[BC] Matching jobs and engineers

[RichardBJohnson at comcast.net]

It's not much different in Design Engineering
nowadays. The smallest electronic component
recent graduates have ever had to work with
is a lap-top computer. They usually know
that there is something else inside of them,
but that's for the lowlife in Japan, China, or
India to worry about. These engineers never
deal with hardware. Instead, they do
"simulations," which means they learned
how to run a graphical entry program.

I remember one of these engineers looking
at the laser markings on a surface-mount
resistor. I went by his office an hour later
and he was still looking at it. I thought
maybe he was involved in some QC
inspection and I shouldn't interrupt him

After nearly a whole day, I went  by his
office again and inquired about his continuing
resistor inspection.

"You know," he said, "I just can't figure it out!"

"Figure what out?" I queried.

He said, "This resistor is 10 kilohms. It
says so right here!"

I said, "Yes?"

He said, "How does it know?"

I couldn't make up a story that good!

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


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Ronald J. Dot'o Sr." <ron.doto at comcast.net>
> I used to work with an AF Reservist avionics tech back in '96 who told 
> me that all that the techs do these days is change out black boxes and 
> send them in to a central repair facility.  So much for real 
> technicians!    A stockboy at the supermarket could do that!
> 
> When I joined the AF in1960 they sent me to ECM maintenance school 
> which took us from DC through microwave in theory and then hands on 
> training on the sets we'd be working on in the field.
> 
> I guess it's cheaper than training the troops and supplying test eqt. 
> at each base, but still...
> 
> Ron D