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Tuesday, July 03, 2012

#6 - Casting Doubt on Your Abilities

This is a weird one to categorize, but basically when someone you are working for doubts that you really had the ability to gain your license in the first place.

Recently, I passed the PE exam for my home state. BB seemed to love to throw that back into my face, particularly if he was too lazy to go over something he wanted drafted.

The phrase of the day was usually, "...well, you're a PE, how would you do it." "I don't know, aren't you the PE?"

Another BB in my career, years ago, openly wondered in front of me, "how did you ever pass the FE exam??" This was in regards to his company's calculation standards, again someone who was either too busy or too lazy to tell me what they wanted to see. At that point in my career, having an EIT meant that I should also magically know how his company sets up drawings and calculations because that was all common knowledge, so someone that just got hired would totally know the inner workings of a company that's been established for, oh, 50 years or so...*sigh*

The mark of a bad boss is someone who will not teach you. Period. End of story. Whether you are an engineer or an architect or a cashier, you have to be taught how things work. That's how experience works, you learn from more experienced others either directly or through a manual of some sort. Don't ever let a BB make you feel stupid for not knowing something.

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Sunday, July 01, 2012

#5 - Getting Personal

I can go at length on this subject. Good bosses can gather how far they can delve into your personal life, bad bosses go too deeply or simply don't care that you are another human being. It can go both ways. BB cared much too deeply and it was very offputting.

I had picked up BB from home and brought him to work one day. While on the drive there, he kept saying I drive as if I don't have any confidence and that he seems to attract women with low self-confidence. Mind you, BB has always bragged about having a marriage for 29 years, so this seemed a bit odd to bring up in a close situation such as a car ride. (He did also brag about his many "girlfriends" as well, but would later claim that he meant "friends that were girls," but I digress.)

I then tell him that I like to hug the curve in a turn because it makes me more comfortable and I know that I won't be swinging off into the lane to the right and possibly alarming the people in the car in that lane.

We then start talking about cars and I was going on about how compact my car is to my older one and that it made parallel parking much easier. He then proceeds to ask "oh, do you want to park?" I ask for clarification and he goes, "oh nevermind..." Eww...

In another exchange, I was letting him know that I may need some time off because my boyfriend was having some surgery. When I told him about the location, he proceeds to intimate that my boyfriend is lying to me and is really going to that part of the world to cheat on me.

"Are you sure he's going for surgery? I don't think he is. That's a wild place down there. I'd want to go there and tell me wife I was having surgery too?"

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#4 - Name Calling

We were all looking over a building, BB, Coworker and myself. BB points out that I had a beam in the wrong place. TECHNICAL WARNING: We consult the architectural section and determine that the beam, instead of being supported by the ends of cantilevered beams out from a group of columns, the beam should really be supported by the columns themselves.

In front of Coworker BB proceeds to chide me for "making a kindergartener mistake." "This is just stupid, how could you send out sh*tty drawings like this, you should know better." "You're making us look like *ssholes!"

So let's recap that:
- yes, I made a mistake on the load path
- I am now a kindergartener
- and have humiliated the company as a whole
- I also release sh*tty drawings

So, for the grand scheme of the building, I made one mistake and somehow that invites a complete criticism of my abilities as an engineer.

However, when the mistake was on BB's end, he would just demand his way was going to happen regardless. I had overheard an exchange with BB and Coworker. I didn't agree with BB's load path on another project and told him that we didn't need to have attachments in a certain area because no load was being resisted. He then takes the project over to Coworker, who after looking through everything agrees with me.

"BB, you don't need attachments here, the load is being resisted here."
"Coworker, I don't care, I want attachments here."
"But these are costly connections, they aren't needed?"
"I don't care."

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#3 - Everyone Makes Mistakes...

...except you BB, right?

I had been given a set of markups for a set of floor plans. BB's corrections consisted of "12-14 inch floor trusses @ 2'-0" oc." So I used 12 inch trusses on the floor plans globally.

About a month goes by, I'm deep into another project with Coworker. I hear BB on the phone confirming 14 inch trusses with some entity, I have no idea who. BB proceeds to run out of his office and demand why I put 12 trusses on plan. The exchange goes like this, All Caps denoted yelling:

"WHY DID YOU USE 12" TRUSSES?"
"Um, because the markup had a range and..."
"YOU NEVER ANSWER MY QUESTIONS PROPERLY. WHY DID YOU USE 12" TRUSSES?"
"Because the markup says '12-14 inch trusses..."
"WHERE DO YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES MENTIONED!? POINT TO ME WHERE YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES!"
I proceed to point to his markup that says "12-14 inch trusses @ 2'-0" oc."
"WHERE THE F*CK DO YOU SEE 12" TRUSSES MENTIONED!?!?"
"Right here."
"NEXT TIME YOU HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT SOMETHING, ASK ME INSTEAD OF SENDING OUT DRAWINGS LIKE THIS."

Meanwhile, previous to this, he had said he looked over the drawings...

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