# How do you deel with criticism?



## McEngr (Mar 14, 2007)

My boss ( :thankyou: ) never seems to say a nice thing about my work, yet I produce more for this company (design-wise) than anyone else here. I'm told of my mistakes and they are inflated to a big deal!!! For instance: today he told me that I need to watch where I put flange-braces in beams, columns, and frames of low-rise steel :reading: . He thought I was ignoring certain parts of my design, but it's not entirely true. The flange sizes were bigger, but NOT incorrect - just more steel weight than necessary. I was trying to streamline the job so it goes out the door and make all columns the same. That was "unacceptable" to him. It's already been explained of my "error" to 2 other people  within the department as something to watch out for. Forget about the fact that I applied all of the seismic/wind torsional bracing of the building without a single error!

Okay... rant off.

How do you guys deal with criticism from your boss? Is it equaled with positive statements? Man... I feel like a real peace of work - do I need counseling? :210:


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## MetroRAFB (Mar 14, 2007)

McEngr said:


> My boss ( :thankyou: ) never seems to say a nice thing about my work, yet I produce more for this company (design-wise) than anyone else here. I'm told of my mistakes and they are inflated to a big deal!!! For instance: today he told me that I need to watch where I put flange-braces in beams, columns, and frames of low-rise steel :reading: . He thought I was ignoring certain parts of my design, but it's not entirely true. The flange sizes were bigger, but NOT incorrect - just more steel weight than necessary. I was trying to streamline the job so it goes out the door and make all columns the same. That was "unacceptable" to him. It's already been explained of my "error" to 2 other people  within the department as something to watch out for. Forget about the fact that I applied all of the seismic/wind torsional bracing of the building without a single error!
> Okay... rant off.
> 
> How do you guys deal with criticism from your boss? Is it equaled with positive statements? Man... I feel like a real peace of work - do I need counseling? :210:



No, you just need a new boss. He's a tool, I've read your other posts about him. I like my boss and have a healthy respect for him. He treats me well. When he criticises me he doesn't pull any punches, but he listens to my explanations too. He's not afraid to chew my ass, but that's very rarely required. Talking about your perceived mistakes to others that aren't his equals or superiors is unprofessional. I don't talk badly about the people I manage to anyone but them or my boss if that's required. It's just bad business in my opinion.


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## MetroRAFB (Mar 14, 2007)

I should add, that I think I'm pretty good at anticipating what my boss expects of me on any given day or for any given task. I try to always keep that in mind and give him a heads up if something out of the ordinary is going to happen or if I'm pretty sure that he's going to question something I have done.

In the example you gave, if you had maybe told your boss as you were handing in your design what your logic was about keeping the columns the same size, maybe he wouldn't have perceived it as a "mistake". He probably still wouldn't have liked the idea, but at least he would have known that you didn't overdesign some columns just for the hell of it. Unless you're going to walk out the door tomorrow and never return, maybe you should work on trying to figure out exactly what he wants from you and try to give it to him. I think ultimately you need to find other employment though, based on your other posts on the subject.


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## McEngr (Mar 14, 2007)

MetroRAFB said:


> I should add, that I think I'm pretty good at anticipating what my boss expects of me on any given day or for any given task. I try to always keep that in mind and give him a heads up if something out of the ordinary is going to happen or if I'm pretty sure that he's going to question something I have done.
> In the example you gave, if you had maybe told your boss as you were handing in your design what your logic was about keeping the columns the same size, maybe he wouldn't have perceived it as a "mistake". He probably still wouldn't have liked the idea, but at least he would have known that you didn't overdesign some columns just for the hell of it. Unless you're going to walk out the door tomorrow and never return, maybe you should work on trying to figure out exactly what he wants from you and try to give it to him. I think ultimately you need to find other employment though, based on your other posts on the subject.


Well, thanks metro. My recent $5k raise was based upon trying to understand my boss from the inside out - not an easy task, believe me. My anniversary date is November. That's when I'll have my 2 week vacation start again. What'll happen is this: pink slip at 4:30 before I leave for a 2 week absense while giving them a 2 weeks notice without work. You can't say they couldn't prepare for it, can ya? I've already played this out in my mind and I want minimal conversation when I leave. There's nothing that they could say that would make me change my mind.


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2007)

McEngr said:


> It's already been explained of my "error" to 2 other people :thankyou: within the department as something to watch out for.


I call that leading by example - whenever I take the initiative to do something it becomes the 'example' of how not to do it.

I have found that amongst most engineers, ARTICULATION of thoughts is almost always second to everything else. This problem because confounded if the engineer is a non-native english speaker (not a slam, just a statement).

I was once told that Engineering is nothing more than figuring out how to do a $2 for $1. If this is the case, should it come as a surprise that the same logic would be applied to communication? Shortcuts in communication lend themselves to misunderstandings on the 'receiving' end of the communication.

Back to your point --

I have been in a number of situations where a person has said you are 'wrong' when all that had transpired was a different approach that amounted to not incorrect, but different. Some people take the approach of calling it 'wrong' in an effort to 'shortcut' the communication. In other words, it is a lot easier to say something is wrong than to spend some time understanding a 'difference' and how that 'difference' may or may not apply to a given body of work.

In my current position, I have broad flexibility to address those sort of shortcuts - I suspect in your case they are neither welcomed nor add any value to timeliness in deadlines. I think you are going to have to make a hard choice - that choice means you would have to change your outlook/approach to your boss. Either you accept it .. or not, because it doesn't seem he is going to change. Just realize that your choices need to mirror reality and what you note as being 'important' because ultimately you have to live (accept) the consequences of any choices you make.

My thought FWIW - life is too short to be miserable. Misery on the job creeps into other facets of your life, to the point where nothing seems good. You are better off to put A LOT of distance between you and the persistent miserable condition you often describe.

:reading:

JR


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## FusionWhite (Mar 14, 2007)

My boss is very good about criticism. He explains errors he sees and points out how to correct them. He doesnt bring them back up and I usually walk away having learned something. The system works!


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## Road Guy (Mar 15, 2007)

I went through several years where I didnt get along with our "chief QC engineer" and one of the other PM's they made several attempts to stab me in the back. and the worst part was that they tell everyone that I had made a mistake or done something wrong which was untrue. It was very much an old school versus new school.

Luckily I was working for 3 other PM's at the time who thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread who went to bat for me and gave the chief engineer (who to this day hates me for some reason) a cup of shut the f up.

What I did at the time was do the best I could do to give them what they wanted, they were the kind of engineers who would take something you did that was correct, but if it was _different _from the method in which they would have done it ,it was wrong to them. I just had to suffer through until we finished those projects and then I was fortunate enough to not work with that PM anymore (he was later strongly encouraged to quit, and is now considered a major project killer in our area).

But It was very frustrating to deal with these people who spent more time talking about you behind there back than they did talking to you. I was stil very young at the time and was a "team leader" in charge of 3 engineers and 1 cad guy. So I was more than willing to continue learning, but they would take a concept level review and start marking up minute details that dont belong on the plans at that time anways (the kind of people that point out the text is off center just a tad, but didnt notice that the bridge beam was a foot short)

The old chief engineer is still at that company, and I dont know what I really ever did to him, but to this day when i see him at a function he goes the other way or wont even say "Hello".


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## kevo_55 (Mar 16, 2007)

When I first started my boss would take out the "red pen of death" for correcting my work. I knew that it wasn't personal and only business. I basically just learned from my mistakes, and eventually got better and better. Then again, my boss wasn't an ass when I got a few things wrong.

I try and do the same with the staff under me now.


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## grover (Mar 19, 2007)

One thing that always bothered me was when others would review my drawings and decry them as crap/garbage for a very small # of what I felt were insignificant errors on huge drawing packages I'd spent weeks or months on- using an obsolete part #, for example. One of our planners would ALWAYS do this to me right after the drawing was signed and issued, it was aggrevating, especially when he'd try to get me to issue an official revision for something like that. Rarely a comment on anything technical, always just minor bill of material stuff, and the occassional snipe. I guess it boils down to what *I* thought was important and what *HE* thought was important were two different things!

We had a few arguments :brickwall: I eventually just let him review all my drawings prior to issue and learned to shrug off his comments, it was easier that way.


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