WORKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES

[Freon]

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

 

[Casey]

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.

 

[Sschell]

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.

 

[ODB_PE]

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?

 

[Sschell]

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

 

[squishles10]

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.

 

[Dleg]

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 ******* 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."

 

[chaosiscash]

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.

 

[wilheldp_PE]

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 ****.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

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.

 

[Guest]

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

 

[Katiebug]

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.

 

[EM_PS]

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 & 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 & 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.

 

[Sschell]

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.

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&D, so we could have another guy for a year, other guy got canned, so now the first dude does both Engineering and R&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!

 

[Freon]

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

:thumbs:

 

[Sschell]

^ with a name like freon that is just frightening!

 

[snickerd3]

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.

 

[IlPadrino]

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?

 

[MA_PE]

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

 

[Sschell]

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...