If you work in an office, you are no doubt subject to office cliches. The movie Office Space immediately comes to mind.
As an engineer, are there things that are said that especially irks you?
"Can you make this tiny tweak?"
"What would it look like if we added this?"
"Can we take this offline?"
"Someone has a case of the Monday's."
These are just a few of my guesses. I'm not a design engineer, so I would love to hear your perspective.
What does your schedule look like over the holidays?
-- This is the information that I was given.
-- I'm as in the dark as you are.
Boss saids for a new project with no new resources
"Why did you put that there?"
(Then I pull out my CYA notes that was signed and dated by the person asking the question.)
"Can't you just..."
Those three words spell DOOM for most engineers and designers I know.
As in:
"Can't you just move everything back to the way it was?"
"Can't you just hit a button on that fancy CAD system and fix that part?"
Ugh!
That goes along with the old proverb that "Everything is easy for the man who doesn't have to do it himself."
Those are the moments you cherish, even when it's your boss. Although, that's when he says "Well you knew that's not what I meant" like you could read minds.
My worst was from a sales guy.
We just sold your prototype to a company in Korea, it needs to ship by the end of the week. Teach the tech how to install it, he leaves with it.
It was a complicated six figure piece of semiconductor manufacturing equipment that we had spent a 1/2 year building/tweaking. We had to rip it out of the lab and ship it.
Adam Juntunen wrote:
My worst was from a sales guy.
We just sold your prototype to a company in Korea, it needs to ship by the end of the week. Teach the tech how to install it, he leaves with it.
It was a complicated six figure piece of semiconductor manufacturing equipment that we had spent a 1/2 year building/tweaking. We had to rip it out of the lab and ship it.
It's a testament to the quality of your work Adam and not a bad problem to have. Haha!
I wanted it Yesterday!!!
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A Sales guy telling a Designer:
Ah!! I know you guys can do it. After all it is for Customer Delight!!!
Don't you want to delight the customer???
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A Sales guy: I am your internal customer and you must delight the customer.
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The Manager: What is the use of such expensive CAD when you cannot do it in 50% of the time?
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An old hand cribbing: Oh! The Drawing board was faster. We could just take a photocopy change the dimensions and that is it.
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2D is better than 3D
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I'm not an engineer but I've got this idea I'd like to patent and thought maybe you could help me.
"How much would it be....."
Can I have it by Friday??
Usually said on Thursday
My boss always pulls a "Bill Lumbergh"...he knows what time I leave everyday, but like clock work, as I'm packing my gear for the day..."hey, I know you're about to leave for the day, but could you do me this quick favor?"...that usually means I'll be stuck at work for another hour at least!
My favorite one is : "Draw it first, you'll study it later..."
NOT SURE WHAT ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT, MY NEW DESKTOP HAS THE "EASY BUTTON" AND NOW LIFE IS EASY. LOOK AT YOUR SYSTEM IT IS NEAR THE STRETCH COMMAND.
I saw a few variations already, but around it is "It's Pro/E, right? Isn't it just one button and everything is fixed?"
If you build it, -they- will change it!
What if....
(uh oh here it comes)
"You Know ProE right??"
or Can you fix this up in ProE real quick..
And I am done for the day fixing or teaching..
Boss - I need this done.
Me - For when?
Boss - Yesterday!!!
You just push a buttom and can update all the drawings.
(Our drawings are in a viewer stored a .dwgs - several hour update sometimes)
I had a guy ask me, "Did you design this?" He then proceeded to show me how it didn't fit. Turns out he didn't install the part correctly. After some measurements we made I was able to go and ask him, "Did you install this?"
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"I have a question for ya, yer an engineer." (A few seconds later) "You don't know, I thought you're an engineer." Just because I'm an engineer doesn't mean I know everything about every engineering discipline.
My engineering boss used to have a saying posted by his cubicle.
1. You can have it fast.
2. You can have it cheap.
3. You can have it right.
But, you can only chose two out of the three.
you have to complete the design by today