"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 1 Aug 2018 21:42:16 -0400, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:
...
Yeah, Segway was probably abruptly different from most settings for
engineers.

Actually Segway was pretty typical for a small company begun and run
by engineers with an idea. I also helped develop a new color printer
concept of the former Centronics engineers and was a tech for new
product development at Unitrode.

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Mach.../dp/0316491977
When it came out I was working on a very similar LSI-11 mini-computer
based Automated Test Equipment project with an equally well-organizd
group.We all read the book and saw nothing to change. The Ph.D in
charge was a brilliant, easy-going beard, ponytail, sandals, VW bus
type who worshipped Feynman.

Just as we completed it the economy tanked, orders for new capital
equipment vanished, and the company folded. R&D isn't a secure
long-term job.

My new neighbor was an engineer at Boeing in TX. A white
collar engineer/manager, which I found hard to wrap my head around.
I'm pretty sure he was a computer/paper/meeting engineer, a
different
strip than most I've met.


The pattern I've seen, known, read of or experienced in larger
companys was competent engineers being pushed into management to make
decisions about what (or not) to develop next, while the engineering
grunt work fell upon younger engineers or co-ops / interns who still
remembered how to calculate, and technicians like me who knew how to
build prototypes of testable, manufacturable working product.

I often began with a pencil scribbled schematic, parts list and verbal
description of the desired result. Once my completed schematic had
been approved they left me alone to build it however I chose. A
particularly hands-on engineer might model the dimensions of patch
antennas, RF transmission lines and matching stubs in the circuit
board material we had chosen.

A quirk I've noticed in more academic environments is what I call the
Artist Colony style of management, in which everyone has a supervisory
title and does their own thing independently, without formal
coordination. It's effective with a small group of cooperative people,
as long as the tasks can be divided without overlaps. Community
Theatre productions were like that too.

===
I've been cutting and bending 22 gauge galvanized on a 30" 3-in-1
sheet metal machine. It struggles with 22 and 24 would be easier.
-jsw