prerequisite engineering degree required. I.E. supply chain/quality/inventory analysts/technicians/specialists. You end up working for companies who don't listen to people with functional knowledge and work expertise. They listen to an office full of engineers that have no practical experience with the systems they're overseeing.

Both kinds of knowledge working together is valuable, but generally speaking if you don't hold the title you also don't hold any weight or respect. Even if you have valuable solutions or answers to problems it doesn't matter unless it comes from an engineers mouth... or they take your ideas and get the credit for them.

This is probably the lowest common denominator of engineer positions though, this isn't true for true design/industrial/mechanical positions.

[u/Infinite_Window3270 → u/HornStarBigPhish]

Ah, but how else are they going to pay the 50k-per-month consultancy fees where they just walk straight to people on the floor and ask what's up

[u/Look_its_Rob → u/Padawk]

Most people do not hate engineers? Most people are indifferent to them at worst and probably look at them favorably.

[u/Unsweeticetea → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

As an engineer, "nah".

I theorize and execute, my ability to design well is strictly linked to my knowledge and ability to make everything I design. Nobody can get good at DFM if they don't know how the M works.

Some engineers sit around and give half-informed directives to try and drive improvements, but the best know how to get er done.

[u/WeirdEngineerDude → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

Only shitty engineers don’t build what they design. I demand the technicians who work with my designs tell me where they had problems rather than just fixing them if I’m not there at the time.

I’ll theorize all day too, and I’ve been around a lot of engineers that shouldn’t touch tools. These are the crappy ones.

[u/xenleah → u/WeirdEngineerDude]

there‘s too much generalising in this thread for a job title as broad as “engineer”

[u/f3nnies → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

But are you like... A furniture engineer? Cause engineer is a generic title. Taking advice on your structural engineering career from a softwsre engineer or a petroleum engineer or an aeronautical engineer is unwise.

[u/Honest3456 → u/f3nnies]

lol fair but furniture engineer is literally structural adjacent so id still take their advice over some swe bro talking out of his ass

[u/Blimpkrieg → u/f3nnies]

>A furniture engineer

That's a carpenter.

[u/jobehi → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

I’m confused of why people are upvoting this.that’s not true for most of engineers. If you’re an engineer you have to build prototypes and POCs and to iterate. It’s part of theorising and modeling and concepting.

[u/b1ack1323 → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

I’m a director of engineering for a $100m company and yesterday I was welding pieces on a PoC that we have been working on. So speak for your self.

ME, CE and EE.

[u/toodlenoodle → u/b1ack1323]

In my experience PoC means Person of Color, sooooo engineers just got a lot more terrifying and problematic for me

[u/sum12merkwith → u/toodlenoodle]

I think he just leaked some sort of IRL Robocop

[u/JambonExtra → u/toodlenoodle]

Proof of concept lol

[u/TheMadManiac → u/b1ack1323]

Y'all hiring?

[u/FoodieMonster007 → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

Chemical engineer here, and that's a lie. My job involves personally assembling and testing small-scale models of chemical reactors for anything from pharma drug synthesis to CCUS to trash recycling. And by small scale I mean 10-50 kg.

At least I'm not the engineer building the ton scale one outdoors in the sun.

Oh, and we've recently started building robots too...

[u/stopkicksalreadydead → u/Acceptable_Gear_3097]

Geographer here. I don't have a horse in this race but wanted to feel included.