Abused word

I rose through the ranks of Technologist ;{ Sometimes the promotion was more to with restricting pay rather than ability. On lower grades overtime was paid but on higher grades there were no overtime payments but one was expected to work a reasonable amount of overtime hours when projects were due out of the door. This latter "overtime" could attract a bonus payment which often was scaled back to zero.

The company changed policy over naming roles probably when in times of high staff turnover they couldn't attract graduates/design engineers to a what those outside of the company thought to be "technician" job.

I believe the term Technologist was invented to differentiate between various "engineering" roles in order to give the Technoligist group a great salary increase in times where staff retention was a problem.

Reply to
alan_m
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They never used to be called Human Resources!

Reply to
alan_m

(Medical) Consultants seem to use the term Mr

Reply to
alan_m

In message <XnsAA4076B379586TrainJPlantntlworldc@81.171.92.236>, DerbyBorn snipped-for-privacy@Nearhome.com writes

They're chust nothing but common stokers .Indeed, if Dougie wass here he'd tell you himself.

B
Reply to
brian

I thought Consultants were still Dr. and it was only those who are Surgeons are Mr.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

I thought anyone who worked (Laboured) was a Labourer. My dad was not amused when I put it on a form.

Reply to
DerbyBorn

Yup I saw that enough times! ISTR Assistant Technologist, Technologist, and Senior Technologist were all paid overtime, but Principal Technologist's were not... Were I worked 20% overtime was a typical minimum - so it was a handy way of limiting salary costs on senior staff working the longest hours.

Some years later I remember while I was contracting at Marconi Comms in Chelmsford, there was a chap there who had turned down promotion about six or seven times so far, on the grounds that he worked such ridiculous levels of overtime he was earning more than the divisional directors.

For some values of great! I remember being summoned to the boss' office, and handed an envelope with notification of a pay rise of some £300/month. Since this was not pay review time I asked "why?" as was simply told "don't ask". The reality soon became obvious - someone worked out they were now offering new graduate recruits, slightly more in starting salary than what was now being paid to the new graduates from 2 - 3 years ago :-)

Reply to
John Rumm

Its a little presumptuous though - its possible the boiler tech is actually an engineer, but looked at the money and respect awarded engineers in the UK, and decided they could make far more plumbing!

Reply to
John Rumm

Good point!

Reply to
Bob Eager

No they don't, except to the extent they don't bother to correct patients' misapprehensions. Only surgeons call themselves Mr.

Reply to
Roger Hayter

I know that story. Already. And ICL didn't have anyone called technologist, so it must be coincidence.

The one that got us was that our management had been carefully handing out merit rises, and the regrade took us all back to the same just-over-new-grad pay.

Still, we did better than the year between - where the whole intake was given 4 weeks PILON and told not to even start :(

Andy

Reply to
Vir Campestris

Not any more, it's just a pay grade now. With 'equality' legislation now you just have to show you have produced enough publications and successful grant applications?

Reply to
DJC

My first job was a 'Test Technician'. I was armed with a Higher Diploma in Physics and Electronics. Maybe I should have been a 'Test Diplomat'.

Thereafter I got a job as a Test Engineer, and then a job as a Field Service Engineer, which was renamed (the remit didn't change) to Systems Engineer. I upgraded my qualification to Master of Physics (which sounds like the title of a long-lost Metallica album)and got a new job as a Systems Engineer. Perhaps I should insist on being addressed as Master of Systems (another lost Metallica album).

Forty-odd years ago I remember reading an article about the lack of status that engineers (or Engineers) have in the UK. Nothing much has changed. In my place of employment, the head of HR has equal status with the heads of the various engineering departments.

Reply to
Halmyre

Used to be Personnel. But that was a bit too 'personal' for employers. Only a matter of time before 'Human Resources' become 'Temporary Assets' or something like that.

Reply to
Halmyre

Just lump them in under the logistics banner.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Personnel used to look after the employees welfare

Human Resources look after the employers wealth.

That is the two opposite ends of the spectrum and there different ratios in between in some organisations but that is roughly how it changed in the firm I worked for, especially when it eventually ended up as part of an overseas based multinational.

GH

Reply to
Marland

Didn't see the word enigineer used to prove anyhting.

what has any of that got to do with it.

Here at university our HR have a higherr status in fact a few weeks ago I was told one of the managers dealing with HR can take one day a week off , so only work 4 days a week because they have no health and safety responsibilities. I have those so I must work 5 da

Reply to
whisky-dave

It's possible that the HR manager had negotiated to do a 4-day week at 4/5 of his previous salary - but then again, pigs might fly. I think we all know that he got his original salary for doing a 4-day week.

One of the problems is that a lot of engineers are not, by nature, bullshit merchants. They aren't very good at blowing their own trumpets.

Where I used to work, in a department that developed networking software, a lot of the software developers were very eminent and very skilled - in particular one guy who was probably on the autism spectrum and who could write the most unintelligible but lightning-fast code imaginable. He acquired a certain amount of kudos by reverse-engineering a thirty-party device driver and examining the code to identify a fault that was causing UNIX core dumps in certain rare circumstances. (The third-party company did not take kindly when he contacted them, with the backing of the department head, to point out the fix that they might like to incorporate officially in a driver update.)

But a lot of those guys lacked the "interpersonal skills" to really sell themselves. They knew that they were "fairly" (understatement for "exceptionally") good at what they did and didn't feel the need to keep shouting and boasting about it, in the way that salesmen (professional bullshitters) and marketeers did. Whenever there were company excellence awards to employees who had made an outstanding contribution to the company, it was always non-technical people who got the bottle of champagne and the certificate, and the software teams who kept their heads down but did an equally good job, were never recognised, probably because the awards team couldn't work out what the outstanding contribution was.

It is rumoured that the department survived several culls and restructurings because no-one outside really knew what they did (or understood how vital it was to the company) so erred on the side of caution. Until eventually the inevitable happened and the department was annihilated. I was one of the fortunate ones who was kept on a bit longer, having been moved into a semi-technical role in a marketing department, but a lot of very skilled people were lost: other companies gained by the loss of the guys from the company I worked for.

Reply to
NY

As in the (probably apocryphal) tale, of the chap who calls out an emergency plumber one evening. Its a fairly quick job, and the plumber hands him the bill. As the chap pays he comments that the plumber's hourly rate is "higher than mine, and I am a QC". To which the plumber replies yup, "I realised the same when I was a QC!"

Reply to
John Rumm

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