The decline of the engineering profession

[dutchman]

Did you see the BBC2 programme about the cushion maker?

I did see a bit of it Spuffler but only because I was testing a new Freeview receiver.

What surprised me was that a) there was anyone born in this country that could still tolerate working conditions like those (ie: being treated like a machine) and b) that the bosses thought there was anyone who still would!

It didn't surprise me that very few people here could do the job and those that could soon left.

Unlike the owner I don't think training was the issue. When experienced staff leave there is something very, very wrong with the management.

[Spuffler]

I heartily agree about experienced staff leaving. But management never admit they may be wrong, in my experience. I think there is also something very wrong with our education system - and probably parents' values - when kids leave school not wanting proper jobs, or prepared to work hard in order to get on. They want 'top jobs' and promotion on a plate, they don't think they should have to earn it, these days. Not only that, few graduate engineers now intend to remain as engineers; I well remember asking a job applicant: "What do you see yourself doing in 2 or 3 years' time?" The answer: "I want to be in sales." In other cases: "I expect to be a manager." The latter from a 25 year old - note, "expect". A lot of what is wrong with our industry is both the expectation and the tendency to promote very young "high-fliers" to positions of quite senior rank, without their having the experience and knowledge to do the job. In Germany, managers have to work for a long time for their promotion; 25 year old chief engineers? Not on your life!!

The other point is that, if their aim is something other than being an engineer, they never wanted to be an engineer in the first place. And that is fundamentally wrong, too.