Am I expecting too much of engineers?

[lozina]

Relevant video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rp8hvyjZWHs

 

[irishScott]

Well its the 'electrical' part of his engineering variety that would leave me to believe he could figure out how to power a laptop with all the parts in front of him. I should certainly hope anyone with 'electrical' anywhere in their job title could figure out a green cable running to the monitor wasn't going to power the dock and that, perhaps, the unplugged thing that has a blue light on it should be investigated

You'd think. The EEs I knew in college certainly wouldn't have such a problem. But unfortunately there is that segment of engineers that treat it like high school. They passed the classes, did the homework, but never developed the mentality for some reason.

They're the EE/CEs that don't build computers or otherwise tinker in their spare time, and they're usually doing it for the money.

 

[gsellis]

A couple of jobs ago, I worked with a programmer who constantly bragged about what an "elite" programmer he was and how he was the only "true" IT person in the department since he had a degree in Computer Technology (lol!). ...

Must be the son of a guy we had. Packet captures finally revealed that he was doing file retrievals in 512 byte blocks. Used the wrong iostream settings and libraries.

 

[gsellis]

OP - wait until he gets into fiber. We had to modify the "spark gap" term (which your "Engineer" had). Spark gap is a missing connection or voltage too low to jump from the connector to where it is plugged in. At 20000 volts per inch, it does not take much of a gap. The working title for the fiber misconnection (as there are no electrons involved) is "photonic misdirection into the ether" until we find something better.

 

[Brovane]

I tried it. Management and IT yelled at me for making modifications to the workstation.

So you hooked up your 2nd monitor with the correct adapter and got it working and they yelled at you for making modifications to the workstation?

 

[Kev]

That was my point. These guys would come into the store and start puffing out their chests and telling us they didn't need our help because they were a ______. And more often than not, they messed something up bad enough that they had to buy the replacement part.

We even had guys with A+ certs say such and do the same thing.

Thing is, if a guy comes in puffing his chest, it seemed more than likely that he would screw something up. And we were offering a $10 mounting fee just to avoid hassle. Heck, if they spent $300, we'd do it for free sometimes just to ensure they didn't have that problem. Oh the gems that would come in though... some were just irritating.

I've found that as a general rule, confidence is inversely proportional to competence.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

So you hooked up your 2nd monitor with the correct adapter and got it working and they yelled at you for making modifications to the workstation?

Yep. Nothing can be connected to the workstation without IT approval. No custom keyboard, no mouse, nothing.

 

[SP33Demon]

Book smart, not street smart. There's a difference. Also, there are about 100 different types of "engineers" so it should be expected that one of them will fuck up.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I am reading a manual with a page and a half - including pictures - dedicated to how to wrap a sticker around an ethernet cord.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Slap him to wake him up. Welcome him to earth.