[BC] Staffing levels

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

Engineering job problems?

It is everywhere. Look at what the accountants have done
to the stock market. At the so-called hi-tech company where
I am employed, we recently had a régime change from the
top down. We have a new CEO, new COO, new VP of
Human Resources, new CFO, and a new VP of Engineering
­the whole nine yards. Since this company was founded to
perform the engineering work that companies like General
Electric, Siemens, and Toshiba was out-sourcing, it looked
as though there was a pretty good future for engineers of
all disciplines.

It is not true anymore. The first thing the HR VP did was change
all the engineering levels and methods of determining those
levels. At one time we had eight engineering levels from
Junior Engineer to Principal Engineer. Now we have five,
not with names, but numbers. They run from 40 to 44,
with the mean value being 42.

See

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Answer_to_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything

for those who don’t remember the “Hitchhikers Guide to
the Galaxy.” It puts engineers into little accounting-sized
boxes and removes any individual identity. The next step
will be to remove the office walls. This will put all the
engineers in a big room, a sea of desks as far as the
eye can reach, like the accountants did at GE’s Advanced
Development Group.

So, most of the engineers will migrate out of the industry
leaving only the incompetent few who don’t have the guts
to contribute individually, needing the crutch of the “team”
to help spread the blame for their failures. It is coming.

The solution is a robust economy with lots of jobs of
all disciplines. In such an economy the negative effects
of the accountants are diluted and become inconsequential.

Accountants cannot be trusted to run businesses. Although
they are essential, they are like fire, making good servants,
but horrible masters.

--
Cheers,
Richard B. Johnson
Read about my book
http://www.LymanSchool.org

  -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: Cowboy <curt at spam-o-matic.net>

 >  There's a fairly well respected engineer in this market who beat me
 >  out of a project gig not too long ago, by quoting a rate LESS THAN HALF of
 >  what I'd quoted.
 >
 >  Some of *US* who feel under paid or underemployed, and rant about
 >  bean counters need only look in the mirror !