Engineer's Disease

[SL4P]

After 40-odd years, I've ony just realised that I caught a very serious condition some years back.  "Engineer's Disease"

My symptoms are that i can't sit back and watch equipment, processes etc - not work properly.  Whether it's a fault, design flaw, or process failure.
I have to examine and fix/replace or re-create it.   A strong compulsion to make things work they way they should - often in my own time.

f course I learned many years ago - to work where possible with non-destructive development - often in parallel by recreating the problem in a test environment.

The problem for me is - that having been employed for many years here in Australia, and overseas at quite high levels, I'm not working for the last couple of years, and the current risk-averse hiring environment doesn't like people that think independently.  Just do what you're told!

Back in 2001, I created a product, marketed it, and formed a company with a 'colleague' - after we were established with several million in global sales, he was kind enough to swindle me out of my share in 2008  - through two shrewd moves - he's a business man, and I have Engineer's Disease (sucker!).

I have tons of experience, skills and indeed tools and original IP - but that's not what corporations are looking for. Especially over 50 yrs old.

Share your thoughts.
I know this is a it of a rant, but I'd like to know I'm not alone.  I feel it!

[bwat]

I have tons of experience, skills and indeed tools and original IP - but that's not what corporations are looking for. Especially over 50 yrs old.

Managers see only problems and they are conditioned to view these as people problems (they are managers of people and budgets so the solution must be better people or better budgets right? God forbid the solution should be found outside their remit!). Can you not pitch your skills as an alternative to their typical employee (young and cheap) who aren't giving them the results they (actually their superiors) demand? That's how I'd attack it.

[22swg]

I understand your condition, I always said there are talkers and doers , unfortunately the talkers use and abuse the doers , I was lucky to retire at 55 after 30 years in IT service, ok not EE but the same applies, my advice take up gardening...

[Bored@Work]

Also known as The Knack:

[Electronics-Repairman]

 My only problem is seeing some supposed engineers taking a long time and waffling on with simple easy repairs, making it sound like they've  done something wonderful when they've clearly stumbled on the fault, and clearly having still no ideal what it was , by which time we have all clocked off and gone home , there everywhere Work ,You-Tube, ,some even have You tube channels    you can't get away from tem.

[bookaboo]

In it's advanced stages Engineers Disease leads it's victims to set up their own firms, producing high quality products and services but having no interest in any of that boring sales/marketing/admin stuff. Meanwhile those infected with the "Greasy Annoying Overconfident Bullshit Happy Know Nothing Salesman" virus do likewise and snap up the whole market.

[dannyf]

A few things engineers tend to suffer from:

1) trees vs. forest: to many engineers, engineering is the most important. They don't see nor do they recognize the importance of marketing, sales, industrial design, etc., in the success of a product. They don't understand "big pictures".

2) comprehension: not only they tend to have issues with understanding what's being said, they also have issues with understanding what's not being said.

3) absolutism: to them, there is one way (=their way) of doing things. anything else is just plain wrong. engineering is almost a religion to those folks.

They sound very "common sense" but may not be common sense to some engineers.

That, in my experience, is preventing many engineers to be as successful as they could be.

[22swg]

"the Knack"     

Where would we be if not for engineers , still in caves !

[mtdoc]

Also known as The Knack:

Very good!

But not to be confused with  The Knack..

[mrflibble]

But not to be confused with  The Knack..

Or with Knack (which is cack).
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/8665-Knack

[Stonent]

I find myself actively trying to find problems or trying to come up with parameters to monitor that could indicate a future problem and addressing it before the problem occurs.

So as a result of that I keep everything running smoothly but since nothing is breaking someone could easily say "well why do we have x number of people when there is hardly anything breaking?"

One example is I ran a script the other day that scanned the event logs on all the non-server computers at our site looking for disk or file system errors and scheduled a chkdsk on all of those computers. Now I just need to go back and see if there are still errors being logged and if the computers are in warranty, have the drives replaced.

I'm also responsible for ensuring 95% of all client PCs are fully patched each month so I spend a lot of time running reports forcing computers to check in for patches and e-mailing people asking them to reboot if they haven't since the patches installed. As a result my division (1400 computers across multiple sites) has met this metric consistently for about a year whereas it seems to be hit or miss at other sites.

[silent]

I believe it concerns every passionate in a greater or lesser extent, younger ones and the older ones. That's what pushed me out of the corpo very fast. I started a work in a big international corporation on my 3rd year of studies and that was absolute opposite of what a future engineer wants to do. A good place to start, learn how to work in teams, see how the corporation works, but definitely not good place for a passionate in a long term. Sitting on the street with a "Will program for food" label on a cardboard or even f*cking gardening would be more interesting than working in the shitty corpo  . Maybe that's why we have so many startups or small companies (I also work in one).

[AndyC_772]

It's certainly true that engineers regard the technical quality of a product as being important above all else, but there is a good reason for that which I think does go beyond the blinkered stereotype.

The reason? Nobody else does.

Plenty of other people in the organisation are interested in whether it looks nice or comes in a pretty looking box. Others are concerned with whether or not it ticks enough boxes in a feature-for-feature comparison with a competitor.

It's not that the engineer doesn't 'get' this stuff, or recognise its importance. It's that the people who don't understand the inner workings of the product tend not to give it the attention it deserves.

That's not their fault at all, but it does mean that the engineers are the only ones who can champion technical excellence in a meaningful way. Because that makes us different, it becomes the thing we're known for.

[tszaboo]

Plenty of other people in the organisation are interested in whether it looks nice or comes in a pretty looking box. Others are concerned with whether or not it ticks enough boxes in a feature-for-feature comparison with a competitor.

In my previous job, we made an alarm system. After it was finished, we had to sit back because it wasn't HEAVY ENOUGH. We put a freaking sealed lead acid battery in it, then it was ok.
The other (different company) time I saw a customer inspect our goodies.
"Thick steel and nice screws. The labels are also nice"
"Please take a look once at the noise" points the engineer at the scope
"Yeah, it is very silent" after listening for it for a second in the air

[dfmischler]

"Thick steel and nice screws. The labels are also nice"
"Please take a look once at the noise" points the engineer at the scope
"Yeah, it is very silent" after listening for it for a second in the air

This is how it is.  A friend of mine works as an engineer for the local public water authority.  He says, "It doesn't matter how well the system is working.  When the politicians come to 'inspect' it all they want to see is that it is clean and not leaking, and that the people all look busy.  They don't understand the water quality testing, etc."

[sunnyhighway]

The other (different company) time I saw a customer inspect our goodies.
"Thick steel and nice screws. The labels are also nice"
"Please take a look once at the noise" points the engineer at the scope
"Yeah, it is very silent" after listening for it for a second in the air

I guess that's why they are called customers instead of engineers.
If you don't have the knowledge to asses the technical quality, all you can do is try to perceive the quality by assessing the the quality of the product properties you do understand, and hope the overall quality is more or less the same for the entire product.

I tend to look at it as if I were to try to asses how safe a car is by closing the door.
If I hear a nice thud like sound it must be a safe car and if I hear a kloink like sound it probably isn't a very safe. 

[dannyf]

I guess that's why they are called customers instead of engineers.

Who's paying for the product eventually, the customers or the engineers who designed the product?

Maybe then it will become clear who's really smart,

[tszaboo]

The other (different company) time I saw a customer inspect our goodies.
"Thick steel and nice screws. The labels are also nice"
"Please take a look once at the noise" points the engineer at the scope
"Yeah, it is very silent" after listening for it for a second in the air

I guess that's why they are called customers instead of engineers.
If you don't have the knowledge to asses the technical quality, all you can do is try to perceive the quality by assessing the the quality of the product properties you do understand, and hope the overall quality is more or less the same for the entire product.

I tend to look at it as if I were to try to asses how safe a car is by closing the door.
If I hear a nice thud like sound it must be a safe car and if I hear a kloink like sound it probably isn't a very safe.

I would agree, if it would be a microwave oven. But it was a test equipment, which costs a bit more than the car the guy arrived with.

[HighVoltage]

What would our modern world be, without engineers and scientist?

But those who are not an engineer or familiar with science, usually can not even
contemplate what it takes to solve a complicated problem.

I have seen it so many times, that the respect for engineers in general is dwindling away.
And then so many companies in Germany are looking for engineers and can not find enough.

[AG6QR]

One symptom of one form of engineer's disease...

As an engineer, when I go to Disneyland or any other amusement park, I pay lots of attention to how they do the things they do.  The strobe effects, the use of polarizers, Pepper's ghost, the layout of queues for people waiting, the electrical cables, the locations of restrooms (always nearby, but never prominent), the audio systems, the use of forced perspective, the ways of handling crowd flow, the mechanics of rides, the safety devices on rides, the ways of hiding big rides in big buildings with only a small decorative entrance visible to the public, all the technical details.

Sometimes I wish I could just sit back and enjoy the show, but it's just not gonna happen.

[Dave]

I caught The Knack before I was born. When my mom pushed me around in a stroller, I used to lean over the bar and watch the wheels spin. I was intrigued by every single machine imaginable. Steam engines were my favorites when I was in kindergarten, I had the whole mechanism figured out.
I've played with Legos A LOT. I built all kinds of wonderful complex machines and that eventually lead me to Lego Mindstorms. This was the toy that helped me discover that instead of mechanical engineering, I was born to do electronics.

Hopefully my kids (someday) will be into Legos as well, so I can play with them again without being judged.

[pickle9000]

One symptom of one form of engineer's disease...

As an engineer, when I go to Disneyland or any other amusement park, I pay lots of attention to how they do the things they do.  The strobe effects, the use of polarizers, Pepper's ghost, the layout of queues for people waiting, the electrical cables, the locations of restrooms (always nearby, but never prominent), the audio systems, the use of forced perspective, the ways of handling crowd flow, the mechanics of rides, the safety devices on rides, the ways of hiding big rides in big buildings with only a small decorative entrance visible to the public, all the technical details.

Sometimes I wish I could just sit back and enjoy the show, but it's just not gonna happen.

That is enjoying the show.

[SL4P]

One symptom of one form of engineer's disease...

As an engineer, when I go to Disneyland or any other amusement park, I pay lots of attention to how they do the things they do.  The strobe effects, the use of polarizers, Pepper's ghost, the layout of queues for people waiting, the electrical cables, the locations of restrooms (always nearby, but never prominent), the audio systems, the use of forced perspective, the ways of handling crowd flow, the mechanics of rides, the safety devices on rides, the ways of hiding big rides in big buildings with only a small decorative entrance visible to the public, all the technical details.

Sometimes I wish I could just sit back and enjoy the show, but it's just not gonna happen.

I know exactly what you mean - and it can be socially isolating - simply being interested i the 'why & how' - not just the 'what' !  I guess we're nerds.

[22swg]

Disneyland...    not for me thanks . could not think of anything worse...

[dexters_lab]

Similar issues here but i mostly get annoyed with poorly designed websites, way back 10+ years ago used to write them and it bugs me when i see sites that have issues that i could have solved back then!

Classic one in case the other day, site wanted a uk postcode, which is usually two letters, two numbers a space and a number then two letters like AB12 3CD. This site reported an error to the user to enter it without the space. So someone had gone to the effort to code in to check for the space and then report an error to the user! FFS they were just one more step away from removing the space character in code! Just a few lines of code to make life better for the end user.

Cheap chinese products also annoy me, when they needlessly skimp. That $1 they save by not fitting a couple of extra components can make a good product a complete fail.