RE: OT: Expat Piping Designers

From: <Steve>
Date: Thu Mar 04 2004 - 17:31:00 EST

A lawyer earning public esteem? Thats a good one. A lawyer taking personal responsibility? Stop it; you'll make me die laughing.
My lawyer is a discharged bankrupt. His reason:" I broke the first rule and gave a personal guarantee"
Try getting anything other than "very good chance" out of a lawyer ( except the "no cure,no pay" ambulance chasers). In the words of the immortal Ambrose Bierce: " A lawyer is someone skilled in the circumvention of the law".

I dont know what the story is with doctors because I dont play golf. Referral seems to be a major revenue earner though. And they are able to bury their mistakes.

No point in looking over the fence though (apart from a laugh). If anyone wants to change their profession, then go for it. If anyone wants more money, respect etc while remaining an engineer, then work harder and promote yourself.

Cheers

Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher Wright [mailto:chrisw@skypoint.com] Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 11:07 AM
To: ?
Subject: Re: [PipingDesign] OT: Expat Piping Designers

>After all, doctors got where they are by being members of an extremely
>effective union, with an expensive initiation fee.
Doctors and lawyers got where they are by practicing autonomously. Most engineers are employees, not practitioners. Relatively few engineers are in the engineering business--most work for outfits who are in the business of supplying manufactured goods. As employees they do what they're told, they take no risks and are only rarely held accountable for anything more than working to budget. Doctors on the other hand take personal responsibility for their patient's welfare. Overruling competent medical judgement is serious business. When someone dies under a doctor's care, the physician isn't just doing what he's told--he's the guy in the barrel.

Doctors (and lawyers, for that matter) earn public esteem for taking personal responsibility for outcomes. Very few engineers are even registered, let alone personally responsible for anything but following orders.

Christopher Wright P.E.    |"They couldn't hit an elephant at
chrisw@skypoint.com        | this distance"   (last words of Gen.
___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)

http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw

---

PipingOffice - Excel Spreadsheets for Piping Calculations http://www.pipingoffice.us/

---

Main site: http://www.pipingdesign.com

Yahoo! Groups Links Received on Thu Mar 04 17:31:00 2004