Us old boys

This was something I wrote a lttle while back :

When I came into the profession, I was taught by bluddy scots and tuff yorkshiremen on how to do calculations by hand, in the days of slide rules. It were 'ard (got to do the accents in your head).

But I learned a lot about the difference between clever and smart. Stuff grads learn today are clever but they are not smart. They come into the profession desperate for knowledge, experience and smartness. We have let them down badly. I spend a lot of my time with the Gen Y, find them enthusiastic, willing to listen, showing them examples, ( the good, the bad and the ugly) so they can judge the wisdom of the old boys. My generation were caught with dropped pants when desktop computers arrived for good and we haven't learned to pull them up since. Pre-windows computers (mainframe, basic and Fortran) was the age of engineering, we put man on the moon, built nuclear power stations, military specs and the banking industry was built on this... but when Bill Gates sold his stuff to a couple of secretaries, we fossilised and froze in the headlights of the future.

I have worked worldwide and am amazed at the global indifferences to the needs of the younger generation. All great work begins with a blank piece of paper and a couple of simple engineering rules,
- draw it out
- keep it simple
- Build the concept
- Identify the problem
- identify the principle action
- define your solution
then use the computer to verify your judgment.

Too many leap into the software, copy past examples (even if they are bad), work in isolation, don't ask questions and cannot justify what they are doing.I believe we need to think about how to agree a common platform for engineering design regardless of experience or generation. We need to define the minimum standard of calculations (then drawings) to ensure we maintain the wisdom of the past masters and pass on the tools of our craft to the innovators of the future.

We are strangling our profession with moans and depressing habits. I understand it but let's move on from the past, we are the seeds of the future.

It is a fantastic time to be in the profession, or at least it should be.

There now lad! I said my piece....puff puff....