You are browsing the archive for January 2012.
This morning in a meeting, an account manager voiced an opinion: “well, you simply have to X…” Irrespective of the content, and of any thoughts merits of the words of an account manager in an engineering discussion, I was suddenly aware of that word, “simply.” How easily it trips off the tongue! It and its cousins “just”, “only” (and ”easily”) slip so – well, simply – into conversation; they are so often that they are usually ignored. But they still affect the tone of the sentence, of the discussion itself. They diminish the things that we engineers have to get to the bottom of. In this morning’s case, it was a process: “simply insert it and tighten it.” Account Manager talk, yes, but do you see how quickly that trivialises the problem, without adding anything useful to the discussion? In fact, in the spirit of thinking things through, I would propose that [...]
I’ve been fighting a battle at work. No, not literally. I don’t want to get fired, I just got hired a few weeks ago. But I’ve been trying to convince co-workers and engineering management to buy a piece of equipment, specifically a 3D printer for doing prototyping (and yes, I’ve mentioned it here and on the radio show a few times). And I think I’ve narrowed the real issue and why I haven’t been getting anywhere with them yet. How do you prove what the future will be like? Personally, I have a strong dislike for prognosticators. Whenever I see a chip manufacturer or an industry analyst predicting how much a particular sector will grow in the coming year, I cringe. Sure, they know a little bit about the industry, they’re in it! They see trends and they talk to people and they get statements from buyers and sellers and [...]
What The Flux is a semi-regular weekend feature on EngineeringBlogs.org that follows the follies and jollies of an engineer in industry, yours truly.— Last week, I mentioned that Santa Claus came to town to shut down our satellite office. What I didn’t tell you was that Santa Claus had a private meeting with me the night before the official announcement. He wanted me to stay with FluxCorp and suggested that I accept an offer to relocate and transfer to another part of the company. He also made it clear that there was no Plan B should I reject the offer. Next morning, I went to work and watched my colleagues being their usual cheery selves, knowing that in another hour or two, those cheery smiles will be turned upside down once Santa Claus arrived at the office. Santa was pretty blunt in his delivery — straight forward, no BS, and [...]
This is a guest post from Carmen Parisi of Fake EE Quips, a man of many hats. An engineer by day and blogger by night, he also considers himself an amateur connoisseur of craft beer, coffee, and toasted sandwiches. Recently, he moved down to Raleigh, NC and is experiencing his first winter sans snow. I’m the sort of person who will analyze–and possibly over analyze–damn near anything. I’m forever asking “Why?” and searching for answers. Whether I’m discussing traffic patterns on my way to work, a circuit problem, or pondering the cosmos, once I latch onto a subject I typically pursue it until I find an answer that satisfies my curiosity. My natural curiosity is something of a double edged-sword however; on one hand it doesn’t take much to entertain me and I feel I’m well rounded. On the other hand, I can get stuck on a topic and become “that guy” at a party [...]
When I was a kid, I used to take things apart to see if I could figure out how they worked. I realize I’m probably like every other engineer in that regard, but I was also one of those who failed to put things back together many times. I suspect I may have been more successful with time, but my parents put the kabosh on that particular behavior pretty quickly. Thus, I was doomed from the get-go as an experimentalist. I learned to program when I was 9, and it turned out I was actually pretty good at it. Ironically, I never considered a career involving programming until college. I had wanted to go into physics after having a great time in high school physics classes. I love figuring things out, and that’s what physics was: non-stop problems that you had to figure out. It wasn’t until I enrolled in [...]
This week’s theme at Engineer Blogs is motivation and, if you can’t tell from my late post, I’m motivated to work on other things right now. My discussion on this topic is highly linked to a previous Theme Week on Deadlines. In that post, I discussed how I toss in procrastination and deadlines, and mix it with pressure and a dash of biting-off-more-than-you-can-chew and come out in reasonable shape (when it’s all over). GMP had a comment that she worked in a similar fashion, so I was somewhat relieved to find out I wasn’t the only one. When it comes down to it, I think I’m most motivated by not wanting to let other people down. I’d like to think that I’m the person that comes through 10 times out of 10 (SHAFT!). That doesn’t mean I’m always successful (hence my recent proposal rejection) but in the context of coming through in the end, I’m [...]
Since the theme of the week is motivation, I was thinking about what motivated me to pursue engineering in the first place. Recently, the Huffington Post had an interesting post on how to inspire scientists, and the disconnect between policy makers and scientists. The author also talks about engineers, and indicates that “useful and cool” are enough motivation to convince students to push through four years of college to get an engineering degree before heading out into industry to get a decent paying job at 22 to 25. And yes, the STEM fields are doing better than their non-STEM counterparts in terms of employment, but as has been discussed on this blog before, the idea of a career is changing. The economy is more global and more volatile than ever. The idea of a secure, well-paying job can be a great motivator, but it’s becoming less realistic. It seems to [...]
Sebastian Abbott is a British automotive engineer living and working in Germany. He regularly writes as the Canny Engineer. Baffled, amazed and in awe would also be appropriate terms to describe his outlook on this engineering life. It is almost impossible to be an engineer much of the time. There are the days when you’re doing nothing but administration, getting tied up in repetitive or irrelevant meetings, when you’re yet again explaining the same thing to the same purchasing agent. There are the days when you’re being pulled in fifteen different directions at once, and you think, “Why am I doing this to myself?” One answer is, of course, the money. A decent salary doesn’t hurt, but studies have shown that a higher salary often does not lead to better productivity. To achieve that, to really get you up with a smile in the morning, you need motivation. I like the word, [...]
We decided to try out another theme week at Engineer Blogs this coming week. And being an admin, I took the first slot! Bwahahaha. All others will only be a derivative of my brilliant musings! (nah, they’ll be much better) The question this week is: What keeps you motivated in engineering? Engineering is a lot of things. Engaging, challenging, frustrating, rewarding, time consuming, under appreciated and often occurs with lots of fits and starts. To be honest, some days engineering really sucks. Yup, a blog about engineering is the best place to swallow a dose of reality. Some days you will bang your head against the desk hard enough to make your forehead bleed. Some nights you’ll rest your head on that desk because you’re still at the office at 10 pm, trying to figure something out. So what keeps us going? Specifically, what keeps me going? I’ll leave the rest [...]
What The Flux is a semi-regular weekend feature on EngineeringBlogs.org that follows the follies and jollies of an engineer in industry, yours truly.— Christmas. It’s over, but I’m still thinking about it. It’s a time for family. It’s a time for food. It’s a time for gifts. It’s a time for bright eyed children peeking under the Christmas tree. It truly is the most wonderful time of the year. Red, green, blue, white. The multi-coloured lights hanging off snow-covered pine trees create a beautiful spectacle when reflecting off newly fallen snow on the front lawns of suburbia. A winter wonderland indeed. And here at work, here at FluxCorp, the mood was no less festive. Two weeks before Christmas, one of our higher-ups was kind enough to fly from somewhere close to the armpit of America all the way to our igloo. We sure were excited. What yuletide greetings will he [...]
Subscribe By Email
Subscribe By Reader
Recent Comments