Workers are applying for jobs left and right, but hearing nothing back

[VolStrom]

That's pretty much what anyone should want. The one thing that I really struggled with though as an engineer was what "progress" really meant. So often jobs like engineering reach a terminal point - you can say this or that needs to be done, but you are without the authority to make it happen. The trap is to gravitate toward management. I found that a miserable compromise - going from what you liked and did well to something where you just became part of the unsatisfying bureaucracy that you disliked, and worse, you found you still can't change it by being a part of it.

Engineers make the worst managers in the history of managers unless they are from a different discipline.

 

[AshG]

I found that a miserable compromise - going from what you liked and did well to something where you just became part of the unsatisfying bureaucracy that you disliked, and worse, you found you still can't change it by being a part of it.

One of my best friends used to be the software integration lead at FedEx, and that's exactly what he described. So he moved on to running the supercomputer at ORNL. After several years he moved on to a new gig for the same reason. You can only go so far before you become what you don't like.

 

[hog88]

Engineers make the worst managers in the history of managers unless they are from a different discipline.

You have a point but some of the best managers I have worked with were engineers, they were engineers that got into service and or sales prior to management.

 

[Vol737]

I don’t really detest the working environment. Not when we’re in design and integration mode. I absolutely detest dealing with all the dumbass executives that think they know how to execute our product lines after getting hired in from some other obscure part of the company or from other company in the industry or military retiree. When we can get those idiots to just stay the hell out of the way and keep quiet the environment is actually quite good

My dad used to say it was his job to get the right people in the right position and then get out of their way. Also said nothing is more valuable than your skilled and experienced frontline employees. A lot of these dime a dozen MBA’s coming out don’t have the slightest clue what an asset their people are.

 

[VolStrom]

You have a point but some of the best managers I have worked with were engineers, they were engineers that got into service and or sales prior to management.

Working with an engineer that is in management is way different from being an engineer working for another engineer in the same discipline. Engineers are naturally stubborn creatures that have their own way of doing things, and tensions arise when they start getting questioned about why they did what they did.

 

[hog88]

Working with an engineer that is in management is way different from being an engineer working for another engineer in the same discipline. Engineers are naturally stubborn creatures that have their own way of doing things, and tensions arise when they start getting questioned about why they did what they did.

I can see that.

My son was recently promoted to plant manager from head of engineering, I told him he had to remember most people he deals with now are not engineers.

 

[NorthDallas40]

My dad used to say it was his job to get the right people in the right position and then get out of their way. Also said nothing is more valuable than your skilled and experienced frontline employees. A lot of these dime a dozen MBA’s coming out don’t have the slightest clue what an asset their people are.

Your dad sounds like a man I’d enjoy working for. The best managers I’ve ever had mostly stayed out of my way and it they needed something immediately they would come look for me in the lab, wait for an opportune time to break in (they got priority anyway because we knew they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t need to be), get what they needed immediately, asked for any updates that they might not know about, asked if we needed anything, and then got the hell out of my way.

 

[AM64]

You have a point but some of the best managers I have worked with were engineers, they were engineers that got into service and or sales prior to management.

Hewlett-Packard in the old days when they did instrumentation before diving into computers had some absolutely fantastic sales people. The were frequently engineers who went into sales. Other tech companies were the same, but HP was heads and shoulders the best in equipment and support in what we needed.

 

[VolStrom]

I can see that.

My son was recently promoted to plant manager from head of engineering, I told him he had to remember most people he deals with now are not engineers.

The best plant managers I ever had were engineers because they didn't look at things in a short-term way, but in a long-term way.
Congrats to your son!

 

[NorthDallas40]

I've had this talk with my college students and had them provide some interesting answers. I've applied some of them with my current program and it's growing like a weed right now:

• They want to be treated with respect. They hate being pandered to and can see through fakeness easily.
• They want the real expectations up front. Bait and switch turns them off and runs them off.
• They want to feel necessary, not irreplaceable. This goes back to the insincerity in the first point. They want to feel like they are making a worthwhile contribution but not have smoke blown up their asses about how important are.
• They want to see a real future for themselves. This generation does not want to spin their wheels and sweat and toil for someone else to get all the glory all the time. They want to see a clear and distinct path forward, even if it requires hard work and long hours.

• They need to understand respect is earned not just given due to participation. That doesn’t mean they are disrespected instead, it just means they aren’t largely paid attention to until they’ve shown they earned that attention. And it isn’t personal. If it is personal the senior person is out of line. That is RARELY the case.
• Everyone wants that. Sometimes the situation is driven by not having everything known up front. Experience will tell them the difference. Tell them to not assume things are being withheld from them on purpose.
• It’s on them too show how necessary they are. They should assume they are there because their skills are needed. Nobody likes to carry dead weight so assume you are participating because you’ve been deemed worth having around
• I’d tell them what I have told people for 30 years. Your career is your own. Your job isn’t your career it’s your current assignment on your career timeline. Nobody should manage your career but you. So manage it and don’t sit back and let things come at you. Ask the grey beards for career advice. Once we get past the shock of such an insightful question from a snotty nosed kid they’ll be surprised how open most of us are. And ask more than one or find one you really trust

Signed - a crotchety old fart they’d probably rather not deal with.

 

[NorthDallas40]

Hewlett-Packard in the old days when they did instrumentation before diving into computers had some absolutely fantastic sales people. The were frequently engineers who went into sales. Other tech companies were the same, but HP was heads and shoulders the best in equipment and support in what we needed.

The HP sales guys of old were top notch. My precious was my HP3563 Dynamic Signal Analyzer and the sales/apps guy showed me most of the not obvious capability and hooks based on what I told him I was doing. They actually knew how to use their equipment

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

I've had this talk with my college students and had them provide some interesting answers. I've applied some of them with my current program and it's growing like a weed right now:

• They want to be treated with respect. They hate being pandered to and can see through fakeness easily.
• They want the real expectations up front. Bait and switch turns them off and runs them off.
• They want to feel necessary, not irreplaceable. This goes back to the insincerity in the first point. They want to feel like they are making a worthwhile contribution but not have smoke blown up their asses about how important are.
• They want to see a real future for themselves. This generation does not want to spin their wheels and sweat and toil for someone else to get all the glory all the time. They want to see a clear and distinct path forward, even if it requires hard work and long hours.

So basically, what anyone would want.

 

[AM64]

The HP sales guys of old were top notch. My precious was my HP3563 Dynamic Signal Analyzer and the sales/apps guy showed me most of the not obvious capability and hooks based on what I told him I was doing. They actually knew how to use their equipment

We did a lot of structural analysis with HP equipment (FFT analysis) - nobody else even came close to the capability they had, and their sales engineers either knew the answers when you were stumped, or they could find a way to help. We did a lot with modal analysis; at the end with the HP analyzers you got an animated display showing all the vibration modes - solved a lot of questions that finite analysis calculations didn't get right.

 

[VolStrom]

My most used HP instrument was the 4952A protocol analyzer. I hung on to one of these for over 20 years because every once in a while we had an old RS-232 comms link that stopped working. It felt good to be the old fart that knew how to work the old instruments and diagnose the old stuff.

 

[NorthDallas40]

We did a lot of structural analysis with HP equipment (FFT analysis) - nobody else even came close to the capability they had, and their sales engineers either knew the answers when you were stumped, or they could find a way to help. We did a lot with modal analysis; at the end with the HP analyzers you got an animated display showing all the vibration modes - solved a lot of questions that finite analysis calculations didn't get right.

Yep. The 3562/3563 were basically FFT machines focused on control loop sweeps. My most common usage was closed or open loop sweeps using a stepped sine source which yielded coherence of unity largely over the whole sweep frequency range due to the stepped sine source. The machine knew the frequency to extract so it applied a tight windowing function.

 

[DancingOutlaw]

Not true. They are applying and then not showing up but sending their forms in to unemployment showing they tried.

I saw an article talking about the ghosting epidemic. One recruiter said three positions garnered 60 applications, a dozen actually showed up to the interview, half of those couldn't pass the drug/background check, and two of the three hired left the job within a month.

 

[VolStrom]

Yep. The 3562/3563 were basically FFT machines focused on control loop sweeps. My most common usage was closed or open loop sweeps using a stepped sine source which yielded coherence of unity largely over the whole sweep frequency range due to the stepped sine source. The machine knew the frequency to extract so it applied a tight windowing function.

You were doing drugs.

 

[NorthDallas40]

We did a lot of structural analysis with HP equipment (FFT analysis) - nobody else even came close to the capability they had, and their sales engineers either knew the answers when you were stumped, or they could find a way to help. We did a lot with modal analysis; at the end with the HP analyzers you got an animated display showing all the vibration modes - solved a lot of questions that finite analysis calculations didn't get right.

Oh and I’m used to being Igor on the modal analysis hammer tests. The structural dynamicist set up the stick model, placed the triads, and smacked the hammer. I ran the FFT box and verified the triad axis definition at each point and saved the data. The modal test educated us on the structural modes and guided my system plant characterization

 

[NorthDallas40]

You were doing drugs.

I was high on nerd life

 

[AM64]

Oh and I’m used to being Igor on the modal analysis hammer tests. The structural dynamicist set up the stick model, placed the triads, and smacked the hammer. I ran the FFT box and verified the triad axis definition at each point and saved the data. The modal test educated us on the structural modes and guided my system plant characterization

You are probably one of the few who also know that not only the military bought hammers costing a few thousand dollars. We had some ranging from tack hammer to small sledge hammer sizes.

It seems like the 3562 was the front end for our last modal analysis system. Quite a bit of our work had to do with flow induced vibration and trying to relate what happened one place to another part of the system, so cross properties and coherence was really the key. It was really interesting stuff that I miss, but it's been over 30 years since those days.

 

[NorthDallas40]

You are probably one of the few who also know that not only the military bought hammers costing a few thousand dollars. We had some ranging from tack hammer to small sledge hammer sizes.

It seems like the 3562 was the front end for our last modal analysis system. Quite a bit of our work had to do with flow induced vibration and trying to relate what happened one place to another part of the system, so cross properties and coherence was really the key. It was really interesting stuff that I miss, but it's been over 30 years since those days.

I think the 3562 was ICP capable so I can see that. But it only had two channel inputs so it wouldn’t be too useful for our typical test. We normally do from 20 to 40 points for each triad and normally a couple of excitation axes. We normally run two triads at a time and the hammer force transducer into an FFT front end box that we feed into a tool called Star Modal.

 

[AM64]

I think the 3562 was ICP capable so I can see that. But it only had two channel inputs so it wouldn’t be too useful for our typical test. We normally do from 20 to 40 points for each triad and normally a couple of excitation axes. We normally run two triads at a time and the hammer force transducer into an FFT front end box that we feed into a tool called Star Modal.

I could very easily have forgotten model numbers and there was another company involved in the full modal analysis package - and I've definitely forgotten the name. I think most of the people there started out at HP.

 

[NorthDallas40]

You are probably one of the few who also know that not only the military bought hammers costing a few thousand dollars. We had some ranging from tack hammer to small sledge hammer sizes.

It seems like the 3562 was the front end for our last modal analysis system. Quite a bit of our work had to do with flow induced vibration and trying to relate what happened one place to another part of the system, so cross properties and coherence was really the key. It was really interesting stuff that I miss, but it's been over 30 years since those days.

Oh and ask any of my padowans about how to judge the results. From a new one I’ll get asked if the data “looks good” to which I’ll say hellifiknow it’s your data. What did the coherence show you? Coherence? Yeah coherence you know the cross correlation transfer function that tells you how well two spectrums are correlated. At which point they will go retake the data and log coherence this time or pull it up and look at the coherence and answer their own question.

I was a proud engineer papa a couple of years ago when a new hire asked one of my protégés how to know if the data is any good right in front of me. He proceeded to recite what the coherence graph was and how to utilize that graph to tune and judge the results. I had to look away and down a bit as I was grinning ear to ear.

 

[Wireless1]

Engineers make the worst managers in the history of managers unless they are from a different discipline.

I somewhat agree, some of the best engineering managers were horrible engineers that found a way to skate by on others work, when they get promoted they will take credit for getting out of the way.

 

[SpaceCoastVol]

I've had this talk with my college students and had them provide some interesting answers. I've applied some of them with my current program and it's growing like a weed right now:

• They want to be treated with respect. They hate being pandered to and can see through fakeness easily.
• They want the real expectations up front. Bait and switch turns them off and runs them off.
• They want to feel necessary, not irreplaceable. This goes back to the insincerity in the first point. They want to feel like they are making a worthwhile contribution but not have smoke blown up their asses about how important are.
• They want to see a real future for themselves. This generation does not want to spin their wheels and sweat and toil for someone else to get all the glory all the time. They want to see a clear and distinct path forward, even if it requires hard work and long hours.

Respect is earned. It is not given. It is not owed to anyone that acts like an idiot. It is definitely not owed to anyone that bullies another. And I have news for them. Everyone is replaceable. None of us are necessary.

Change my mind.