what you have engineers DON'T

[driftwood]

hands on experiance, commen sence to name a couple. why is it every time we work for these guys they come up with the dummest ideas on how to fix their problem? an example ,
he does my structual calcs. i repair his home, replace his cracked body faucet ,kit. sink. base cabinet plywood rotten and waffled like a wave. tell him i'll pick ill some maple ply and re-place. can put my hand through it. he says don't bother he'll put a fan in and it'll heal itself! i don't have time to tell the rest of his brainstorms. by the way this is a mill and a half house. 2 months and i'll have a nice mold job! i give up

[air of honesty]

The people with the most money are the least likely to let it go. You'ld think they would be the first to understand the value of the dollars already spent, or the lack of value in what they aren't spending.

Go figure...

[driftwood]

the bummer is it's a beautiful kitchen. he just bought a new suv and plasma tv. he hung shelves for his engr. books and was amazed they ripped off the wall. i pointed out sheet rock screws have no shear,
value and besides they only went into the studs 1/4"

he has run big projects all over the world for 30 yrs. when i tell these storys to other tradesman they share theie stories also

he's been a good friend for years but there are times i could punch him out.he'll have me bail him out in 6 months. our wives just laugh at the 2 of us

[air of honesty]

Yeah, it always amazes me the 'big' boys that can't figure out the difference between 9% cost on a 20 mil job and 15% on the place you hang your hat.

Wives, on the other hand, tend to even out the equation...

[snipe70e]

My wife clames engineers have the personality of a brick. And if an engineer does not have a wife then he will be lost.
Len

[mtushmoo]

Most colleges have gotten rid of their labs

Labs are expensive.

They figure an engineer can learn just as much from a computer simulation as they can from actually playing with hardware.

They're wrong.

Where I used to work, one of the criteria for getting hired in the engineering group was to be able to cough up some examples of hands on experience.

During the interview, we were asked a question - we called it "the beam question" to identify how good we were at thinking through common problems.

Essentially, they described a single beam sticking out of the side of a building with a load (perhaps a condensing unit balanced) on the end. They would then ask for examples of solutions to make the support stronger.

{stuff like bigger beam, guy cables, reinforcing struts, etc. Digging for more answers gave some indication of communications skills, creativity, general physics, recognition of constraints, and general sophistication.}

It tended to weed out some posers.

We had a drag racer, a kit car builder, a flooring tile contractor, a ski boat fixer, a rally car driver, and my truck project - all with engineering degrees.

Most of 'em were from Lawerence Tech, I was from Michigan Tech.

It was a fundamentally different engineering organization than I've worked in before.

Most engineers couldn't build their way out of a wet paper sack.