Well its Electrical Engineers running the budget and finances at the electric utilities. I'm a senior ( power) electrical engineer at one of the largest electric utilities in Texas and the country and System Engineering is in charge of the CIP, CIAC, O&M & General budgets at the company. The Finance & Accounting department hates we Engineers the budget but also run the company.

Field Engineers fix all other engineer's mistakes.

Biomedical Engineers bc we've stayed off this stupid thread.

yep... those business guys who make engineers settle for cheaper parts end up costing companies a fortune (and usually their life) in recalls, warranty repairs, and lawsuits.

As Electrical Engineers we keep the Business penny counters at bay because we write the specifications and make the Standards. This way we don't get cheap sh@t.

There are few times when I've been more certain of making a pg 1 call on a thread. The neurotic need of engineers to assert their value is incredible, especially when it in relation to related engineering disciplines that are different from ones own. A very proud subculture indeed.

if only that were true.

EE is one of the worst at it, in fact...

remember when solder used to actually stick to the pads on the board?

You not only have to deal with engineers who have conflicting business personalities, but you also have to deal with things like the EPA mandating that you find some other way to solve a problem that you've already solved because there is flaky evidence that a toddler's goldfish died because R12 may have caused the mercury readings in the cooling water for the Nuclear power plant to be 1 ppb too high once the turtle which got lead poisoning when he ate gasoline full of TEL migrated to the area.

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 4/14/2013 1:52a).]

Lol @ people who think "purse strings" = budgeting. The latter are the IDs of accounting.

No capital, no project. If you, as an engineer, can't show why your pet project is worth the investment, it's your fault. And good luck with getting the money when there are sound investments to be made

Was someone actually bragging about running the budget for a public utility?

Yup

I know lots of EEs that I work with that can run circles around me in terms of design and technical detail, but when I ask them "how does your design WORK?" They are typically clueless and hand me off to another clueless EE.

Just for reference, I am a EET working on enterprise class server development.

[This message has been edited by theterk (edited 4/14/2013 11:12a).]

biomedical

/thread

As a professional Education Engineer, I believe that we are truly the most important. None of the other engineers would be where they are without us