Re: new member

From: <Christopher>
Date: Mon Nov 01 1999 - 11:37:00 EST

>Regardless of the motivations for the trend, it seems the less
>experienced pipers are not learning as much from the old hands as
>compared to the good ole days.

That's because there are fewer old hands who haven't been been retired or sacked. Interesting to contrast engineering with medicine or the law by the attitude towards older people. It's a lot less common to see an engineer or designer still doing hands-on work past the age of forty, than a lawyer or physician who's still practicing actively at 50. My ophthamologist and dentist were both in their 70's when they retired recently and still looking after me. Very few engineers or designers that age, especially on corporate staffs.

Without experienced people around, you don't get the emphasis on mentoring in corporate practice and the younger designers have to make their own mistakes if they're going to learn anything. One of the best moves a new engineer can make is cultivating older designers, just to get a leg up on what might work and what doesn't. (I also got a certain amount of bullshit to sort through, but 75% of life is digging through bullshit looking for prizes ;->) Same for making some friends in the shop. I've wasted a lot of time listening to complaints about inconvenient tolerancing (not to mention all the snickering one time when I showed my inability to run a bead...), but it all balances out when a welder feels like he knows me well enough to check a bad call-out with me instead of just following an incorrect drawing.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant from <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=gr0Gha4lUsXRORUefwkyqHWh2KiEtGyEg0mwmmtrmU1-CxoR3kMkvkJHxnfcRTTeupBmDwfetn-mMNs7">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)

<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw</a> Received on Mon Nov 01 11:37:00 1999