One up for the EU :-)

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Lost interest in the UK job. Not happy with the waste and hanging around. Over the last year since redundancy at my last UK company I did a project in the EU, spent a year in the UK doing what I would class as two months hands on work. I even had to fight like crazy to persuade "Engineers" how to do the job properly.

You are all paying for it, you don't realise it yet and it may well be accounted for indirectly, but the British consumer will pay dearly and for a lot of the Brexit related work.

Anyway, got sick of the waste. It isn't professional to throw anyones money away, even Brit Brexit merchants.

Gone to Europe, interview, job, start in a week.

All the gormless losers stuck in the UK are panic stricken because a few Poles "threaten" the Brexit merchants precious dead end burger flipping careers and Europe is full of proper interesting well paid work.

Suckers :-)

AB

[tim...]

"Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp" [e-mail] wrote in message news: [e-mail]...

I've spent the last 25 years being dissatisfied with jobs that UK employers wanted "engineers" to do

No respect for your experience, minimal career opportunities unless you were management "calibre" and wanted to move to PM.

Jobs in Europe were always much more interesting, managers had respect for the job the engineers did and made sure that there were sufficient non management opportunities to keep the good engineers motivated.

This is nothing to do with Brexit (nor even to do with EU enlargement)

I retired early because I simply couldn't manage the weekly trek to Europe anymore

tim

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

Well ain't that odd!

Sounds exactly like a mirror image of the company I have just departed from.

The most sad result was that the "Engineers" that went into management seemed to forget any of the technical or indeed moral aspects of the profession.

To be fair to the company they did encourage career progression, my Engineering Council card and MIET membership went in the bin a long time ago though. The collecting of qualifications has taken on a motivation only equalled by train number spotters :-)

Once, it was a profession to be proud of in the UK.

The country will pay the price, nothing is more certain.

AB

[Bob Eager]

The IET seem fixated on how many people one manages. For example, you will find it very hard to get to FIET level unless you manage a substantial number of employees. I don't think they even have to be engineers!

[Bill]

In message [e-mail], Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp [e-mail] writes

This, and Tarquin's other posts, do make me wonder why he feels this way.

In my work as an "engineer", I did get the feeling that engineers were not as well respected as, in general, they should have been. But they worked alongside other professions and had to gain respect.

I went for a career where I could make the technical work enjoyable and rewarding and did spend time and energy ducking, weaving and keeping abreast or ahead of general organisation developments. Politics, with a small p, has to be in the engineers' armoury.

I always told our children to look towards work and positions that they enjoyed and could make something of. They all have in various ways, and have no desire to leave the country (unless perhaps chased out by Corbyn).

When I was involved in recruiting technical staff, i always looked for those who could bring more than just plain engineering qualifications. Most of them have gone on to highly successful careers.

Listen to the lyrics of "The Gambler". You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold em'. British engineering can be , and has been, a great, fun, stressful place to work.

Maybe people who just fit in and wave qualifications first are more suited to the European mindset?

[alan_m]

At the beginning of my career in (electronic) engineering this was true and you had to become a manager if you wanted to progress up the pay scale. Towards the middle to end of my career this changed and I progressed by staying mainly technical.

My (biased) observation for UK engineering was that managers were often failed engineers and project managers often just monitored the spend rather than controlling it because they had very little idea that a project was technically failing until the money ran out.

This is not to say that occasionally I did encounter some very good project managers.

[Brian Gaff]

A lot of the trouble here is that we do not know how to manage people. We are still back in the mill owner exploiting the workers phase. Until we can stop the them and us ethos, then many European companies will be better. I'm not so sure about France though.... Brian

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You do realise that puts them in the same position as our very own Mr Doom? Runs away, rather than pay his share of running the country?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Quite. Surprising how many UK industries were not viable under UK ownership, but are when managed by others. Perhaps 'they' import all the workforce too.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I don't do politics, never did. I have cut short interviews when the moron fixated on the project net value wouldn't shut up.

An Engineer has to have integrity, that is the most important quality in his armoury.

I do not "do" people, I do projects involving a physical process. The data collected along the way is either right or wrong, no amount of "politics" will make what is wrong right.

One isn't the most popular Engineer our clients came across, I had damn few friends amongst project managers too.

Every last item with my signature on it is correct, it works and I fully stand by it.

That's proper Engineering.

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

To be honest I was never a manager, I was promoted to a position where I ran an MOD calibration lab in the early days. The theory was that anyone able to handle the technicalities could oversee others.

I learned a lot from that promotion.

To never, ever go into a management role again.

Since then I have seen good Engineers wasted, dealing with staff and trivia instead of getting on with the challenging stuff.

AB

[Bill]

In message [e-mail]>, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> writes

No. The particular son I'm thinking of would take you on any day about not paying his fair share in tax. All paid in this country, and fully paid up. He has a decent house with worthwhile garden which he is gradually bringing back from a very distressed state. He needs the house to contain his fully equipped office that enables him to be available and able to work internationally from home when necessary. He is basically on call or working 24/7 between offices.

What would move is the business he works for. They are not fazed by Brexit. They are appalled by the Corbyn led business tax plans and have made preparations to move somewhere that would not decimate such a business, if that became necessary. Massively over taxing flair and drive has failed in the past and in today's world is even less likely to succeed.

[Bill]

In message [e-mail], Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp [e-mail] writes

Of course all that is true, but that's my point. Engineers need to broaden their horizens and not live in a little technical ghetto.

God knows I'm boring, but you have to get people who don't understand to think Wow now and again

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I love my technical grotto.

I love to explain to visitors coming into my little grotto, just what I do with the Amps, Volts, Ohms, pipework, pumps and all the other bits that make life truly interesting.

I watch their eyes roll up and become glazed.

One day..... :-)

AB

[Bill]

In message [e-mail], Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp [e-mail] writes

I'm sure we've all done that and been depressed or amused. It's knowing when to do that and when to know to say "I can make a thing that you put this in here and that comes out there".

At one stage we had a workshop with a window right by the back door of the building. People would drive in, park and, if they had no pass, would often bang on the window expecting an engineer to walk round and let them in. It could be a pain or an excuse to chat. One day one of the engineers was studying the manual for some faulty equipment, when the bang on the window came and was ignored. Next day, I got a snotty message from a very senior person, saying that my engineer had the gall to ignore him and "just carry on reading". I just copied the most difficult page of the manual and sent it to him, suggesting he could help by explaining how precisely the thing worked. I got a nice message back saying "Point taken", and ever after he always greeted me like a long lost friend, with a smile and cheerful words.

Failure of communication from management to engineer is probably usually the fault of poor British management, but there has to be effort on both sides.

[Pamela]

I've worked for a British multinational and an American multinational. The difference is huge and not to Britain's credit.

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

An impressive solution, and all credit to your skills.

Alas I would probably have generated an increase in blood pressure for everyone concerned.

Perfection has always been a little ahead of me :-(

AB

[Archibald Tarquin Blenkinsopp]

I would certainly second that.

I worked for a major world producer of chemicals, USA based and a name well known in every country. Fairly good solid Engineering was the foundation.

Before that I was at a major UK company, who's product range included PC's and mainframes.

The UK company was what ICL sank to, I think Fujitsu were running part of it's operations at the time I was there.

Engineering expertise had gone. The company aim had gone from engineering to fawning all over the director and odd few Japanese big wigs.

Toward the end of my work there I was at a staff meeting, the aims of splitting people into different groups appeared to be good management, until the "groups" started to express their opinions for efficiencies. They were more concerned that group "A" might have a couple of minutes more break time than group "B". This was what the group discussion revolved around!

That actually happened, I was there.

The other aspect of the meeting that summed up the stupidity of management was their payment approach, they thought it clever to hold off payment for anything to the last possible minute, four months was the ideal goal!

Most stuff came from RS in the end, who could suffer the slight setback in payment time, no doubt because of the buffering effect of their profits.

That was D2D, they do not exist now.

AB

[Levi Jones]

Clearly not Honda, Nissan and Ford.

Plenty of them do employ immigrants.