Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times? 613
jammag writes "As the wave of pink slips is starting to resemble Robespierre and his guillotine, the maneuvering among tech professionals to hang on to their job is getting ugly. IT Management describes the inter-office competition between the manager of a server farm and the supervisor of networks and security. One was nice, giving his team members credit, taking responsibility when something went wrong. The other was a backstabber who spent plenty of time sucking up to the management. As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?"
Re:Work is overrated (Score:5, Informative)
And those days will come, and soon. No jobs. Not even flipping burgers, not for the older engineers. Much better to get a stupid malleable kid for that, as it limits the amount of talk-back to the no-stripe franchise manager.
Re:Assertive, Confident, & Ambitious Folks Fin (Score:4, Informative)
I got this insight from my female roommate. Men would complain about how they are nice guys but girls always go for assholes. But these nice guys either never asked girls out, or even worse, wanted to be bad guys but just did not have the guts to do it. She related the story about a self-professed nice guy who got drunk, and started to feel her up even though she made it clear she was not interested.
I'm not clear on the message here. Nice guy turns into jerk and feels up uninterested girl. Since chicks dig jerks, she must have liked it right? If she didn't like it, would the guy have been better off staying nice? If so, that would conflict with your major premise.
Re:Real engineers got crushed in the early 80s (Score:1, Informative)
by decimated do you mean; one in ten?
Re:why is deflationary a bad thing? (Score:2, Informative)
deflation increases the cost to employee workers as well as the value of currently held debt. You'll find yourself out of a job and nobody left to buy that super cheap food from in the worst case scenario deflationary economy.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
uggh... engineers apply science to create mathematically verifiable, trustworthy systems. there are very few software "engineers" who qualify. the only state that has professional licensure for software engineers is Texas, and because the field has historically been so devoid of science the only way you can get the license is through documentation of 20+ years of relevant (safety critical systems) experience. come back and tell me you're an engineer when you have a license. Otherwise we should start calling dental hygenists "doctor". oh, wait, that's illegal. oh, wait, so is calling yourself "engineer" without a license. it is, unfortunately, not often enforced.
and, no, i am not a licensed engineer, but my degree is in engineering.
Re:why is deflationary a bad thing? (Score:4, Informative)
Deflation is not a "silver lining" - it results in a positive feedback loop that craters the economy. Some deflation is okay, but when deflation accelerates, people stop buying--so the prices continue to free-fall.
Runaway inflation is bad. Runaway deflation is almost as bad.
Re:why is deflationary a bad thing? (Score:2, Informative)
he didn't say "worst case." the missing bit is that it is far more difficult to enter extreme deflation than extreme inflation. How many cases of extreme deflation have there been in history? not many. so you present me with phantom fears versus the palpable threat posed by hyperinflation.
Re:You might want to think about something here (Score:4, Informative)
His "backstabbing" was pretty insightful, IMO, and for Kelly, keeping him around was probably the right choice given the economic climate.
No it is not, and that is why this story feels so fictional. Managers are not cartoon characters. For one, it's common knowledge that when someone does that, it is to hide their lower ability. It is identical to the guy walking in and saying "I'm scared shitless to lose my job, because the other guy has the better papers." A cartoon manager would hail his ability to back stab. I would pick the people manager to stay. This is an important asset in tough times when you just had to fire 50%. Nothing touchy-feely about it, just business, motivation pays out.
Re:Only the Meanest Engineers Survive Out There! (Score:2, Informative)
While these tips will work very well for a barely working water pump or non functional thermostat, it wont help if there isnt any coolant - almost no car on the road today can be air cooled.
Interesting failure mode some water pumps have, when the vanes of the pump become worn down and volume moved decreases.
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Informative)
Best response to someone who didn't get the first joke ever. You, sir, win two full internets (excluding porn).
Re:Jobs Aren't About Education, Skill, or Experien (Score:5, Informative)
Networking is an important skill. This is because you are essentially dealing with people no matter what your job is. The addage that "It's not what you know but who you know." is true. There is no escaping it. You can be the bee's knees on a subject, but if you don't make the right connections, then you won't be able to pick up the next job when the time comes up.
Being good at your job is important now. Being able to network is important when moving on.
For example. I worked my way up from answering phones to being in charge of a 2000 seat campus by a combination of learning new skills from a range of experienced techs. Then (due in part to the smooth running of the site, and due to having made friends with the regional manager) I was asked to monitor the health of the regions equipment. Now I was in charge of 500 switches, 50 routers and 80 servers. Monitoring their general wellbeing. I was able to get the jump on around 50% of errors by watching anomalies before they became a problem. Something that takes reasonable technical skill. (Yes, any charlie can read a log, but reading 80 of them daily and filtering for weird stuff takes some perl.)
Then sweeping changes occurred to that technical team and most of the operation was to be outsourced, my job included. I could have stayed on as a contractor working on the same system, but due to my networking skills, was able to use this to land a promotion. I am now working on a network 10 times the original size doing really cool stuff.
The moral of the story is tech out the wazoo will only get you so far. Networking is a skill that will get you further.
Re:Jobs Aren't About Education, Skill, or Experien (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a couple ways to get started.
- Pay some attention to the people around you, and watch how they conduct themselves. Plenty of people are good at personal skills. The world is full of examples to learn from.
- Pick up a hobby that's generally involves some social interaction, and that you have no previous talent in. Go join a bowling league or something. The fact that you're new to it will make it more likely that you'll need to seek help from other people, hopefully forcing you to be more social. And many people actually enjoy the act of teaching and helping a fellow human being improve themselves, interacting with them won't be as hard as you think.
- Help with lots of little things around the office. Although it's sometimes annoying, it's actually a good thing to be one of the guys that people go to when they have a computer problem, or they need a ride to a meeting, or help carrying some boxes to their desk.
Note that none of these tips are particularly geared towards helping you pick up women. That "game" is a whole different thing, and one that I know even less about.
Re:Un huh. (Score:5, Informative)
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of working on a radiator (or the built-in valve) I'll give some backing to the "horseshit" claim made by gatkinso.
Modern radiators (anything say in the last 20 years) have a drain valve that is removable. There are two generally accepted methods of removal.
1. any respected radiator shop will replace this valve by first desoldering the old valve and soldering in a new one.
2. any inexperienced, but enthusiastic first-timer will attempt to use the 'righty-tighty/lefty-loosey' paradigm and break it off. This method requires a trip to the previously mentioned 'respected radiator shop'
Otherwise, it would need to be installed inline of either radiator hose. That leads to other problems when the target is a newer vehicle with form-fitting hoses. A hose section would need to be cut for the 'valve' to be installed in-line. The major problem with this is that the radiator will drain to the level of the cut requiring the cooling system to be re-filled and air removed from the system. These tasks cannot be performed on a crawler as the vehicle has to be running to remove the air and the hood has to be opened to fill the radiator.
Flamebait for calling BS, or in this case HS? I think you got a raw deal dude. I agree with your post but lack moderator points to do-the-right-thing (TM) and mod you up.
Re:No, Seriously! (Score:5, Informative)
Dildos do not use batteries. They are self powered.
You are thinking of Vibrators. They use batteries.
Re:What? (Score:5, Informative)
Engineering is the confluence of applied science, business, and art.
It is by no means so narrow as 'apply science to create mathematically verifiable, trustworthy systems'.
You can't 'mathematically verify' the simplest physical real world dynamic system. The math is unsolvable and non-linear, every time. You mathematically verify a simplified model of the real world system, document you assumptions, then apply a safety factor, then check performance against assumptions, then test (extensively if you are doing something new), then check performance against assumptions again.
When the simplified model misses something important you get failures. Failure analysis is another branch of engineering that falls nowhere near 'apply science to create mathematically verifiable, trustworthy systems'
Even safety critical systems like fly by wire software can't be 'mathematically verified' they are typically redundant with no common code between systems and tested to death. Which is fair as that's (more or less) the same standard the mechanical and aeronautical engineers build to.