MarathonMike
Diamond Member
I recently returned to work part-time after retiring. I work mainly with young engineers teaching them how to think their way through problems that arise during integration or production. They are generally bright and very nice but I see a lack of motivation to really take ownership. They seem to want to know just enough, "just their piece" without wanting to know the big picture. I keep telling them the true value of an engineer is knowing the entire system at least well enough to know all of the pieces involved and what is doing what. So far I get head nods but nobody stepping up. Oh well.
The other thing that I see is this new group is REALLY social to the point that it distracts from work. A couple of them have their own coffee club with their own bean grinder and coffee machine and have gourmet coffee breaks mid morning. These breaks often extend to 20 or 30 minutes and are quite distracting to other people in the area. I can just imagine if I had brought in a bean grinder and coffee machine when I was a young engineer Whoo boy! That would have lasted about 1 day and the department manager would have called me in on the carpet to ask questions like "Are we not giving you enough to do? Do we pay you to throw parties?"
I guess it's so hard to hire and keep 20 something engineers these day the company bends over backwards in it's tolerance of the new generation. But so far I have to say I don't like what I see.
The other thing that I see is this new group is REALLY social to the point that it distracts from work. A couple of them have their own coffee club with their own bean grinder and coffee machine and have gourmet coffee breaks mid morning. These breaks often extend to 20 or 30 minutes and are quite distracting to other people in the area. I can just imagine if I had brought in a bean grinder and coffee machine when I was a young engineer Whoo boy! That would have lasted about 1 day and the department manager would have called me in on the carpet to ask questions like "Are we not giving you enough to do? Do we pay you to throw parties?"
I guess it's so hard to hire and keep 20 something engineers these day the company bends over backwards in it's tolerance of the new generation. But so far I have to say I don't like what I see.