July 2012
You are browsing the archive for July 2012.
By Fluxor on July 30, 2012
Three weeks ago, I offered one of my analog IC designers a 30% raise, hoping to entice him to stay with the company. Unfortunately, he’s still leaving despite our better offer than his soon-to-be new employer. Back in WTF #18, I mentioned that salary wasn’t the only issue and in fact, wasn’t even the main issue. He had other personal reasons to leave and I was trying my best to accommodate him. At the end of the day, I wasn’t able to convince upper management to make that accommodation. Hence, all the leverage I had remaining was money and my charming personality. Apparently, both failed miserably. Analog IC desginers are hard to come by in China. I’ve recently hired four and they weren’t exactly my top choices. But given market conditions, I’m forced to go with the traditional route of hiring those with good foundations and then developing them in-house. […]
Posted in Workplace | Tagged jobs, resignation, turnover |
By Chris Gammell on July 29, 2012
This weekend I had a buddy in town who I’ve known since childhood. It was great getting to hang out with him. But in one of the great ironies of the universe, it came to pass that my best friend is also what sometimes ends up being a perfect foe for an engineer: a purchasing agent. In reality, we work for different companies and work in drastically different industries. So while there could be tension, it usually only comes up as a function of our discussions about what engineers should do and how purchasing agents should act. But on today’s topic, our contention came to a head: My purchasing friend says that I should not maintain relationships with vendors (platonic, of course). I should not allow them to buy me lunch occasionally. I should not accept sample kits from them. I should not talk to them other than in official capacities for work. I’ve written […]
Posted in Business, Electrical Engineering, Politics, Workplace | Tagged chips, relationship, symbiotic, vendor |
By Miss Outlier on July 29, 2012
I’ve never actually carried a backpack on a regular basis. I was homeschooled all the way up through highschool, so there was no need to carry textbooks back and forth – they stayed on the bookshelf for when I needed them. And then in community college, by random chance I had a shoulder bag from Land’s End hanging around, and I decided to just use that. I’ve grown accustomed to the shoulder bag, and then when I moved to undergrad from community college, I just stuck with the genre. (Under family “bag,” mine would be genus “shoulder.”) I had one bag that lasted me all the way through undergrad, then in grad school I got a new bag for the occasion, and barring unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions, it’s going to last me until I finish here. In my bag: Wallet and keys So many keys! No, I did not murder a janitor, but I […]
Posted in Engineering Mindset |
By Seb Abbott on July 28, 2012
If we’re looking under the family “bag”, mine is of the genus “rucksack”. I cycle to work and find messenger bags simply too cumbersome (sorry, Carmen). They slip and slide around, throwing their CoGs about, get in the way of my pedalling and after a longer ride my carrying shoulder hurts. No, messenger bags are simply not great a solution for actually carrying things whilst on a bike. A rucksack is the only way for me to go; specifically, the species Osprey Atmos 25. Clamped nice and firmly on my back, relatively slim but variable enough to carry surprising amounts. Its only downside is? Transpiration. Despite their best efforts at aero webbing and vents, it still presses my shirt against the skin, and and at temperatures like today’s 35 °C, which would be… (Hi Google, could you – oh, you have already? 95 F? OK, great, thanks. How-? ), there’s not […]
Posted in Engineering Mindset | Tagged knowledge, mobile working, Rucksack |
By GEARS on July 27, 2012
I think it’s very apt that we’re discussing “What’s in my Bag” this week because I just returned home, at 1 am :-\ , from traveling. My bag is what I would call an “omni-bag”, meeting all three (or four, depending on how you look at it) criteria: room for a full laptop, room for extra papers for grading or reviewing, and expandable to hold a change of clothes or two. The fourth is looks. I think Kenneth Cole did a very nice job on the styling. I previously discussed this bag, The Business Bag, on Engineer Blogs. I bring up traveling as nice timing for this post because I find my bag tends to pick up some extra things that I normally wouldn’t carry around on a daily basis. Inevitably, these things tend to stay in my bag for a few days before I finally clear them out. Since […]
Posted in Engineering Mindset |
By Miss MSE on July 26, 2012
So this week, we’re talking about what our essentials are that go in our bag. Because I have a very nice desk that is the only place I really work besides home, my daily bag contains my wallet, keys and phone. It used to have a book, but my phone does that now. And since everything I’m working on is on a remote server, I don’t need to take documents back and forth. Since this would be a very short post otherwise, I decided to instead go through what I bring to academic conferences. This can be divided into two parts: my luggage and my day bag. My day bag is a very nice black leather Samsonite bag which holds everything I need, while preventing me from deciding to pack the supplies needed for a small army. This bag contains: Laptop and power cord Conference booklet Medium Moleskin notebook 3+ […]
Posted in Engineering Mindset
By Sophi Kravitz on July 25, 2012
I carry around three bags for my daily routine of going from my house to car to worksite to car. Bag 1 is a handbag. It is pretty and contains a tiny tape measure, wallet and smartphone. I carry it when I go out to lunch. I like to have the tape measure because I often see something that spurs an idea and like to get an idea of scale. Bag 2 is a gym bag. It contains both my gym clothes and another change of clothes in case I spill something on myself before a meeting. I have a funny habit left over from before cell phones which is to keep comfy shoes in the gym bag in case my car breaks down and I have to walk to a service station. Bag 3 is a backpack, of which the contents change frequently since I work for a few […]
Posted in Electrical Engineering, Engineering Mindset | Tagged bag, nitrile glove, TI-83 |
By EngineerBlogs.org Guest on July 24, 2012
Unlike my college buddy who was endearingly nicknamed “Pack Mule” back in second year, I hate carrying around a bunch of stuff all the time. Once I have the basics covered (wallet, keys, phone, Leatherman) I always attempt to keep any additional stuff with me to a minimum. Here’s what I typically haul around with me on a daily basis to and from work: Swiss Gear Messenger Bag I bought this bag years ago when I was just a junior in high school for around $20 at a big box store and somewhat surprisingly it held up all through college with only minimal wear. The bag’s got all sorts of pockets and pouches inside, which I love, so I can perfectly organize whatever I’m carrying on a given day. You will never catch me with a single compartment catch all bag, I’m a stickler for a well organized setup. After […]
Posted in Engineering Mindset | Tagged What's In Your Bag |
By Fluxor on July 23, 2012
Those damn overseas workers. Can’t they do anything right? Why don’t they follow the rules? Why don’t they follow instructions? Why don’t they complete important tasks on time? Of course, from my vantage point in China, those damn overseas workers are Americans. Sorry to generalize. Rather, that damn overseas worker is an American. He’s also a fellow manager with a few brand new hires in China. As managers, we are responsible to ensure that our new hires are equipped with an email account, UNIX account, access to various internal documents, a phone, and a computer on the first day. It’s quite easy. All we need to do is to spend 10 minutes on an internal website filling out some forms in order to make a formal request to IT. This manager has four new hires in China. Three arrived two weeks ago — without computer, without email accounts, without UNIX […]
Posted in Workplace | Tagged managers, new hires, overseas workers |
By Chris Gammell on July 22, 2012
We’re kicking off this week with a series of posts from our authors about what we carry around with us as engineers. We’re sure you’ll find lots of similarities and would love feedback on what you see and possibly even what you think we’re missing! I’ll start us off: Bag: Most of my work is done on a laptop these days. Therefore, I’m often found toting my entire laptop setup around with me. I wouldn’t think otherwise these days, but I know many EEs who prefer desktops because of the assumed high power processing (think MATLAB). Plus doing schematic entry and board layout often requires multiple screens. Still, I favor portability and being able to work from anywhere over a slightly faster load time of a web page or a calculation. Computer: This is a pretty standard issue Lenovo notebook from my workplace. Sure, it’s boring from the outside. But […]
Posted in Electrical Engineering, Engineering Mindset | Tagged bag, electrical, engineering, What's In Your Bag |
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