The growing problem of a lack of Maintenace Technicians. Have you had any success ?

mk42 said:

I find it very beneficial to avoid workman's clothes whenever possible (though I don't go all the way to suit and tie). Impressions mean a lot. If someone sees you as a trade, they'll treat you like a trade. If they see you as a businessman, they'll treat you like one of those. For most people, those two terms are mutually exclusive, which is probably a big part of the problem discussed in this thread.

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Exactly. I very rarely wear jeans to the job or customer site, black or blue slacks. "Dress For success". "The eye eats first".

1) We need to make engineers work with their hands so they understand reality and appreciate the skills of mechanics, electricians, and trades. I made all my engineers do startups and help with panel building. If they didn't want to do that, I didn't want them on my payroll.

2) We need to restore apprenticeship programs so that the technicians can do the job.

3) We need to have society respect good, honest work and pay accordingly. That applies to technicians, teachers, welders - a whole spectrum of professionals. Why should a social worker with marginal real world impact get more money than the people that keep our civilization running?

Tom,
+1

I am an electrical engineer by trade and am now in the IT department.

My classmates laughed at me when I took an industrial maintenance job !
the laugh is on them now.

I can design control systems, hydraulic systems, and also do machine design,
build panels, do quotes, purchasing manager, plc, HMI, scada programming, installations, debug, tear down / move/ rebuild.

basically I am willing to get dirty doing what ever is necessary to get the job done and production going within my physical limitations and work authorizations (nothing above 480, do not have the training for that).

i wish the kids i work with now had that attitude, here today - gone next week because they work to hard or get to dirty, or don't like the rotating shift or hours (shifts are covered up front before they get hired).

james

Tom Jenkins said:

1) We need to make engineers work with their hands so they understand reality and appreciate the skills of mechanics, electricians, and trades. I made all my engineers do startups and help with panel building. If they didn't want to do that, I didn't want them on my payroll.

2) We need to restore apprenticeship programs so that the technicians can do the job.

3) We need to have society respect good, honest work and pay accordingly. That applies to technicians, teachers, welders - a whole spectrum of professionals. Why should a social worker with marginal real world impact get more money than the people that keep our civilization running?

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That deserved to be quoted. Hear, hear.

jstolaruk said:

Exactly. I very rarely wear jeans to the job or customer site, black or blue slacks. "Dress For success". "The eye eats first".

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I'll dress depending on who I am seeing at a job site. Project kickoffs where it's all high-level project managers and the people paying the PO I'll come in as business causal. If I'm talking to the people in the trenches, or there to do work I've found showing up in jeans and steal-toe boots "ready to go" gets me instant credibility rather than if I look like a salesman.

Know your audience.

LoganB said:

Schools are incentivized to pass students, not to teach them. Everyone is more concerned with the appearance of success than actual success, and god forbid you actually fail a student and make them try harder.

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This is perfect.

Paully's5.0 said:

Know your audience.

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Exactly again. I'm there for start-up commissioning, follow-up, or training; others are there to assist in the trenches. We each have our roles and my trench days are behind me. Probably get hurt anyways its been so long.

cjd1965 said:

My daughter is looking at University , so i was leafing through a jobs booklet targetted at students and i could see starting salaries listed. Lawyaers, Acountants, Retail managment etc all had high pay, upto 50K. Engineering was 20-25K

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Wait, is retail management like being the manager of something like a clothing store? Over here, those jobs usually pay barely better than the just above minimum wage of the employees.

Paully's5.0 said:

I'll dress depending on who I am seeing at a job site. Project kickoffs where it's all high-level project managers and the people paying the PO I'll come in as business causal. If I'm talking to the people in the trenches, or there to do work I've found showing up in jeans and steal-toe boots "ready to go" gets me instant credibility rather than if I look like a salesman.

Know your audience.

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Agreed there. If you know you're going straight to the floor, hardy clothes and PPE is the way to go.

But I know a great many engineers that will attend the project kickoff in the jeans and steel toes as well, and then they're surprised when the business types all look at them funny.