Rant on Engineering

What's the difference between Doctors, Lawyers and Engineers? - Exposure and Perception.

TV and Hollywood (and I bet Baliwood too) love to tell stories about Doctors and Lawyers - the storylines are simple and everyone can understand.

We have no real promotional body - that's the root of our problem. What do we have? - an Engineering week that only some engineers actually know about and very few participate in. If it wasn't for the Discovery Channel (that only engineers, math and science majors watch anyway) we'd be completely ignored. There hasn't been a good engineer on TV since Star Trek's "Mr. Scott". In today's world kids feel Math is not important - Schools and University's are bending over backwards to come up with programs that exclude Math - and we say nothing.

When I go to a party and have to introduce myself, I say I'm an Engineer working in Oil and Gas Design - short and sweet - If I tried to describe what I really do I'd be getting nothing but blank faces - they would not understand - Engineering is too broad. I bet you do the same. Let me take that a little further - no one in my family - not my Wife, Mom, Dad, Brothers, Sisters or any of my close friends really know what I do
- that's my fault - I never took the time.

I was at a conference a few years back and the topic came up - How do you make money in Engineering? - My response "Sell all the companies assets and invest in Microsoft". Even with the tech bust if you look at the numbers since 98 you'd probably find that would have been a more profitable path for most engineering companies. Why is it like this?

My clients are Oil and Gas companies, all making money like never before
- yet they want the cheapest lump sum solution and they also want to
keep changing everything as time goes on - we kill ourselves making it happen for what a 4% profit if everything goes perfect - the crazy part is that we compete ruthlessly against one another to do this.

We should be saying - yes we are talented people and we would love to work on your project - we will do it at cost + 15% (15% is actually cheap - our new health plan requires a minimum 18% profit or our premiums will go up). Anyone think for 1 second the oil companies would stop all the new projects. In our society people respect you if you make money - we need proper respect to further our industry. If we stopped doing proposal work for free we would see respect very quickly - Our clients would be more interested in relationships instead of who's cheap.

We need a strong organization to promote Engineering and we need to work together.

As far as lawyers risk/reward goes - if there was a project out there where I could work for free but earn 20 lifetime's pay for a good job I'd be on it in a heartbeat.

PRH Three lawyers and three engineers are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three lawyers each buy tickets and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket.

"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" wonders one of the lawyers. "Watch, and you'll see," replies one of the engineers.

They all board the train. The lawyers take their respective seats while all three engineers cram into a restroom and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train departs, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, "Ticket, please." The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The lawyers see this and agree it is quite a clever idea. After the conference, the lawyers decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money. When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy a ticket at all. "How are you going to travel without a ticket?" asks one perplexed lawyer. "Watch, and you'll see," replies one of the engineers.

When they board the train the three lawyers cram into a restroom and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. A few moments later, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the lawyers are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please."

Paul Hawco

Mechanical Engineer

Neill & Gunter (Nova Scotia) Limited

http://www.neillandgunter.com <http://www.neillandgunter.com>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Received on Fri Mar 05 09:26:00 2004