# WORKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES



## Freon (Jun 2, 2008)

Here is a topic for polite conversation:

I work in the offshore petroleum/shipbuilding industry. My background is Chemical and Electrical Engineering. I have noticed that electrical engineers are often despised people around the rigs and shipyards. I will tell you that much of the animosity is well deserved; some of the electrical folks I work with do not document drawing changes very well and seem to want to constantly adjust and tweak the design; much to the frustration of the structural, mechanical and project management staffs. (I keep very tight control over my stamp, even though most of my work does not require it.)

Has anyone else seen a similar situation?

Freon


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## Casey (Jun 2, 2008)

I'm in the civil/structural department and work in the oil and gas industry here. Everyone hates the pipers (piping and process)...

The pipers are a bunch of clowns that enjoy changing things, removing things, and adding things. Of course, they never tell you when they make a change, you have to find that out on your own, by which time your calculations and drawings are near completion. And they like to deny everything, even when I have the screenshot to provie them otherwise...

"That has always been there!"

And it is just not my company...

As for electrical engineers, they don't bother us. They are usually willing to accommodate us, besides, how hard is it to re-arrange your cable trays anyways?

Thankfully, I don't work in an industry where one has to deal with architects. I have heard some pretty crazy stories about those asshats.


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## Sschell (Jun 2, 2008)

I do not hold in contempt any engineer, no matter what their dicipline.

That is of course as long as they recognize the VAST superiority of the Mechanical Engineering dicipline to all others.

Unfortionately, I have been playing electrical and software engineer lately, and I do not seem to have the problems you described... but since I am doing the work, I guess it is different. Your situation suonds organizational. Is there no document control department to to make sure that there is one and only one current version of the document? This kind of red tape, while being a pain in the ass, help limit the number of unnecessary plan changes (in addition to the obvious benefits).

but really, mech E's are the best.


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## ODB_PE (Jun 2, 2008)

I guess you don't have to spell to be a mechanical guy...

Many, if not most, structurals are snobs against the "civil" designation. I caught a bit of abuse when I suggested that I was considering taking the civil/structural instead of structural 1

BUT, can't we all agree that architects are the real problem?


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## Sschell (Jun 2, 2008)

nope. no spelling requirement. that what plan checkers are for.


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## squishles10 (Jun 2, 2008)

Casey said:


> Thankfully, I don't work in an industry where one has to deal with architects. I have heard some pretty crazy stories about those asshats.


That's being incredibly polite. Just an fyi if there are any architects reading this: if you move a building 2 feet to the left, it does not take me 5 minutes to fix this. It takes at least a week. Every connection is wrong and all the slopes need recalc'ed. Also, I don't give a flying crap if my water quality device doesn't look good in your garden, you can't move it off the storm drain, and stop moving again every time you get my drawings- I notice these things.

And that was one project, one month, and the exec vp of the firm. Dumb shits.


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## Dleg (Jun 2, 2008)

I remember in school (as an ME), lots of people looking down on the Civils... And everybody looked down on the construction engineers and surveyors.

I have always worked in kind of odd fields and in odd places in the real world, so I don't really have any engineering prejudices that I have noticed, except, once again, a prejudice towards people working for construction contractors who have the title of engineer.

When I worked in the oil field, on the drilling side of things, the engineers in my company (a big wireline logging services company) had a horrible reputation for being arrogant bastards. It got so bad, that the company required mandatory anti-arrogant bastard training classes for everyone (started before I got there). We even had a professionally produced video starring Michael Palin of Monty Python fame, acting the role of the arrogant [company name] engineer, but in different, more ordinary settings, like as a doctor making a house call, and a TV repairman, each barging into someone's home and making a total ass of themselves. Apparently that's how the rig crews and company men viewed us at the time. I'm not sure if the training changed anything. I seemed to get along well with all the comany men I ever "serviced."


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## chaosiscash (Jun 3, 2008)

As an electrical I've never really had a whole lot of problems with other disciplines, mainly b/c we don't deal with them that much. I think thats because most other disciplines have no idea what we do. Which is good, because often you can use the old "baffle with BS" technique to get somebody to stop annoying you about something. About the only problem I've ever had is with the HVAC guy. Of course it matters if you change from a 50 hp fan motor to a 75 hp.

Architects, however, are a different story. But its too early in the morning for me to start in on them.


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## wilheldp_PE (Jun 3, 2008)

Whenever I had to work with the Mechanical guys on some sort of bracket or mounting system for electrical devices to our equipment, I usually got some smart ass answer about "if it has wires connected to it, it's not my problem". They didn't think it was too funny when I started checking things they asked me about for wires, and absolving myself of responsibility if there were none present...so they stopped that shit.


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## Capt Worley PE (Jun 3, 2008)

ODB_PE said:


> BUT, can't we all agree that architects are the real problem?


They area crazy bunch, aren't they? I think it is because they are more geared towards art and we're geared towards science. Squishles brought up a good point, they really don't understand how what they consider a minor change affects the whole system.

I've never had a problem with other disciplines, but I have heard Fire Protection Engineers make snarky comments about mechies and civils 'poaching' their jobs.


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## Guest (Jun 3, 2008)

When I worked with FEMA in disaster recovery, one of the contractors was an old-school architect that used to work for NYC. He was DEFINITELY out there ....

JR


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## Katiebug (Jun 3, 2008)

I remember back in school, the ME and EE students all considered Civil to be the easiest of the engineering majors. To be fair, we considered the ChemE people to be absolutely nuts and considered that major the hardest.

At work, I do my thing almost exclusively with mechanical engineers, although I occasionally work with EEs. I have respect for EEs; my one required electrical engineering course was misery. I find that most of our electrical engineers have no clue about how things really work in the field, since they rarely if ever do field visits. You have to do some babysitting (for safety reasons) when you go out to a job site with one of them. That's pretty industry-specific, though - maybe even company-specific. They design good products, though.

I've worked with a few fire protection engineers who impressed me. Both were MEs who went to grad school for FPE, and both knew their stuff.

A guy with a PhD in acoustics (ME undergrad) is the current thorn in my side. I'm sure he's brilliant at what he does, but he makes it obvious that anyone without a doctorate is a lesser life form. This is the same guy who was so scared he was visibly shaking the first time we brought him on top of an elevator car and panicked at the thought of me running the car up and down. There's an age thing involved; he's over 60 and a) isn't used to female engineers, and B) feels that anyone younger than he is should automatically defer to his age and experience. I, being a lowly engineer in my 20s with *gasp* only a bachelor's degree, _clearly_ cannot understand anything related to acoustics where he's concerned - I can't tell you how many times he's explained sound pressure level and A-weighting while I roll my eyes at him. I've taken graduate courses in acoustics; it's not like I don't know what he's talking about. He knows this, too. The only time I bother speaking to him is when he's going to do something unsafe.


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## EM_PS (Jun 3, 2008)

Dleg said:


> I remember in school (as an ME), lots of people looking down on the Civils... And everybody looked down on the construction engineers and surveyors.


Indeed, just as the construction &amp; survey engineers do so right back - no one in surveying circles is looked at w/ more disdain than civils (sad but true). pursuing dual licensure, i hope i can stand myself.

Sschell, i know you were being tongue in cheek, but ME's are more likely than any of the other fields to never become PE's and/or to need/use a stamp for their work - just sayin . . .

Why is it that the more educated one gets, the more snobbish &amp; elitist they become, esp in the STEM fields? I don't ever hear stories of sociologists trash talking about how their empathy skills are wicked better than say psychologists.


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## Sschell (Jun 3, 2008)

wilheldp said:


> Whenever I had to work with the Mechanical guys on some sort of bracket or mounting system for electrical devices to our equipment, I usually got some smart ass answer about "if it has wires connected to it, it's not my problem".


This reminds me of the "not my job" thread. It was an electrical engineer that inspired the rant which started that thread. He was asked to put mechanical pressure gauges in a panel design, and flat out refused (to the point that he and the other dude were literally screaming at each other; its nice to have a cubicle near the bosses office). That guy no longer works here, but neither does the guy who asked him to put the gauges in the panel OR the VP of Eng at the time who was unable to show leadership and take control of the situation. The down side is... I have been recruited to do alot (most?) of the EE work until we get a new one (lay offs were in Jan, so t has been a while). At the same time, we decided that we don't like the company that writes our PLC software, so I get to do that too. Gotta love working for a small company. At least I get to learn new stuff.



Katiebug said:


> To be fair, we considered the ChemE people to be absolutely nuts and considered that major the hardest.


My boss, the new VP of engineering (well he was in that position before, then got moved to R&amp;D, so we could have another guy for a year, other guy got canned, so now the first dude does both Engineering and R&amp;D)... he is a ChemE, and I can say with absolute confidence that ChemE's are NUTS!!! actually, is there a stronger word than nuts? I love the guy, and he's great to work for, and a hell of a lot of fun to go out for drinks with (especially @ lunch on a work day), but NUTS!


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## Freon (Jun 3, 2008)

My BS is in ChemE; and no one lets me mix drinks at parties since "The Incident" back in '87....

:thumbs:


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## Sschell (Jun 3, 2008)

^ with a name like freon that is just frightening!


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## snickerd3 (Jun 3, 2008)

Katiebug said:


> To be fair, we considered the ChemE people to be absolutely nuts and considered that major the hardest.


I can be a little goofy, but I don't think I qualify as absolutely nuts. Why do people say ChemE major is the hardest? I encounter that ALL the time. When people ask I usually say engineering and all is well. If I even mention the word Chemical, the response is usually oh my gosh you must be a genius and they tend to end the conversation quickly.

To say one is harder than another is silly. I think all engineering disciplines are hard in their own right, you just pick the subject matter that you find enjoyable/easy.


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## IlPadrino (Jun 3, 2008)

snickerd3 said:


> To say one is harder than another is silly. I think all engineering disciplines are hard in their own right, you just pick the subject matter that you find enjoyable/easy.


Oh... that's a good segue into industrial engineers aren't real engineers because it's just too easy. 

Surely some topics are "harder" than others if only we can agree on the standard of comparison. For example, I'd say anything that requires differential equations is harder than trigonometry. But I have no idea how to quantify this for engineering disciplines other than to say "if I don't understand it, it must be hard"... I mean, how do them electrons *move*? Do they have little feet than only gain traction on metals?


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## MA_PE (Jun 3, 2008)

Face facts. Not everybody can do stormwater design, so in engineering circles some level of "snobbery" is certainly an earned right.


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## Sschell (Jun 3, 2008)

My first job out of college was doing stormwater design, I'd do the work, and the PE signed it; wasn't that tough (but then again, I am a Mech E, so why would it be).

Maybe stormwater design is easier in San Diego than the rest of the country...


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## Freon (Jun 3, 2008)

I my case:

Organic Chemistry - Nothin' to it

Chemical seperations - Easy

Plastics &amp; polymers - Child's Play

Circuit design - simple

Poly-phase AC power - give me something hard!

Electromagnetics - in my sleep

But finite element analysis - I want my mommy!

Freon


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## EM_PS (Jun 3, 2008)

^^ for me it was Analytical Photogrammetry &amp; the 2nd semester of Geodesy (simply, Geodesy 2) that had me sucking my thumb (still have nightmares) :wacko:


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## benbo (Jun 3, 2008)

I think it is dangerous to try to compare. I can't really talk about any other eng. disciplines since the only engineering I took other than EE was "Civil Engineering for EE Students." I had trouble with EE as it was. OTOH, I first went to school as a Physics major - let me just say WTF??!!

I thought upper division Mechanics, E&amp;M, and Quantum Mechanics were unlearnable. Plus I guess I didn't understand it well enough to see any practical application for it. I got within one semester of my degree when I quit to go to work full time. When I finally went back I decided EE was more applicable to my job, and the only program that had night classes.

We were required to take either a class in CE or Thermodynamics for EE. My memories of physics were the reason I didn't want anywhere near that thermo class.


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## Sschell (Jun 3, 2008)

people always complain about theremo and heat transfer... those were no problem for me.

Usually I find the easier classes harder and vice versa, for example: Statics, Dynamics and Vibration three classes in the same series (mechanics?) Statics, not a very difficult class, I got a B-. Dynamics, I failed, then got a B- on the second time around. Vibration, the hardest class in the series, A+ no problem. the nerds that gave me alot of crap for failing dynamics when they got a A were blown away when I aced vibration and they got C's.


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## MA_PE (Jun 3, 2008)

sschell_PE said:


> My first job out of college was doing stormwater design, I'd do the work, and the PE signed it; wasn't that tough (but then again, I am a Mech E, so why would it be).
> 
> Maybe stormwater design is easier in San Diego than the rest of the country...


Well it must certainly be easier than in Florida


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## benbo (Jun 3, 2008)

MA_PE said:


> Well it must certainly be easier than in Florida


ROFLMAO You are on a roll MA


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## TouchDown (Jun 5, 2008)

> To say one is harder than another is silly. I think all engineering disciplines are hard in their own right, you just pick the subject matter that you find enjoyable/easy.


One thing I noticed in college (granted it's been a few years), but women engineers / students seemed to enroll in higher numbers into electrical and chemical engineering disciplines. There were female engineers in all disciplines, but the frequency of a female engineer was much higher in those disciplines.

I have also heard that the average male, yadda yadda, spacial representations, yadda yadda...

Do you think that with chemical and electrical requiring more abstract / less visual thought processes to drive the male:female ratio in those disciplines.

PS - I think all engineering disciplines deserve respect, I just happened to think Mechanical was easy because it was easy to "see" what might be going on in a problem.


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## benbo (Jun 5, 2008)

TouchDown said:


> One thing I noticed in college (granted it's been a few years), but women engineers / students seemed to enroll in higher numbers into electrical and chemical engineering disciplines. There were female engineers in all disciplines, but the frequency of a female engineer was much higher in those disciplines.
> I have also heard that the average male, yadda yadda, spacial representations, yadda yadda...
> 
> Do you think that with chemical and electrical requiring more abstract / less visual thought processes to drive the male:female ratio in those disciplines.
> ...


I was in EE and there was one woman in my program. I could have missed something, but I don't think there is a single EE female posting here (or at least not very often). I think the computers side had a couple. Maybe I went to the wrong school.


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## snickerd3 (Jun 5, 2008)

TouchDown said:


> One thing I noticed in college (granted it's been a few years), but women engineers / students seemed to enroll in higher numbers into electrical and chemical engineering disciplines. There were female engineers in all disciplines, but the frequency of a female engineer was much higher in those disciplines.
> I have also heard that the average male, yadda yadda, spacial representations, yadda yadda...
> 
> Do you think that with chemical and electrical requiring more abstract / less visual thought processes to drive the male:female ratio in those disciplines.
> ...


I'd say my class was about 1/3 female. I don't know about the agrument about abstract vs visual...I am a very visual minded person, but like usual I could be the exception.


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## Sschell (Jun 5, 2008)

you cant spell geek with out EE.


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## TXengrChickPE (Jun 5, 2008)

Casey said:


> I'm in the civil/structural department and work in the oil and gas industry here. Everyone hates the pipers (piping and process)...


Me too! My pipers always try to put the biggest pipe (sometimes 36 or 48 inch) right in the MIDDLE of the pipe rack... they refuse to understand how that screws with my beam sizes.

And... WHY can't pipe iso's be drawn to scale?



Casey said:


> As for electrical engineers, they don't bother us. They are usually willing to accommodate us, besides, how hard is it to re-arrange your cable trays anyways?


My problem w/ EE's is that they (at least in my company) usually don't take into account the radius of their cable trays when changing direction... they usually show them as right angles &lt;_&lt;



sschell_PE said:


> Is there no document control department to to make sure that there is one and only one current version of the document?


As a civil/structural, I usually have the earliest deadline... because my stuff has to be installed/built first... but, my design is based on the information that I get from piping/electrical/mechanical. Often, their deadline is after mine (or at the same time), so I end up having to use "preliminary" data to do my "final" design. Then, piping shows up with a bunch of changes at the last minute... and it's my fault that my structure can't handle their changes because I was using preliminary data.


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## ALBin517 (Jun 5, 2008)

MA_PE said:


> Well it must certainly be easier than in Florida


The guy in Florida who taught me storm calcs started by saying, "Learning storm water in Florida is like learning French in Paris."

But regarding the original topic of the thread, the snootiest folks I’ve worked with are the surveyors. I’ve worked at many consulting firms and the surveyors all act like they are misunderstood and underappreciated. When everybody else is mixed together at parties, staff meetings and such, the surveyors always congregate, isolate themselves and grumble about the office personnel. Maybe they are jealous that we have not lost any digits to frostbite – I don’t know. Regardless, they don’t know any office personnel and they don’t want to know any office personnel.


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## mudpuppy (Jun 5, 2008)

benbo said:


> I was in EE and there was one woman in my program. I could have missed something, but I don't think there is a single EE female posting here (or at least not very often). I think the computers side had a couple. Maybe I went to the wrong school.


Benbo, you are not alone; I don't recall very many women in my EE program either. Here are the stats compiled from the enrollment figures for my alma mater for the Spring 2008 semester, listed as total students / % female:

Civil: 525 / 18%

Chemical: 314 / 26%

Computer: 211 / 5%

Electrical: 482 / 9%

Mechanical: 1099 / 9%

Enviromental: 152 / 39%


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## mudpuppy (Jun 5, 2008)

sschell_PE said:


> you cant spell geek with out EE.


And there is an EE in the middle of every beer.



TXengrChickPE said:


> My problem w/ EE's is that they (at least in my company) usually don't take into account the radius of their cable trays when changing direction... they usually show them as right angles &lt;_&lt;


This is the second reference I've seen here to EEs doing cable/panel layout work. Is it common for degreed and/or licensed engineers to do this type of work? At my company this is done primarily by designers/technicians.


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## EM_PS (Jun 7, 2008)

ALBin517 said:


> But regarding the original topic of the thread, the snootiest folks I’ve worked with are the surveyors. I’ve worked at many consulting firms and the surveyors all act like they are misunderstood and underappreciated. When everybody else is mixed together at parties, staff meetings and such, the surveyors always congregate, isolate themselves and grumble about the office personnel. Maybe they are jealous that we have not lost any digits to frostbite – I don’t know. Regardless, they don’t know any office personnel and they don’t want to know any office personnel.


I gotta say. . . spot on critique, though snooty may be the wrong adjective (a bit like calling teenagers snooty cuz they hate adults) - there is the field vs. office dynamic, that's present not only between the surveyors &amp; engineers / enviro, but between say inspectors &amp; engineers, or field techs &amp; enviro, etc. Then too, the calling of surveying brings with it a licensed profession that clings to &amp; refuses to let go of its blue-collar / tradesman roots, and many who make up the profession for whatever reasons tend to be introverted - a fair # i would say are even socially dysfunctional. It would be nice to think the old, grumbling relics will eventually phase out of the profession, but because of the vast differences in State licensing requirements across the US, i think there will always be socially off, grumbling throwbacks going thru the ranks.


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## Flyer_PE (Jun 7, 2008)

mudpuppy said:


> This is the second reference I've seen here to EEs doing cable/panel layout work. Is it common for degreed and/or licensed engineers to do this type of work? At my company this is done primarily by designers/technicians.


Same here. We are primarily an electrical design company and we have a couple of very good physical designers to take care of conduit/cable tray routing and panel layouts. Our design guys are either non-degreed or have two-year technical degrees.


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