help our supplier is a dumbass circus

[RamblinRover]

@RallyWrench

[A Former User]

@RamblinRover said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

Look out, Mr. Tummy. Mr. Endofwork Laphroaig is coming in dry.

Guess this is as good a place as any to remind Oppo that Robbie Burns Day is Wednesday. There is now no excuse for not having any on hand.

[LooseonExit]

@MasterMario said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

@BicycleBuck said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

The engineers never touch CAD themselves.

That sounds nice...I have yet to be at a place where I had a CAD tech. I've worked for some pretty big companies too. One of them even had CAD techs at one point before I joined, but some accountant or middle manager somewhere decided it would be cheaper to have engineers do their own drawings.

Yeah… Da fuq is this? Never in my nearly 20yrs have a had a CAD designer to do modeling, let alone a CAD tech/drafter to do drawings. I’ve gotta be close to 20k hrs of CAD time now. I’m even the PDM Admin. Plz send help.

[Highlander]

@RamblinRover When we started using Bently Projectwise for saving drawings I got a lot of crap drawings for back checking. I would be verifying an edit and discover that 5 other things had changed from the previous drawing.

[RamblinRover]

@Highlander ...and not changed for the better, I'll warrant.

[pip bip]

@RamblinRover "fun!"

[BicycleBuck]

@LooseonExit said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

@MasterMario said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

@BicycleBuck said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

The engineers never touch CAD themselves.

That sounds nice...I have yet to be at a place where I had a CAD tech. I've worked for some pretty big companies too. One of them even had CAD techs at one point before I joined, but some accountant or middle manager somewhere decided it would be cheaper to have engineers do their own drawings.

Yeah… Da fuq is this? Never in my nearly 20yrs have a had a CAD designer to do modeling, let alone a CAD tech/drafter to do drawings. I’ve gotta be close to 20k hrs of CAD time now. I’m even the PDM Admin. Plz send help.

Modeling? The bridge guys use some specialized software for modeling. Drawings are done in CAD by a tech. The water resources folks use GIS for hydrologic modeling. They don't produce drawings of anything. Just maps and spreadsheets. The techs don't do any modeling. Just drawing production.

I sit across the aisle from the CAD techs, so I see the engineers wander over to give them direction. I'll wander the rest of the office to see what the engineers have up on their screens. In all my time here, it's always been modeling software or spreadsheets. But I'm starting to doubt myself and need to take a poll.

[LooseonExit]

@BicycleBuck

Back in the day apparently engineers handed off ideas to CAD designers to do the actual model work apparently. I’ve always handled the whole design process from concept to production - calcs, specs, design, and drawings. Then added fab quotes, manuals, etc. Now I also do RFQs through client integration including the POs, though I feel this is somewhat uncommon. Still, the scope of the engineering job function itself feels likes it’s expanded wildly over my years.

[ibRAD]

@LooseonExit I started out like that. That was old school thinking though. I'd much rather do my own design work than to explain a concept to someone for them to develop. I guess it depends how good your CAD person is and how clear your concept is in your head before you begin.

[nerd_racing]

@A-Former-User said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

@RamblinRover said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

Look out, Mr. Tummy. Mr. Endofwork Laphroaig is coming in dry.

Guess this is as good a place as any to remind Oppo that Robbie Burns Day is Wednesday. There is now no excuse for not having any on hand.

AYE! I'm going to a huge Robbie Burns Night celebration Saturday with my Fiancée.

[nerd_racing]

@LooseonExit said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

@BicycleBuck

Back in the day apparently engineers handed off ideas to CAD designers to do the actual model work apparently. I’ve always handled the whole design process from concept to production - calcs, specs, design, and drawings. Then added fab quotes, manuals, etc. Now I also do RFQs through client integration including the POs, though I feel this is somewhat uncommon. Still, the scope of the engineering job function itself feels likes it’s expanded wildly over my years.

Same here. I have to do research, development, prototype modeling, calculations, pre-production drawings, simulations, sometimes inspection and assembly, validation testing and reports, and then production drawings. Also have to process revision changes sometimes too...

[A Former User]

@nerd_racing Couldn't find a good event locally and I have a slight cold now. I'm hoping it clears enough to enjoy at least a small dram tomorrow eve.

Coincidentally...went into a shop today that carries Glenturret Peated and Triple Wood on their website to ask it they have plans to sell the 12 year (the one everyone wants) in the near future. Clerk disappeared out back and when he reemerged said, "You're in luck. We have it, but aren't selling it until Thursday". A day late for Burns night, but still feel lucky to get the heads up for Thursday morning. :-)

[bbg2d]

Feeling your pain today @RamblinRover

Just got a purchase agreement via a lawyer (strike one).

Normally these are a few pages long, but this one is 56 pages (strike two).

The bit that my job pertains to is ancillary to the whole purchase agreement, and technically doesn't fall under the LLC being purchased but a separate legal company (messy strike three).

Probably going to have to bring in our own lawyer to try and clean this up.

[BicycleBuck]

@LooseonExit said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

Back in the day apparently engineers handed off ideas to CAD designers to do the actual model work apparently.

It's still that way in some places.

I had a long conversation with our "office administrator" about job responsibilities. We used to parcel out tasks to support staff, but those responsibilities are being handled more often by professional staff. For example, expense reports. We have a convoluted system which is difficult to navigate, especially for people who only do expense reports once or twice a year. This results in an engineer spending a couple of hours trying to get their report done. At a billing rate of $50/hr (with a 3.2 overhead multiplier), that two-hour task costs the client $320. For a $1,200 expense report, that $320 is 27% of the expense report cost - money which the client doesn't realize they are paying since it shows up as labor, not as part of the expense report.

The same report can be completed by the office admin (because she does them for the executives) in a much shorter time at a lower billing rate, saving money for our client.

But that's beneath her sense of self-importance and she refuses to do them.

This attitude is widespread and I am of the opinion that it drives up the cost of everything.

[LooseonExit]

@BicycleBuck
Agreed. Anything I do internally outside of what should be my standard duties costs the company a fair bit of money. But if I can bill it to clients it costs them a ton, whether is a standard engineering function or not. Like drawings, participating in long email chains responding about how your ideas are unbelievably stupid non-viable, etc. I recently wrote a tech paper with a geotech and our total charge out rate was pretty damn hilarious, especially when you consider how much time dicking around with MS Word formatting cost the client. I suppose the end result is the killing I make off clients makes up for me doing something like spending an ungodly amount of time filling out and getting POs approved for internal/non-billable work. So why hire someone else.

[BicycleBuck]

@LooseonExit said in help our supplier is a dumbass circus:

I suppose the end result is the killing I make off clients makes up for me doing something like spending an ungodly amount of time filling out and getting POs approved for internal/non-billable work.

I suppose it wouldn't bother me as much if most of our clients weren't public entities. That's my tax dollars being spent for an engineer to file an expense report!