[MKSixer]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

It's only because I came up the same way. Always a bit of an underdog; never one for school. I did well in school but just sitting there in class, "learning" but not "doing" was brutal. If it weren't for my parents (Both PhD's) pushing me along in highschool and college, I'd more than likely have ended up in a blue collar job doing something with my hands. I got out of college as fast as humanly possible, took my engineering degree, and immediately went into the least appreciated of all engineering roles: Service Engineering. Instead of sitting behind a CAD terminal deigning parts all day I was in the shop taking things apart, analyzing why they failed, and figuring out how to make them better. I quickly learned that the men and women on the plant floor, who don't have a day of college under their belts, are often times the most talented people in the room.

I once worked for an extremely well known company in New England that made some very cool, groundbreaking, products. I was managing the Sustaining Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering groups at the time. The Product Development team was staffed and lead by MIT grads, Harvard grads, etc. Extraordinarily smart and completely full of themselves. Many of these dudes later went on to work at Apple, Tesla, Google, etc. Anyway, one of my service techs was frustrated with a particular electrical connector corroding; a condition that could lead to a dangerous accident for the product user. I went up to the Product Development "palace" as we called it, and chatted with the head of electrical engineering. "That's impossible" be told me. The connectors are gold plated, they cannot and will not ever corrode. If I has $1 for every time a full of himself engineer told me his part would never fail..... I said "I understand what you are saying but I'm telling you not only is it not impossible, I have one downstairs right now. Follow me, let's go look." He refused. He was so full of himself and so arrogant that he couldn't be bothered to get up from his God Damn desk and go look at a problem that could cause our customer serious harm. Frustrated, I went down to the shop, grabbed the part, and dropped it on the dude's desk. His eyes got real big as he looked at it. "This cant happen! How can this happen" This should not be possible." Yeah dude, how about you listen to the men and women who repair this product ever single day. No they arent MIT Engineering school grads but it doesn't matter. They literally know this product better than you do.

I have no time for arrogance. You earn my respect through what you do, not through what you studied.

We have similar stories growing up. I think that's why you and I understand each other so well. I couldn't tell you how many times I've been in situations where some theoretician thought something was perfect/infallible only to have it blow up in their faces...sometimes literally. Always ask the end user and techs how things are, objectively. I can guarantee they thought of some situation or have seen some situation the exalted designer didn't foresee and therefore didn't plan for that contingency.

Cheers, my friend-MK