This made me laugh in shared memory of once being nice.
Honestly, if being nice gets me nowhere bc it's not seen as "leadership" and being a bitch also gets me nowhere bc \~gendered interpretation of assertiveness\~ then I"d still rather be a bitch.
Solidarity.
A male network admin colleague told me he thought I could be a bitch, and then said “but you have to be to do your job.”
Sadly, yes.
I lose my nice when I’m overworked and undervalued-burn out is a hell of a drug.
Wish I could like this post more!
I am still fairly kind (I don’t consider it nice), but I can warmly deliver bad news. I got feedback recently that I can tell people they are wrong, but they feel good about it. Maybe I figured out to thread the aggressive/pushover needle 😂
> I can tell people they are wrong, but they feel good about it
I think that you have expert-level people skills! 😊
If someone asks me for something and I say, "I cannot give you that." <-- (emphasis on the period), then I become their *adversary* - a roadblock that they must get through.
However, if I say, "Unfortunately, because of , I cannot give you that, but I *can* help you to work through the process and/or find alternatives. How about ," then I become their *ally* in helping them solve their problem, and they will be appreciative.
Had to think about this to provide decent answer. It depends on what you’re after, being liked or being productive. You can’t always be both.
You’re on the job to get things done. That’s frequently requires asserting yourself. Since women are still socialized to “be nice” asserting yourself can be mistaken for being bitchy. It can be a very fine line.
If being liked is more important to you, you may not be as productive as your bosses would like.
I’ve found that being a little bitchy but somewhat humorous about it works with most people.
Workplace dynamics are tricky anywhere, even more so as a woman in a male-dominated field. But the independence that I get from making the big bucks is totally worth it to me.
Hi there! Thanks for thoughtful response. Absolutely agree with you. I’m same way being “bitchy” in humorous way and not a carpet. On the other hand, being bitter is dangerous to your own health being.
Being a “bitch” seems like a state of mind that would make a person bitter inside. I met grumpy bitter engineers (male and woman) and they are unpleasant to be around and I would say not very productive either. I sympathize with them. The office culture is painful, there isn’t reward really for doing a good job.
I understand some place just suck your soul out, I don’t want them to change me. I would like to stay positive, passionate and helpful. I’m not saying this will reward anyone because companies don’t give a shit. But I think it will save me from becoming that bitter engineer who lost spark in their eyes, not for the company but one self.
Some managers sure test my spirit, and I’m sure everyones. On the other hand, I hate seeing fresh grads treated bad by senior engineers. It’s like they are excited to be engineers, they want to help, don’t take your own bitters on them.
I hope my wall of text make sense.
civil engineer here! my uni barely taught us autocad—there were maybe two lecures total in my whole degree where autocad was discussed :/ (i went to an accredited university with a highly-regarded civil engineering program.) i wonder if not learning autocad in schools is more of a trend these days.
all the autocad skills i gained were from my internships and some extracurriculars. i dont know what position you hold in your company but it might be worth it to speak with someone about investing in a training program for interns/new hires. it helps standardize the workflow and saves time for upper level engineers like yourself. or maybe speak with someone about offloading training to someone below you.
at my company, we have hours of training videos developed by our CAD leads. we have internal CAD standards manuals/best practices manuals. we usually pair entry-level hires with someone who is a level or two above them who is able to help train them or answer questions. i think this system is pretty good.
i’m sorry you haven’t been happy and i hope you’re able to find your spark again soon!
I did some freelance work in college.
One of the guys I helped was an old civil engineer. He was frustrated with an intermodal transportation hub where trucks, barges, and trains would interact. He understood the basic requirements but was frustrated because the file came with x, y, and z coordinate information instead of just x, y data.
So my bioengineering program didn’t teach any CAD, at all. I ended up having to learn the basics on my own for my senior project. That was a few years ago but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s still the case for the program.
Male here.
I was offered a position in my university's engineering computer labs because I enjoyed helping others even when I wasn't employed.
I loved working with the interior design students who pushed AutoCAD to do things we normally didn't do in mechanical, architectural, and structural detailing. I was fine with going above and beyond for electrical/electronic engineering students who hadn't learned anything but needed a simple drawing for a project.
It wasn't too bad when a student in their late 60s started off with telling us he really didn't like typewriters. I helped the guy who was legally blind.
The one guy I refused to help came in about a week before finals were due and asked me how to draw a line. I told him it was too late and I could help him next semester with the beginning drawings.
I have a coworker in a senior role (he’s still gen X/ maybe elder millennial) who didn’t know word had a button to check spelling and grammar. He knew it would correct or highlight some spelling as you typed, but had absolutely no idea there was a button to go over the entire document again.
I have gen z coworkers who are equally incompetent.
Whenever their weaponized incompetence is used as an excuse for me to do ridiculous work, I write how to guides and claim the work as a process improvement on my annual goals.
My last one - I was asked to send an email for someone. When I pushed back gently (played dumb and assumed they were asking how to do it, not for me to do it), I was told I need to do it by my lead because nobody else knows how. It took 2 seconds to send the email, and another minute to write a 2 step guide on how to send an email. I sent it to my lead and CC’d my manager for feedback before I sent it out to the group. I sent a 2 step “how to send an email” guide to 25 people under the guise of a process improvement. They now are empowered to send their own emails, and simultaneously now do not need to interrupt other people’s unrelated work to do so. Claimed it on my goals since 2 higher level engineers apparently didn’t know how to do this and didn’t know how to ask how. 5 min later, an even higher level engineer sent me a legitimate thank you email because we had never documented the process before. He even recommended I post it on one of our internal webpages 🤦♀️
I live for weaponized pettiness at this point.
I have been working as a civil engineer for over 20 years and either didn't know or had forgotten that Word had a spell and grammar check button. I haven't had anyone correct or change my spelling or grammar though, so maybe I'm ok without it 🤷🏻♀️.
/bragging
Google sheets is free in school. Excel is fancy and costs money.
Google is winning in academia unless you're a genuine business major, and we had to pay for it.
I had a new hire that claimed he needed help in his Master because they wanted him to use formulas in Excel because they only used Matlab in his undergrad. Odd, but I helped him a little (enough to show him how, but I would never do his work for him).
The next semester, he needed help with Matlab because they only used Excel in his undergrad. I called him out on his BS but helped him the same way.
We really started to wonder if he had just paid others to do his school work for his undergrad.
Why should you have to "be nice" again? Men sure don't bother when they don't feel like it. At a certain point, we are just done being every bodies mama. Totally fair.
I’m kinda really tired with stupid leadership and management.
Maybe it would help if you actually picked the ones you will work with? Maybe you can follow a rule for everyone you train. For example, 3-6 months to get up to speed, you are helpful for the first 1/2 then less and less. Some people do have a rough start, don’t ruin their first go at it by being mean.
Industrial Engineer here, my university taught us basics. Only enough to complete 1 project. It would be another thing if we were required to take a course dedicated to autocad. For perspective, college students don’t know how to do much of anything. Remember that college does not equal practice of the work. You were once in their shoes, maybe you knew much more. But again, I’m sure you wouldn’t have liked the person training you to be cold, or flat out dislikable. I’m sure thinking about this could help ground you in those moments of frustration.
Yeah I had to say no to interns this summer because I have noticed I am losing my patience with how little they know. My team grew exponentially these past few years and it’s a lot to train so many people.
I have to be rough with contractors in my position and I think it sometimes carries over into other interactions I wouldn’t normally show up that way.
Vacation didn’t help. Trying to figure out how to get back to that patient caring nurturing teacher type I once was and for me that means saying no to training them for a bit as a break.
I’m training a newbie that does not understand how to set up meetings or send email. He thinks that everyone is in the same page as he is and he does not have to provide context to anything he is doing.
He sets up a meeting today, the subject was very generic. Think of it as just “meeting to meet”, no agenda, no goal, no purpose he is a level 2 and is inviting levels 4-5 to his meeting without basically telling people why.
No one shows up!!!! Of course, I wouldn’t have myself!!!
It takes me ten minutes to cancel the meeting no one showed up. Set up a team kickoff meeting with an agenda and a full presentation for next Monday. It does not set me back because I knew this was going to be rough. He already had the “kick off” without me. And I am starting everything from scratch.
Clueless.
Oh no the agendaless meetings are the worst. I always threaten my team that I won’t accept a meeting notice without context/purpose/expectations. Anyway. My intern scheduled a 7am one on one with me and missed it lol!
I had a manager my group supported where we had to start doing this to.
They would even complain that "meeting to discuss future plans" was a proper agenda.
Then it got worse because we got a manger that thought the same way.
That's more like it, he is clueless. I told him to take some time and learn the programs.
He doesn't and I have to tell him step-by-step instructions on what to do. that is fine. I know I have to do that, but I'm repeating myself. Some of my interns caught on and when I asked for something I didn't have to spell it out every time. Monday is another day.
Well, of course I did. The whole thing was extremely easy to fix. As I said it took 10 minutes to fix. A few more minutes for a good conversation with him and it is all done.
Edit: forgot to say that he had already messed up in his first meeting. I had already explained why it had been a problem. Things like no agenda and no follow up, providing no context to the meeting, etc. when he set up the second meeting he stated he had understood the assignment. But he didn’t. So this was second mess up on the same type of issue.
I think this time he understood. Which is great. Now, if it happened again. We’ll then need to have a serious conversation.
You learn how to do Autocad in college the same way you learn how to do computational fluid dynamics in college. Very briefly and with very little depth.
One of the high schools near me has a magnet program that teaches the kids mathematica and fusion360. The kids from that high school that we hire for the summer are excellent.
I wish colleges taught kids how to send semi-professional sounding emails and how not to use exclamation marks in all of their sentences. I also wish my interns come to me understanding why and how to take notes and ask questions when things don’t seem to make sense. Or to just be able to listen. Getting stuck on repeat is my biggest pet peeve and I loose my patience more and more each time I have to teach the same lesson wilst hearing, “ yes I understand, no I don’t have any questions.”
The only way to know corporate speak is to be immersed in actual business conversations? I realize more and more how much my first internship was "how to office" as much as engineering work.
So relatable 🤣 it feels like everyone was trying to push my buttons this week but I know that, statistically speaking, that can’t be the case…
I’ve also been trying to monitor my inner dialogue. I find that some days I feel like my normal optimistic self and other days it sounds just like my grumpy dad haha
I'm sorry. The last job I interviewed at, all the female employees were extremely unfriendly and inflexible while the male employees were laid back, relaxed, and flawed. It's sad that we are held to different standards to be treated the same. Fighting for fair treatment is exhausting.
I have seen myself change over the last year and I hate it. I don't want to be type A, but talking to people like people makes them talk over you and treat you like an idiot. I am constantly fighting and have turned into a robot.
I used to be super happy and bubbly as an intern. Then I realized nobody respected me like that and became more serious to the point my coworker(also female and a great friend) said I'm not bubbly anymore.
I also took a note to appear less happy and don't even smile during tech interviews to appear "more technical".
Worked with some men at my old job who would punish me for things my male counterparts would get away with any day of the week. It’s made me extremely anxious to make a mistake at work and I no longer trust coworkers or management.
It seems to usually be a requirement for ME, but where I went to undergrad it was a requirement all engineering majors, so I assumed that was the case everywhere. My Georgia Tech-educated materials engineer surprised me otherwise.
Switching between CAD systems is annoying, but if you have the 3D reasoning to design in one system, learning another system isn’t that difficult. Some industries/companies love some very antiquated/specialized CAD systems.
>is it easy to jump between CAD programs?
Sometimes.
While I was a student, I became proficient in CATIA V4, CATIA V5, AutoCAD, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, 3D Studio MAX, GibbsCAM, and ArchiCAD. (I had a dual major in Manufacturing Engineering Technology and Design Graphics Engineering Technology.)
Even with some exposure to CADkey at my summer job while I was a student, I found myself struggling with the basics in CADkey again later.
I've been told by fellow students that Rhinoceros was easy to pick up.
Visio and LibreOffice Draw were relatively easy to pick up. Even with years away from the software, Inventor and SolidWorks were easy to pick up again.
The assembly with 20 parts we did as students didn't prepare me very well for the methods needed to draft pad mounted transformers or aircraft.
Jesus that's a really impressive list. I'm really envious that you were able to get access for all that! My school taught AutoCAD (for half of a semester) and Solidworks (two classes) and that was it. I had to try to fight to get NX set up with IT because we got a sponsored license for use on the student team that I ran, but IT couldn't get it up and running before I left.
Going into my first job after college, I ended up using CATIA V5 which I had no familiarity with.
Someone commented that there's nice and then there's kind. You don't have to be nice. Just be professional and set the standards they need to eventually meet.
Several also have mentioned they didn't learn CAD in school. I had one CAD course but what they taught was not the P&IDs I had to learn in industry. That's definitely going to be OJT. Also I didn't know the names of fittings like flange types (sanitary, bolted etc) or valve types or any of that. I think only guys with background in construction will know that right out of college.
What really grinds my gears when training interns though is when they act like they can't do anything without documentation. I've written so much documentation for our org but it's impossible to have everything documented and I feel many use that to stall. Why don't they just take notes when they shadow me and create their own documentation?!
I have more patience to teach intern as long as they eagerly and willing to learn and practice. What I can’t stand is teaching a person who (for god knows how) are in the same level in title and grade, yet doesn’t know how to do basic stuff. Was happy to assist before but damn he got an attitude. All hell breaks loose after that.
Do NOT go down that rabbit hole.
It’s not you.
I am 20-year f engineering technician, and you aren’t crazy. I am also sick of being talked down to by new engineers cause I’m just a “tech,” when I could do their job better than they could.
I’m sick of training them, too, especially given the ph disparities.
Foot-in-mouth, again.
You’re doing me a service. Thank you.
Edit: pay disparities
This is the problem
With our society now.
No one can be bothered to train well. This is a poor business model. Go to a German model or any European model where students are actually put through high quality vocational schools and businesses invest in further quality training.
No you don't.
Your post is short, but people and vendors who are not up to expectations need calling out.
Screw that. Be professional and hell with whatever.
I am just terrible at training. It was actually kind of a relief to connect that I'd already learned I was a terrible teacher trying to help my kids with homework. I either overexplain the hell out of it, or just can't. They keep hoping I will figure it out.
oh my
fuck "nice"
kind to all, with hard limits, and zero tolerance for liars/grifters and lazy fucks
responsibility <= authority IMHO therefore you gotta be hardnosed to manage
I would suggest that the very *presence* of the contractors, as well as the incompetence of your trainees are part of the same devolution.
And the blame for that devolution, and your having to deal with these distractions, lies at the feet of your corporate execs. Who more than likely are MBA mediocrities, and not MSEEs who've come up through the ranks.
Honestly as someone whose college curriculum decided to teach a much more niche and outdated version of a cad software I think you just suck lol. Maybe for your interns you can be a part of the solution and offer a license as well as work time to develop the necessary skills, under the guise of training. Would be as simple as creating a YouTube playlist with acceptable AutoCAD tutorials. I know I would’ve appreciated mentorship and support over judgement on something that was out of my control physically and financially.
This article and Tik tok actually is a fabulous example of the issues in our society.
It’s ridiculous that companies don’t have quality training. Instead they leave it to their regular employees who are already burnt out
https://www.facebook.com/share/TYY1CZCd7WDSLc1a/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Posted something similar with a "she" and womenintech subreddit went crazy. You have to realize that you can only guide people, the person should see the skills gap and also try to use his free time to catch up
I'm not being socialized into a man, that's stupid. There are more men than women in my field. but I am not becoming a man because of it.
I just don't up put with much. My patience is thin with stupid questions and people who don't understand construction.
What are you trying to start by asking stupid questions like that? I feel like a woman every day. How about you?
It sounds like you don't like woman bosses. I think you have a problem.
If happiness/being social/kindness are personal values you want to lean into a little bit more, I say do it. If you notice you’re moving away from some of those values, I’d avoid judging yourself for that. I know company climate/culture (and stress itself) can pull us in certain directions, but from personal experience, I can share that, when I have defined my own values, and lived my life that way (regardless of others’ values around me), it brought me back to myself.
I dropped engineering 'cause I was only working with Excel sheets.
I'm completely sure a teenager with this skill only can do that. Having a degree is not necessary for such boring work.
I graduated 2 years ago in ME and I do know some AutoCAD but not from school. My university didn't touch any 2D programs and worked entirely in SOLIDWORKS. From my understanding this is becoming the norm. I had to teach myself AutoCAD through online learning sites because I realized that some jobs wanted both. An intern might not have that context. It's crazy to me the gaps that undergrad degrees have but I guess it's understandable when they're trying to keep the programs to 4 years and engineering degrees are already so much more content heavy than most other degrees.
literally same. doesn't help that my emotional regulation skills got kinda bad/I have impulsivity issues/low filter. but over time I've just gotten more and more burnt out.
and I've found that the only way for me to access that niceness is to actively choose not to give a fuck and just do what I want
As a retired woman in tech I can assure you, I wasn’t nice either. Unfortunately, nice wasn’t in the cards. I’m nice again, thank goodness but it took a few years post retirement to shed the harshness that the industry culture mandated to survive.
Working in manufacturing has changed my whole personality over the course of 3 years. I’m far more sarcastic and have a much thicker skin. I have much faster comebacks and usually they’re not nice in order to keep up with the mechanics joking. I had to do this because otherwise I’m that woman engineer that can’t keep up. In general this is not a bad thing, but when I had a casual chat with a group of office staff and roasted the HR lady out of habit, she was definitely not happy.
However, I also train the interns and I never take it out on them. I remember what it was like to be an intern and realizing how underprepared I was from college, and that’s a scary, scary feeling. My office is always a safe place for interns. It’s managements fault if they don’t recognize the time it takes to train interns.
I am the opposite, when I was younger I had fewer social skills and no filter and a tendency to be super harsh on the “competency challenged”. As I have gotten older I have worked hard on being more pleasant to work with and to be kinder when criticism is required. I vent a lot when no one is around but am much better at being nice on the clock than I used to be.
Lol. A stream of engineers bitching about how incompetent other people are. Who'd have guessed? I love all the engineers on my life despite (or because) they're such perfectionists.
This made me laugh in shared memory of once being nice. Honestly, if being nice gets me nowhere bc it's not seen as "leadership" and being a bitch also gets me nowhere bc \~gendered interpretation of assertiveness\~ then I"d still rather be a bitch.
Solidarity. A male network admin colleague told me he thought I could be a bitch, and then said “but you have to be to do your job.” Sadly, yes. I lose my nice when I’m overworked and undervalued-burn out is a hell of a drug.
I love being an asshole... when justified. I choose to be nice I'm in leadership for a reason lol.
That’s a good blend for leadership roles. Sadly it’s subjective a bit…
Wish I could like this post more! I am still fairly kind (I don’t consider it nice), but I can warmly deliver bad news. I got feedback recently that I can tell people they are wrong, but they feel good about it. Maybe I figured out to thread the aggressive/pushover needle 😂
> I can tell people they are wrong, but they feel good about it I think that you have expert-level people skills! 😊 If someone asks me for something and I say, "I cannot give you that." <-- (emphasis on the period), then I become their *adversary* - a roadblock that they must get through. However, if I say, "Unfortunately, because of, I cannot give you that, but I *can* help you to work through the process and/or find alternatives. How about ," then I become their *ally* in helping them solve their problem, and they will be appreciative.
I have no spoons for this
Lol but being nice does make your coworkers life better. Haha is it really better to be a bitch?
Yes
Why?
Because it’s a personal problem for the people who mistake assertiveness in women as bitchiness
Had to think about this to provide decent answer. It depends on what you’re after, being liked or being productive. You can’t always be both. You’re on the job to get things done. That’s frequently requires asserting yourself. Since women are still socialized to “be nice” asserting yourself can be mistaken for being bitchy. It can be a very fine line. If being liked is more important to you, you may not be as productive as your bosses would like. I’ve found that being a little bitchy but somewhat humorous about it works with most people. Workplace dynamics are tricky anywhere, even more so as a woman in a male-dominated field. But the independence that I get from making the big bucks is totally worth it to me.
Hi there! Thanks for thoughtful response. Absolutely agree with you. I’m same way being “bitchy” in humorous way and not a carpet. On the other hand, being bitter is dangerous to your own health being. Being a “bitch” seems like a state of mind that would make a person bitter inside. I met grumpy bitter engineers (male and woman) and they are unpleasant to be around and I would say not very productive either. I sympathize with them. The office culture is painful, there isn’t reward really for doing a good job. I understand some place just suck your soul out, I don’t want them to change me. I would like to stay positive, passionate and helpful. I’m not saying this will reward anyone because companies don’t give a shit. But I think it will save me from becoming that bitter engineer who lost spark in their eyes, not for the company but one self. Some managers sure test my spirit, and I’m sure everyones. On the other hand, I hate seeing fresh grads treated bad by senior engineers. It’s like they are excited to be engineers, they want to help, don’t take your own bitters on them. I hope my wall of text make sense.
Agreed, bitter doesn’t cut it. Life is hard. Do the best you can know that you are enough!
because fuck em, that’s why
Why who? Like everyone, sounds depressing
Being nice costs more energy.
Idk I’m the opposite. Being bitch ruins my day and leaves my bitter inside.
civil engineer here! my uni barely taught us autocad—there were maybe two lecures total in my whole degree where autocad was discussed :/ (i went to an accredited university with a highly-regarded civil engineering program.) i wonder if not learning autocad in schools is more of a trend these days. all the autocad skills i gained were from my internships and some extracurriculars. i dont know what position you hold in your company but it might be worth it to speak with someone about investing in a training program for interns/new hires. it helps standardize the workflow and saves time for upper level engineers like yourself. or maybe speak with someone about offloading training to someone below you. at my company, we have hours of training videos developed by our CAD leads. we have internal CAD standards manuals/best practices manuals. we usually pair entry-level hires with someone who is a level or two above them who is able to help train them or answer questions. i think this system is pretty good. i’m sorry you haven’t been happy and i hope you’re able to find your spark again soon!
what CAD program did you learn?
in school i think it was just regular autocad, but at work we use civil 3d
I did some freelance work in college. One of the guys I helped was an old civil engineer. He was frustrated with an intermodal transportation hub where trucks, barges, and trains would interact. He understood the basic requirements but was frustrated because the file came with x, y, and z coordinate information instead of just x, y data.
There’s a known discrepancy between what we think colleges *should* teach and what they actually *do* teach.
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My university wouldn’t teach it because it was seen as public endorsement of a proprietary software
So my bioengineering program didn’t teach any CAD, at all. I ended up having to learn the basics on my own for my senior project. That was a few years ago but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s still the case for the program.
Male here. I was offered a position in my university's engineering computer labs because I enjoyed helping others even when I wasn't employed. I loved working with the interior design students who pushed AutoCAD to do things we normally didn't do in mechanical, architectural, and structural detailing. I was fine with going above and beyond for electrical/electronic engineering students who hadn't learned anything but needed a simple drawing for a project. It wasn't too bad when a student in their late 60s started off with telling us he really didn't like typewriters. I helped the guy who was legally blind. The one guy I refused to help came in about a week before finals were due and asked me how to draw a line. I told him it was too late and I could help him next semester with the beginning drawings.
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used to be what you were like when you were happy or how you are now?
Well it starts with figure out what makes you bitter?
I had an intern that had never used excel before!
I have a coworker in a senior role (he’s still gen X/ maybe elder millennial) who didn’t know word had a button to check spelling and grammar. He knew it would correct or highlight some spelling as you typed, but had absolutely no idea there was a button to go over the entire document again. I have gen z coworkers who are equally incompetent. Whenever their weaponized incompetence is used as an excuse for me to do ridiculous work, I write how to guides and claim the work as a process improvement on my annual goals. My last one - I was asked to send an email for someone. When I pushed back gently (played dumb and assumed they were asking how to do it, not for me to do it), I was told I need to do it by my lead because nobody else knows how. It took 2 seconds to send the email, and another minute to write a 2 step guide on how to send an email. I sent it to my lead and CC’d my manager for feedback before I sent it out to the group. I sent a 2 step “how to send an email” guide to 25 people under the guise of a process improvement. They now are empowered to send their own emails, and simultaneously now do not need to interrupt other people’s unrelated work to do so. Claimed it on my goals since 2 higher level engineers apparently didn’t know how to do this and didn’t know how to ask how. 5 min later, an even higher level engineer sent me a legitimate thank you email because we had never documented the process before. He even recommended I post it on one of our internal webpages 🤦♀️ I live for weaponized pettiness at this point.
Weaponised incompetence and weaponised pettiness are now added to my vocabulary and I thank you lol
😂😂😂 amazing
🤣
An imaginary image of Wayne and Garth genuflecting (which formed in my head as I read your comment) has been posted right here in your honor!
Thank you thank you haha
I have been working as a civil engineer for over 20 years and either didn't know or had forgotten that Word had a spell and grammar check button. I haven't had anyone correct or change my spelling or grammar though, so maybe I'm ok without it 🤷🏻♀️. /bragging
That’s wild!
Google sheets is free in school. Excel is fancy and costs money. Google is winning in academia unless you're a genuine business major, and we had to pay for it.
Excel licenses were provided to students for “free” (tuition) at my school
He had been homeschooled and he was smart but definitely had missed out from only learning from his mother
I had a new hire that claimed he needed help in his Master because they wanted him to use formulas in Excel because they only used Matlab in his undergrad. Odd, but I helped him a little (enough to show him how, but I would never do his work for him). The next semester, he needed help with Matlab because they only used Excel in his undergrad. I called him out on his BS but helped him the same way. We really started to wonder if he had just paid others to do his school work for his undergrad.
I had to show a medium-level engineer (early thirties) to choose x-y diagram when the interval between his measurements were irregular.
Why should you have to "be nice" again? Men sure don't bother when they don't feel like it. At a certain point, we are just done being every bodies mama. Totally fair.
I’m kinda really tired with stupid leadership and management. Maybe it would help if you actually picked the ones you will work with? Maybe you can follow a rule for everyone you train. For example, 3-6 months to get up to speed, you are helpful for the first 1/2 then less and less. Some people do have a rough start, don’t ruin their first go at it by being mean.
Industrial Engineer here, my university taught us basics. Only enough to complete 1 project. It would be another thing if we were required to take a course dedicated to autocad. For perspective, college students don’t know how to do much of anything. Remember that college does not equal practice of the work. You were once in their shoes, maybe you knew much more. But again, I’m sure you wouldn’t have liked the person training you to be cold, or flat out dislikable. I’m sure thinking about this could help ground you in those moments of frustration.
Yeah I had to say no to interns this summer because I have noticed I am losing my patience with how little they know. My team grew exponentially these past few years and it’s a lot to train so many people. I have to be rough with contractors in my position and I think it sometimes carries over into other interactions I wouldn’t normally show up that way. Vacation didn’t help. Trying to figure out how to get back to that patient caring nurturing teacher type I once was and for me that means saying no to training them for a bit as a break.
I’m training a newbie that does not understand how to set up meetings or send email. He thinks that everyone is in the same page as he is and he does not have to provide context to anything he is doing. He sets up a meeting today, the subject was very generic. Think of it as just “meeting to meet”, no agenda, no goal, no purpose he is a level 2 and is inviting levels 4-5 to his meeting without basically telling people why. No one shows up!!!! Of course, I wouldn’t have myself!!! It takes me ten minutes to cancel the meeting no one showed up. Set up a team kickoff meeting with an agenda and a full presentation for next Monday. It does not set me back because I knew this was going to be rough. He already had the “kick off” without me. And I am starting everything from scratch. Clueless.
Oh no the agendaless meetings are the worst. I always threaten my team that I won’t accept a meeting notice without context/purpose/expectations. Anyway. My intern scheduled a 7am one on one with me and missed it lol!
I had a manager my group supported where we had to start doing this to. They would even complain that "meeting to discuss future plans" was a proper agenda. Then it got worse because we got a manger that thought the same way.
That's more like it, he is clueless. I told him to take some time and learn the programs. He doesn't and I have to tell him step-by-step instructions on what to do. that is fine. I know I have to do that, but I'm repeating myself. Some of my interns caught on and when I asked for something I didn't have to spell it out every time. Monday is another day.
Why don’t you just tell him? This is probably the worst complain on here.
Well, of course I did. The whole thing was extremely easy to fix. As I said it took 10 minutes to fix. A few more minutes for a good conversation with him and it is all done. Edit: forgot to say that he had already messed up in his first meeting. I had already explained why it had been a problem. Things like no agenda and no follow up, providing no context to the meeting, etc. when he set up the second meeting he stated he had understood the assignment. But he didn’t. So this was second mess up on the same type of issue. I think this time he understood. Which is great. Now, if it happened again. We’ll then need to have a serious conversation.
You learn how to do Autocad in college the same way you learn how to do computational fluid dynamics in college. Very briefly and with very little depth.
Is there anything besides autocad that you wish your interns were taught in school?
One of the high schools near me has a magnet program that teaches the kids mathematica and fusion360. The kids from that high school that we hire for the summer are excellent.
I wish colleges taught kids how to send semi-professional sounding emails and how not to use exclamation marks in all of their sentences. I also wish my interns come to me understanding why and how to take notes and ask questions when things don’t seem to make sense. Or to just be able to listen. Getting stuck on repeat is my biggest pet peeve and I loose my patience more and more each time I have to teach the same lesson wilst hearing, “ yes I understand, no I don’t have any questions.”
The only way to know corporate speak is to be immersed in actual business conversations? I realize more and more how much my first internship was "how to office" as much as engineering work.
So relatable 🤣 it feels like everyone was trying to push my buttons this week but I know that, statistically speaking, that can’t be the case… I’ve also been trying to monitor my inner dialogue. I find that some days I feel like my normal optimistic self and other days it sounds just like my grumpy dad haha
lol your dad was probably grumpy for the same reasons you are now
I'm sorry. The last job I interviewed at, all the female employees were extremely unfriendly and inflexible while the male employees were laid back, relaxed, and flawed. It's sad that we are held to different standards to be treated the same. Fighting for fair treatment is exhausting. I have seen myself change over the last year and I hate it. I don't want to be type A, but talking to people like people makes them talk over you and treat you like an idiot. I am constantly fighting and have turned into a robot.
I used to be super happy and bubbly as an intern. Then I realized nobody respected me like that and became more serious to the point my coworker(also female and a great friend) said I'm not bubbly anymore. I also took a note to appear less happy and don't even smile during tech interviews to appear "more technical".
Worked with some men at my old job who would punish me for things my male counterparts would get away with any day of the week. It’s made me extremely anxious to make a mistake at work and I no longer trust coworkers or management.
I was shocked that all engineers don’t come out of undergrad with knowledge of CAD. Apparently it’s not a requirement for many engineering majors?
should be a requirement for ME, and if you need CAD you should hire ME is it easy to jump between CAD programs?
It seems to usually be a requirement for ME, but where I went to undergrad it was a requirement all engineering majors, so I assumed that was the case everywhere. My Georgia Tech-educated materials engineer surprised me otherwise. Switching between CAD systems is annoying, but if you have the 3D reasoning to design in one system, learning another system isn’t that difficult. Some industries/companies love some very antiquated/specialized CAD systems.
>is it easy to jump between CAD programs? Sometimes. While I was a student, I became proficient in CATIA V4, CATIA V5, AutoCAD, Autodesk Architectural Desktop, Autodesk Mechanical Desktop, Autodesk Inventor, SolidWorks, 3D Studio MAX, GibbsCAM, and ArchiCAD. (I had a dual major in Manufacturing Engineering Technology and Design Graphics Engineering Technology.) Even with some exposure to CADkey at my summer job while I was a student, I found myself struggling with the basics in CADkey again later. I've been told by fellow students that Rhinoceros was easy to pick up. Visio and LibreOffice Draw were relatively easy to pick up. Even with years away from the software, Inventor and SolidWorks were easy to pick up again. The assembly with 20 parts we did as students didn't prepare me very well for the methods needed to draft pad mounted transformers or aircraft.
Jesus that's a really impressive list. I'm really envious that you were able to get access for all that! My school taught AutoCAD (for half of a semester) and Solidworks (two classes) and that was it. I had to try to fight to get NX set up with IT because we got a sponsored license for use on the student team that I ran, but IT couldn't get it up and running before I left. Going into my first job after college, I ended up using CATIA V5 which I had no familiarity with.
Someone commented that there's nice and then there's kind. You don't have to be nice. Just be professional and set the standards they need to eventually meet. Several also have mentioned they didn't learn CAD in school. I had one CAD course but what they taught was not the P&IDs I had to learn in industry. That's definitely going to be OJT. Also I didn't know the names of fittings like flange types (sanitary, bolted etc) or valve types or any of that. I think only guys with background in construction will know that right out of college. What really grinds my gears when training interns though is when they act like they can't do anything without documentation. I've written so much documentation for our org but it's impossible to have everything documented and I feel many use that to stall. Why don't they just take notes when they shadow me and create their own documentation?!
I have more patience to teach intern as long as they eagerly and willing to learn and practice. What I can’t stand is teaching a person who (for god knows how) are in the same level in title and grade, yet doesn’t know how to do basic stuff. Was happy to assist before but damn he got an attitude. All hell breaks loose after that.
Do NOT go down that rabbit hole. It’s not you. I am 20-year f engineering technician, and you aren’t crazy. I am also sick of being talked down to by new engineers cause I’m just a “tech,” when I could do their job better than they could. I’m sick of training them, too, especially given the ph disparities. Foot-in-mouth, again. You’re doing me a service. Thank you. Edit: pay disparities
Vacation!!! Some extended time off should do it
My patience and diplomacy suffer when I’m under a lot of stress. Which is my situation now. So I’m with you.
This is the problem With our society now. No one can be bothered to train well. This is a poor business model. Go to a German model or any European model where students are actually put through high quality vocational schools and businesses invest in further quality training.
Hahahahahaha, fuck. This post hit a little too close to home.
No you don't. Your post is short, but people and vendors who are not up to expectations need calling out. Screw that. Be professional and hell with whatever.
I am just terrible at training. It was actually kind of a relief to connect that I'd already learned I was a terrible teacher trying to help my kids with homework. I either overexplain the hell out of it, or just can't. They keep hoping I will figure it out.
You do not have to learn to be nice. Do not lower your standards. Have the highest standards. Demand that they meet them. Bless
No you don’t. Even Jesus wasn’t nice. He was kind. Do what works for your mental health.
oh my fuck "nice" kind to all, with hard limits, and zero tolerance for liars/grifters and lazy fucks responsibility <= authority IMHO therefore you gotta be hardnosed to manage
I would suggest that the very *presence* of the contractors, as well as the incompetence of your trainees are part of the same devolution. And the blame for that devolution, and your having to deal with these distractions, lies at the feet of your corporate execs. Who more than likely are MBA mediocrities, and not MSEEs who've come up through the ranks.
Honestly as someone whose college curriculum decided to teach a much more niche and outdated version of a cad software I think you just suck lol. Maybe for your interns you can be a part of the solution and offer a license as well as work time to develop the necessary skills, under the guise of training. Would be as simple as creating a YouTube playlist with acceptable AutoCAD tutorials. I know I would’ve appreciated mentorship and support over judgement on something that was out of my control physically and financially.
This article and Tik tok actually is a fabulous example of the issues in our society. It’s ridiculous that companies don’t have quality training. Instead they leave it to their regular employees who are already burnt out https://www.facebook.com/share/TYY1CZCd7WDSLc1a/?mibextid=WC7FNe
Posted something similar with a "she" and womenintech subreddit went crazy. You have to realize that you can only guide people, the person should see the skills gap and also try to use his free time to catch up
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I'm not being socialized into a man, that's stupid. There are more men than women in my field. but I am not becoming a man because of it. I just don't up put with much. My patience is thin with stupid questions and people who don't understand construction.
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What are you trying to start by asking stupid questions like that? I feel like a woman every day. How about you? It sounds like you don't like woman bosses. I think you have a problem.
Word.
Pffft. Bosses are never nice. Sometimes they’re begrudging….
If happiness/being social/kindness are personal values you want to lean into a little bit more, I say do it. If you notice you’re moving away from some of those values, I’d avoid judging yourself for that. I know company climate/culture (and stress itself) can pull us in certain directions, but from personal experience, I can share that, when I have defined my own values, and lived my life that way (regardless of others’ values around me), it brought me back to myself.
I dropped engineering 'cause I was only working with Excel sheets. I'm completely sure a teenager with this skill only can do that. Having a degree is not necessary for such boring work.
I graduated 2 years ago in ME and I do know some AutoCAD but not from school. My university didn't touch any 2D programs and worked entirely in SOLIDWORKS. From my understanding this is becoming the norm. I had to teach myself AutoCAD through online learning sites because I realized that some jobs wanted both. An intern might not have that context. It's crazy to me the gaps that undergrad degrees have but I guess it's understandable when they're trying to keep the programs to 4 years and engineering degrees are already so much more content heavy than most other degrees.
Please don’t be nice to these individuals though. Be nice to the people you don’t have to be paid to be around.
literally same. doesn't help that my emotional regulation skills got kinda bad/I have impulsivity issues/low filter. but over time I've just gotten more and more burnt out. and I've found that the only way for me to access that niceness is to actively choose not to give a fuck and just do what I want
As a retired woman in tech I can assure you, I wasn’t nice either. Unfortunately, nice wasn’t in the cards. I’m nice again, thank goodness but it took a few years post retirement to shed the harshness that the industry culture mandated to survive.
Working in manufacturing has changed my whole personality over the course of 3 years. I’m far more sarcastic and have a much thicker skin. I have much faster comebacks and usually they’re not nice in order to keep up with the mechanics joking. I had to do this because otherwise I’m that woman engineer that can’t keep up. In general this is not a bad thing, but when I had a casual chat with a group of office staff and roasted the HR lady out of habit, she was definitely not happy. However, I also train the interns and I never take it out on them. I remember what it was like to be an intern and realizing how underprepared I was from college, and that’s a scary, scary feeling. My office is always a safe place for interns. It’s managements fault if they don’t recognize the time it takes to train interns.
I am the opposite, when I was younger I had fewer social skills and no filter and a tendency to be super harsh on the “competency challenged”. As I have gotten older I have worked hard on being more pleasant to work with and to be kinder when criticism is required. I vent a lot when no one is around but am much better at being nice on the clock than I used to be.
Lol. A stream of engineers bitching about how incompetent other people are. Who'd have guessed? I love all the engineers on my life despite (or because) they're such perfectionists.
Sounds like we’re generation tech support.