On Nov 4, 12:50 pm, Don Foreman wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:59:06 -0700, Too_Many_Tools





wrote:
On Nov 3, 2:14 am, Cliff wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:55:47 +1300, Geoff
wrote:

Any good building services engineers (especeally electrical) who want work
in Australaia or NZ, we have plenty...Geoff

The maintenance man for my apartment building in Melbourne had
a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering.
--
Cliff

The guy who sold me shoes did too.

And so does my mechanic.

When you ask whether it is worth the effort to become an engineer, you
want to ask where the older engineers are.

They aren't in engineering.

If you want to make money, it is not the career to enter.

I had it compared to a professional escort's career....by working
hard days and nights you start off with a good income but your
earning power is eroded quickly and by your mid 30's no one is willing
to pay what you are asking.

Getting older does not merit higher pay per se. Those that gain
capability and productivity with experience are worth more to
employers, and they're paid more to retain the capability. Younger
newer graduates may (or may not) be more current in latest technology,
but they lack the wisdom and judgement that can come only with
experience. Some of the older ones do also because they failed to
keep learning. If ya wanna get paid more ya gotta be worth more. Life
is competitive. Always has been, always will be. Duh!

An engineer's education has barely begun when he or she graduates with
degrees. If they ever allow it to stop, then they stop too -- and
they will eventually be replaced by others with similar capability and
greater potential.

An engineering education is not limited in utility to learning how to
be a lackey turning a crank. It isn't, or at least shouldn't be, all
or even much about how to design widgets and gizmos. It should
include accquiring analytical and problem-solving skills and
"learning how to learn" that are by no means limited to
"engineering" jobs and tasks.

Not everyone is driven to earn every farthing they can possibly get.
Your mechanic and shoe salesman may be examples. They may be doing
that because they like doing that, or because it allows them to earn a
living while retaining a lot of freedom to do other things they'd
rather do than work.

A successful, satisfying and rewarding engineering career requires
that the individual manage his/her own career, constantly enhancing
his value to present and potential employers. Those that get
plateaued or dead-ended nearly always deserve it, at least in my
experience. It's a choice, not an inevitable fate as it might be for
the aging courtesan whose stock in trade was youth.

I plateaued in my early 50's. My choice. I enjoyed my work, felt
like I was well-compensated for it, had almost total freedom of
schedule. Also of assignments, because it was up to me to go find
assignments -- managers who wanted to pay my org for me to do work
they felt would be of value to them. You might guess that I went
after work I thought I'd enjoy doing.

I didn't want to "grow" to the next level because I didn't want to do
that job. It didn't look like any fun at all, not at all. Picked my
pony, took my ride. I still had to keep learning to stay even, but I
enjoyed that because it was technical stuff that I enjoyed learning.

Then I retired at 57 because I decided I'd rather play than work. Left
a lot of money on the table, but I valued time to do whatever I want
whenever I want much more. I have never for a nanosecond regretted
that decision. Jeff W. can attest that we live very modestly, I'll
attest that we enjoy every single day.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Excellent post Don.

TMT

On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:59:06 -0700, Too_Many_Tools
wrote:

On Nov 3, 2:14 am, Cliff wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:55:47 +1300, Geoff
wrote:

Any good building services engineers (especeally electrical) who want work
in Australaia or NZ, we have plenty...Geoff

The maintenance man for my apartment building in Melbourne had
a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering.
--
Cliff

The guy who sold me shoes did too.

And so does my mechanic.

When you ask whether it is worth the effort to become an engineer, you
want to ask where the older engineers are.

They aren't in engineering.

If you want to make money, it is not the career to enter.

I had it compared to a professional escort's career....by working
hard days and nights you start off with a good income but your
earning power is eroded quickly and by your mid 30's no one is willing
to pay what you are asking.

Getting older does not merit higher pay per se. Those that gain
capability and productivity with experience are worth more to
employers, and they're paid more to retain the capability. Younger
newer graduates may (or may not) be more current in latest technology,
but they lack the wisdom and judgement that can come only with
experience. Some of the older ones do also because they failed to
keep learning. If ya wanna get paid more ya gotta be worth more. Life
is competitive. Always has been, always will be. Duh!

An engineer's education has barely begun when he or she graduates with
degrees. If they ever allow it to stop, then they stop too -- and
they will eventually be replaced by others with similar capability and
greater potential.

An engineering education is not limited in utility to learning how to
be a lackey turning a crank. It isn't, or at least shouldn't be, all
or even much about how to design widgets and gizmos. It should
include accquiring analytical and problem-solving skills and
"learning how to learn" that are by no means limited to
"engineering" jobs and tasks.

Not everyone is driven to earn every farthing they can possibly get.
Your mechanic and shoe salesman may be examples. They may be doing
that because they like doing that, or because it allows them to earn a
living while retaining a lot of freedom to do other things they'd
rather do than work.

A successful, satisfying and rewarding engineering career requires
that the individual manage his/her own career, constantly enhancing
his value to present and potential employers. Those that get
plateaued or dead-ended nearly always deserve it, at least in my
experience. It's a choice, not an inevitable fate as it might be for
the aging courtesan whose stock in trade was youth.

I plateaued in my early 50's. My choice. I enjoyed my work, felt
like I was well-compensated for it, had almost total freedom of
schedule. Also of assignments, because it was up to me to go find
assignments -- managers who wanted to pay my org for me to do work
they felt would be of value to them. You might guess that I went
after work I thought I'd enjoy doing.

I didn't want to "grow" to the next level because I didn't want to do
that job. It didn't look like any fun at all, not at all. Picked my
pony, took my ride. I still had to keep learning to stay even, but I
enjoyed that because it was technical stuff that I enjoyed learning.

Then I retired at 57 because I decided I'd rather play than work. Left
a lot of money on the table, but I valued time to do whatever I want
whenever I want much more. I have never for a nanosecond regretted
that decision. Jeff W. can attest that we live very modestly, I'll
attest that we enjoy every single day.

What I enjoyed was being able to use any instrument that was pointed at.
Some were obscure and no one in the two engineering groups knew how to tweak
a knob or hook up something to it it it took that...

Often it was no manual. I saved some really important instruments from the
dying CMOS R&D for the SiGe team that I served as Sr. System Engineer.
I was one of a few that knew how to use some UNIX (first base) software that
was ported to PC windows - and with it was able to import some of the output
files ( plotter structure not printer) and such. Solution was the game
and report was the game. A lot of this came from my background in Physics
and being a Son of my Father. We both took on projects that others could
not do or get done. Often doing these on lunch hour or after hours.

I designed the hardware and later a software version RISC Pattern generator.
Did that for a R&D division in Japan. The software version was more flexible
and expandable at will. The hardware version ran at 500MHz being GaAs.
I was reporting to a Sr. VP of a world wide corporation and his friend
was the parallel VP in the division in Japan. The best part was I had
worked on that in my time and got some good firm concepts for a CISC version
I did later on. So my late night work helped win a Patent for myself and
a product that was very hot.

But that was in a system far, far away... :-)

Martin

Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/


Don Foreman wrote:
On Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:59:06 -0700, Too_Many_Tools
wrote:

On Nov 3, 2:14 am, Cliff wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:55:47 +1300, Geoff
wrote:

Any good building services engineers (especeally electrical) who want work
in Australaia or NZ, we have plenty...Geoff
The maintenance man for my apartment building in Melbourne had
a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering.
--
Cliff
The guy who sold me shoes did too.

And so does my mechanic.

When you ask whether it is worth the effort to become an engineer, you
want to ask where the older engineers are.

They aren't in engineering.

If you want to make money, it is not the career to enter.

I had it compared to a professional escort's career....by working
hard days and nights you start off with a good income but your
earning power is eroded quickly and by your mid 30's no one is willing
to pay what you are asking.

Getting older does not merit higher pay per se. Those that gain
capability and productivity with experience are worth more to
employers, and they're paid more to retain the capability. Younger
newer graduates may (or may not) be more current in latest technology,
but they lack the wisdom and judgement that can come only with
experience. Some of the older ones do also because they failed to
keep learning. If ya wanna get paid more ya gotta be worth more. Life
is competitive. Always has been, always will be. Duh!

An engineer's education has barely begun when he or she graduates with
degrees. If they ever allow it to stop, then they stop too -- and
they will eventually be replaced by others with similar capability and
greater potential.

An engineering education is not limited in utility to learning how to
be a lackey turning a crank. It isn't, or at least shouldn't be, all
or even much about how to design widgets and gizmos. It should
include accquiring analytical and problem-solving skills and
"learning how to learn" that are by no means limited to
"engineering" jobs and tasks.

Not everyone is driven to earn every farthing they can possibly get.
Your mechanic and shoe salesman may be examples. They may be doing
that because they like doing that, or because it allows them to earn a
living while retaining a lot of freedom to do other things they'd
rather do than work.

A successful, satisfying and rewarding engineering career requires
that the individual manage his/her own career, constantly enhancing
his value to present and potential employers. Those that get
plateaued or dead-ended nearly always deserve it, at least in my
experience. It's a choice, not an inevitable fate as it might be for
the aging courtesan whose stock in trade was youth.

I plateaued in my early 50's. My choice. I enjoyed my work, felt
like I was well-compensated for it, had almost total freedom of
schedule. Also of assignments, because it was up to me to go find
assignments -- managers who wanted to pay my org for me to do work
they felt would be of value to them. You might guess that I went
after work I thought I'd enjoy doing.

I didn't want to "grow" to the next level because I didn't want to do
that job. It didn't look like any fun at all, not at all. Picked my
pony, took my ride. I still had to keep learning to stay even, but I
enjoyed that because it was technical stuff that I enjoyed learning.

Then I retired at 57 because I decided I'd rather play than work. Left
a lot of money on the table, but I valued time to do whatever I want
whenever I want much more. I have never for a nanosecond regretted
that decision. Jeff W. can attest that we live very modestly, I'll
attest that we enjoy every single day.

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