Doing the right thing.

ContractEng,

I love good banter as much as the next guy. I agree, I've see all that and more, so I'll ask a question...

What can we do?

It's almost suicidal, however, one avenue is your Congressman and Senator. I often write them and include this issues. I'm sure the FBI has my picture in the Post Office J. But in all seriousness, I address this issue often in emails to them. Wall Street mentality (profit) is OK, but it's short term only. It drives middle management to exclude workers in it's decisions. Deming said worker involvement it critical for quality.

One company, Duke Power, which I had worked for a wile back, had incredible quality (worker involvement) and was (still is) very profitable.

While I agree with most of your post, I don't think the Japanese are immune from this thinking.

The last 2 Sony products I have bought will be the last 2 I will buy from them, as the quality and functionality are not what I have expected. They have fallen into the trap of declaring far in advance what they are to release (6-9months), and seem to have problems fulfilling expectations they have made themselves.

Apple, while not perfect, have learned their lesson in that respect, and only announce new product once it has been proven to work, and is ready for shipping. This way, the customer is never misled by claims of "that which is to come", and any slippage of launch is not seen by the public.

This seems to be a symptom of accountants running companies instead of engineers.

engineers should run companies?? ;-)

I thought that was Sales job!

I too see the problems you call out. They have me searching for a new job, but I doubt there are many places not following that line of thought. Finding a Mom & Pop mfg business is the only hope, then pay is 1/2 of anywhere else, but if I can feel good about my work...

It's all about money<=>power; so you ask what we can do. I don't have the answer but I bet it's near the end of the rain bow in that pot of gold that every one is after. If we can stop being greedy and putting high value on material things our lives would indeed be much better.

I think we need to listen to our highschool history teacher and go figgure out what past civs have done. I wonder sometimes if this growing desire our "developed" societies have for money and tangible goods can be parralleled to past civilizations that florished only to collaps on them selves. Perhaps a communal ideas were overcompensating attempts to correct these issues... I do know that this very similar problem has occured in the past and that we should study past societies to understand where we are going wrong. Obvoiusly things were different then, with different levels of technology than we have now, but the basic principle of human tendancies haven't changed much.

my $0.02 and change ;)

A little occasionally is a waste of time.

A little and often is fine.

A lot occasionally, I can live with.

But a lot, all the time is asking too much!

This is not a engineer vs whatever situation. The problem is different personalities in a team.

Any person not satisfied with the chosen policy must act to his conviction.;

The person must first try to convince management with good clear arguments. (remember that even engineers do not agree all the time). An answer must be presented for each but. Good management will listen.

The most fights i have seen was however over trivial differences.

All very good points Hendrik.