If engineering has poor prospects, then why recruit?

in article snipped-for-privacy@enews.newsguy.com, Keith R. Williams at snipped-for-privacy@attglobal.net wrote on 1/7/04 5:48 AM:

There are plenty of stupid lawyers as well as stupid engineers.

Engineers are cheaper. Often of their own volition. I have heard many say that they are continuously surprised that they get paid for their work. They ar almost willing to work for free. When I first got interested in radio, before college, I was of that ilk. Good engineers are more likely to do the job right.

And you say employers are not willing to take advantage of the typical engineers naivety?

Bill

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, EEng at snipped-for-privacy@budget.net wrote on 1/7/04 9:26 AM:

I am retired now. The exigencies of finding a job now does not exist for me.

My first encounter with the cycle was in about 1970. I lost my job twice about that time. I was very good at what I was doing in the first time. The second time, I had saved my employer's technical ass. It made no differences. IEEE fellows were being laid off. To some, as it was for me, these layoffs proved to be a blessing.

I too have avoided obsolescence by avoiding overspecialization. I also had my specialties. I could see how knowledge of electromagnetics would serve me from power frequencies through x-rays. One of my specialties, self taught, was in optical thin-films. The mathematics involved was very similar to that of transmission lines.

Just before I went to college, about 1946, a radio amateur friend of mine, quit electrical engineering school in his senior year because he saw no future. My parents urged me to take up a different occupation for the same reasons and piled a few more on top of that. At that time I was not interested in a great deal of money. I still am not, but that is because I have a sufficient amount for my rather low life style.

Bill

...and way too many of the former. They have an advantage though. Congress (more stupid lawyers) keeps passing more laws, requiring more lawyers.

No, not at all! ;-) I'm saying that employers get what they measure. If the measurement is headcount an *expensive* engineer has the same "cost" as a technician making half the money (or less). After all, the engineer can (in theory) do the tech's work, but not the other way around...

I've run up against this argument many times when trying to justify a technician to off load the more mundane work. Like any engineer when confronted with an insoluble problem, I simply changed the rules of the game. I don't go into the lab anymore. ;-)

^ 'L'?

He was totally outclassed by the corporate sponsors. ...again, a reason I never paid IEEE dues, though am a "professional" (or whatever they call it) member of HKN. ...but that's another story. ;-)

I graduated 30 years ago and have worked for the same company since. *Just* after I was hired the doors locked shut for about six years (the '70s made the 'early '90s and '00s look like a walk in the park). I've made it through six or so layoffs since the early 90's. I'm still here.

...though who knows how much longer? ;-)

I've always been a "generalist". I specialize in adapting to what needs to be done today. No, I'm not a VP (intentionally), but I do rather well and work according to my wishes. I'm not above working weekends/holidays, but there had better be a good reason (which doesn't include $$).

IF "Professionals" weren't. They were paper-shufflers of the dot-bombs.

Someone always needs a widget. No, I'm not as practiced at widgetry as I was ten or twenty years ago, when I did it every day. ...but I'm really considering getting back into the widget biz. ;-)

Keith, Thanks for saying that. The 70's (and early 80's) were a hell of a lot worse than now. I can remember there just being nothing, anywhere for many months. Remember when 7% unemployment was a way of life? 6% was great? And now at 5% people whine like it's the midst of the great depression.

Mike