Engineers or charlatans

[Simmi]

Hi all,

I've something on my chest about the newer entries into Simulation and want to voice my opinion about.

I am getting increasingly concerned that I am seeing many job adverts - especially for Engineers in Simulation. Well, I don't know about you enlightened people hereabouts, but as I recall it took many years at college and several exams at degree level to get the qualification of engineer. Now I see people in my sphere claiming to be a Simulator Engineer and I laugh my teets off. What sheer hubris and gross over-estimations of themselves when they graduate with a Diploma or BSc in Informatics and start off in their first year on the job or even in their first days/weeks in the trade only to self promote themselves to the status of Engineer with the approval of their employers because Engineer is in their job title.

Although I was formally trained as a Sim Tech, I still consider myself a Sim Tech, even after 40 years.

Be assured, I don't begrudge anyone that's deserving of the title and merit/kudos where it's due, but I do wince at those young know-it-alls whom you cannot teach anything.

As CMM or SM, I would surely take issue with this and follow up with the HR department vehemently. Of course, the AM cares very much about the bottom line and often turns a blind eye, so as to attract low-skilled low-paid bodies into the trade. Which is another bone of contention, as do you need to employ an engineer to know one end of a screwdriver from the other, to reload a simulator, to pre-flight, to clean the screens, to empty the trash, and occasionally vac the cockpit?

Nowadays, the trade has been very much deskilled and yet the pretentious and over-applied word of Engineer is still largely used.

What's your experience of newbies in Simulation? Let's get some debate. Do they deserve the title "Engineer" ?

Sock it to me !

[oxymoron]

We had an "engineer" in the shop and we had a broken intercom panel. After a bit of in-situ probing and metering the faulty component was located and said "engineer" claimed, I can fix it as he takes the box to the workbench.

Ten minutes later said engineer comes to me, box in hand, and asks all serious like, "what's this silver stuff and how do I get it off the terminal posts".

"It's solder, and with a soldering iron."

"Ah, yes, I remember that lesson now, thanks."

As he tries to retreat with the box I yell out, "BILL, come and get the comms box off the "engineer" and fix it please."

In my experience engineers should be kept in well lit rooms and fed bits of paper to analyze and never ever be allowed near actual hardware. But what would I know, HR keep hiring the dudes and paying them a motza. I don't blame the engineers, I blame HR and bean-counter management for being too focused and paper qualifications and total disregard for practical qualifications.

[Chris]

Ok boomer.

[Simmi]

Ok boomer...

WTF is that? Is that snark American Humour from someone who specialises in hit and run conversations by constructing the shortest sentences imaginable, because ostensibly you can't think things through enough to form a coherent and constructive opinion or well-formed argument?
You must be one of those charlatans I was talking about.

Here, don't forget your pacifier, play dough, colouring books and crayons.

[keanb]

Simmi, I have to agree. I travel to a lot of sim sites around the world, and I find more and more technicians that don't understand electronic principals. They only know how to do shotgun maintenance, and they want to be called engineers. Unfortunately, some of degreed engineers I run into in the sim field have these same problems. Many years ago I ran into a degreed electrical engineer that was trying to use a 60w light bulb as a load bank on a power supply. He couldn't figure out why the fuse kept blowing. The real crying shame was he had gone through nine fuses.

[Simmi]

Holy crap. 9 Fuses

I'm surprised he did not put a 6 inch nail in place of the fuse, just to get a result.