The Problems with Large Engineering Departments

What can you do, these things happen.

When you come across someone like this try and work around him but when you do need to work with him make sure you document requests and responses in email form rather than verbal and always try and be positive, polite and operate within the boundaries of you role.

Others have informed me that including his manager in on correspondence if at first you don't succeed, then his manager's manager, etc is a good tactic, but again caution needs to be taken that you don't portray yourself as a 'stirrer' or someone who cannot handle a simple problem themselves.

In the end he will likely doom himself and be relocated or fired. Getting stressed about it or starting a vendetta against the person to get him fired will likely backfire on you, so don't.

When they post here on CR4, well you can be a bit more confrontational and rude, but again within reason.

Also, there is a difference between lazy and acting unethical. Wally is a clear case of lazy, while Catbert is unethical.

Yes

Follow the lyn path

On a related note Mordac the Preventer of Information Services is an amateur!

As a departmental head... no one will ever tell you what's really happening, and as a worker in a department, you realize the boss has no idea what goes on...
Hmmm
'Twas probably ever thus
Del
(Maybe the boss is sh@gging Wally's wife...? )

you realize the boss has no idea what goes on...

Especially with the 'boss' that surrounds himself with 'yes' men that basks in his glowing warmth...

As a young engineer I joined a hydraulics manufacturer as the only electrical engineer to design and procure electrical control systems for the hydraulic equipment. I was assigned to my boss (a CNC engineer maintaining the machining centres in production) because he needed to control more staff in order qualify for the next higher pay grade. He didn't want to know what I was doing and I even had to write my own 6 monthly performance reviews. His boss (Head of the Development Department) was a man who had been promoted beyond his capacity and the nearest you ever got to an answer was a "definate maybe". I don't think he was capable of assessing an expenses claim and I put through many (legitimate) items that most other managers would have baulked at. That left me reporting to the Technical Director who had two years to go to retirement and who's strategy was that if he didn't make a decision for the next two years he couldn't make a wrong decision so they couldn't throw him out. I worked in an open plan office of about a hundred people including hydraulics engineers, statisticians, stress and structural engineers, a screw propeller designer, draughtsmen, tracers, support clerks and the print room operators. One draughtsman spent all his time drawing plans for cottage building and conversion work for himself and the company directors. A clerk spent more time organising his holidays than doing his job. A Deputy Manager did nothing but study drawings and specifications (he had a photographic memory and if you asked him for a 42 mm long cotter pin with a 7^o taper he could reel off the 9 digit part number immediately (very useful)). We had a tea lady who was sick so often that we also had a rota for who made the tea when she was missing.

The management had no idea what was going on. Myself and a hydraulics engineers snook off for 5 days (if we had told the high ups they would have vetoed it) to a potential customer and designed a bilge and ballast handling system for a marine engineer who was clueless. We manipulated the safety factors so that our company could use size 3 actuators while all our competitors would need to quote size 4 actuators to meet the specification. Then we bullied our sales engineers into getting the enquiry from a Japanese shipyard which resulted in a £1.3 million order. (a big order in the 1970s) The Technical Director didn't even know that we had quoted the job and nearly had apoplexy when I told him that there was £80,000 of intrinsically safe computer control equipment within the order.

Because we ere left to do our own thing it was a great training ground and I really enjoyed working there. Remarkably the company traded world wide very successfully, I only left because I was head hunted to run a control engineering company.

I've found that the "Wallies" generally get their comeuppance eventually. In good times their lack of effort/productivity is tolerated and seemingly overlooked. But managers know who does the work. As soon as the budget gets tightened or the contract goes away and the layoffs come, Wally usually gets shown the door.

Unfortunately, I've also found that the larger the company, the longer they'll last.

I like lyn's response. Don't let them interfere. Get your own work done. Be productive. People notice and will reward you.

I thrive on productivity. I've always had great results with improving efficiency on processes no matter what they consisted of. I have a hard time finding opportunity to contribute meaningful effort but you are right in that people notice. So far, the rewards have generally been pretty poor. In my experience, one is more appreciated after they have left than when they were present. Some people are just more lucky.

There is no doubt that simple luck plays into it. Opportunities need to exist before one can take advantage of them. Whether you are lucky or not, it's good to end the day knowing you've done your best. My worst days are when I have no one to blame but myself for not getting something done. I try to use that thought as a motivator. I like good days!

Small engineering departments have more issues than you can shake a stick at.

Time and money aren't always available at the same time.

We learn in family therapy that each member of a family adopts a "roll". Some take the roll of victim, others martyr, others still the helper, the tattler, the go getter, etc. It is fascinating to watch how families develop these rolls and how they rarely change in the remainder of the persons life, the roll they adopt as a child becomes the person they are.

I have seen this same thing develop in departments in the few large companies I have worked for. You should see he QC dept here. LoL I can't keep up.

After 47 years of working in various types of engineering and companies, I can say that is the way life is. Accept it or avoid it. Dilbert is very close to reality, with a few minor glitches, as cats and dogs...well you get the point.

Dilbert is a reflection of reality.