<p>I am working/co-oping at a large company globally recognized but in a location that is a rural setting. I am working with several engineers and some management. I am however experiencing alot of hostility from engineers who have been with the company 10+ yrs and don't have a college degree (basically worked their way up to engineering). I ran into a meeting and found some individuals commenting on my education and some "under the cover" sly remarks that stemmed from some issues we have been having on some projects of ours. Is anyone else experiencing this kind of situation? Am I the only one? How should I act/approach such a situation? Just curious because it ****ed me off last week.</p>
<p>Worked their way up to engineer?</p>
<p>Not sure about the states, but in South Africa where im from, a lot of the times you’ll see guys who have worked their way up from a trades position to doing engineers work. They’ll refer to themselves as engineers, and sign their name as Eng QBE (qualified by experience).</p>
<p>Exactly what jgoddenusa said. They used to work in field as operators now they’re in engineering</p>
<p>Well, there’s nothing you can do about it because they’re above you in rank.</p>
<p>The only thing you can do is to perform well and show them how wrong they are. If you can’t perform better than or at expectations, then you only make them feel more justified in disparaging your education.</p>
<p>It’s harder to attract educated people to the rural areas. The fact that they are doing a job they don’t have a degree for makes them nervous. Your presence is threatening to them. It’s natural. I’d try to get the heck out of there :)</p>
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<p>Rank? As far as I can tell OP wasn’t in the military? There’s a lot he can do. He could start by either leaving and not gracing that company with his probably strong potential, or outperforming those engineers in every way while being as humble as possible.</p>
<p>I disagree with Kamel, and I am wondering what they could have said that would anger you (the OP). My guess is that something wrong/bad happened and they feel that their experience and understanding wasn’t taken into consideration and may have been able to prevent this situation. </p>
<p>Personally, I think engineers have a lot to learn from operations and that operations tend to 'scapegoat engineers more times than not. If individuals come out of operations into engineering they still tend to take this attitude, right or wrong, and are great at playing the blame game. </p>
<p>Engineers generally serve as change agents. The best way to ensure that a change is well received is to include everyone with a vested stake in the operation on the development of the change and/or the implimentation of the change. I also make it abundantly clear that the team is responsible for the success of the project, not any one individual. This way they can’t take a “I told you so” attitude or place blame anywhere but on themselves.</p>
<p>Finally, engineers need to learn to humble themselves. It is ok to ask help or guidance from those more experienced. I would ask them what there problem is and how I could go about making sure that it didn’t happen again. They will either tell you, which is good, and you can make a cultural change. Or they won’t tell you, in which case I will let them know that as long as they keep their mouths shut that they are just as much a part of the problem and not part of the solution.</p>
<p>Not sure what part of what I said you didn’t agree with. Was it about rank? Rank and respect are not the same thing. OP should certainly respect their experience, but I don’t think the word rank should ever be used in the private sector. Leaders and mentors are one thing, but rank infers a sort of absolute submission that just has no place anywhere you aren’t getting shot at.</p>
<p>My point was not that those guys don’t have valuable experience, but if they’re being condescending and specifically mentioning his education it’s probably because they’re threatened or jealous. Not having a degree is the source for a lot of insecurity for people who have advanced in their jobs. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both had some insecurity about not finishing college. Obviously OP isn’t going to be an expert at the job initially, that doesn’t mean his education isn’t valuable and can’t be threatening to those without it.</p>
<p>It’s still possible OP is just being arrogant. If he seems to not be willing to work as a team that would also be a big problem. </p>
<p>The social dynamics of being the new guy is tough, though. It’s even more tough if something about your background causes coworkers to perceive you as competition.</p>
<p>I disagree with the “get the heck out” or advice to leave. Sorry I wasn’t clear on that.</p>
<p>I live in a very rural area in a state that ranks fairly low on percentage of population with any type of higher education.</p>
<p>My son will be heading off this fall to go into civil.</p>
<p>I understand the OP because in my area I frequently experience attidutes almost expressing a dislike for education. I regulary hear complaints that engineers only understand theory and aren’t taught how things actually work and aren’t worthy of the salaries they are given.</p>
<p>Not far from where we live, an interstate is being expanded and in a nearby town they are constructing an off-ramp. Apparently incorrect measurements were taken and some work that had been completed, had to be taken down. A few weeks ago I was having dinner at a restaurant with my son. At a neighboring table the guests were loudly mocking and ridiculing those who worked on the project. I was actually surprised when they said that the state had wasted their money hiring engineers and that they should have hired farmers because farmers could have done a better job.</p>
<p>There’s really nothing you can do to teach those that don’t want to be taught. All you can do is take pride in the fact that you are not among them.</p>
<p>Well, the issue is I wasn’t flaunting my education. I’m an intern and HR always asks what school do you go to. As an intern, its something people would like to know. Yes i am school. Yes I’m trying to get experience. Yes I had some hiccups in my project, but I’m learning. I am on top of everything they have given me and I have done more projects than assigned originally. My manager loves me and has shown great appreciation (has a college degree as well). Another engineer is just giving me a hard time about some stuff I did that he didn’t give me any guidance on and just brushed the project over to me (a project in an area that I am no expert on).</p>
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The word “rank” is not exclusive to the military. They are higher in “rank” in the sense that they are in higher positions than the OP. The OP is only an intern/co-op participant; the other engineers are full-timers and have been at the company for many years, and are likely in higher “ranked” positions (on the corporate totem pole).</p>
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<p>Yeah, and you could also call your boss your taskmaster. See how he likes that.</p>
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I’m glad you agree.</p>
<p>Sometimes it is not about college degree, it is more about “my way or highway” mentality. The longer whole bunch of people stay in the same place, the lesser they like a new person or new ways positively until they realize that the new person is good at what [s]he is doing or learning fast etc. That’s called warming up. So hang in there, learn what ever you can (that’s what matters at the end of the day) and make sure your boss can give you good references.</p>
<p>Chiming in on something jrcsmom said:</p>
<p>I, too, live in a rural area very similar. Only a small number of people stick around here after they graduate. I’ve personally met a ton of people who show a blatant dislike for education. A lot of them in my family. I’ve heard people specifically talking about new hires at there workplace that have a college degree, and they have nothing but bad things to say about that person. Sometimes it sounds very childlike. (This goes for varied fields of work btw.) What I’m getting from it is that they’re insecure about this new guy/girl coming in with an education, because they may worry that those with college degrees could replace them, especially if they end up outperforming them and the company realizes it needs to make some cuts later on.</p>
<p>Special Metals, here, laid off over 80 people recently. I don’t know who got laid off, but from a friend whose dad works there and didn’t get laid off, I heard that some of them had been working there for a long time. Considering that things like that do happen, and that the new person coming in has an education, I can see myself being insecure if I was an engineer who worked up through experience instead of an education, even if I had been there for 10 years. With that said, I don’t think it’s RIGHT to treat an intern or new hire that way just because you’re insecure, but it’s human nature to feel threatened.</p>
<p>IF that’s why they did it. I was just speculating.</p>
<p>Dude. I get this <em>all</em> the time.</p>
<p>A lot of it is admittedly from being a woman in engineering, but my MS from Illinois, my licensure, my fancy resume… they create friction with a lot of the people who don’t have any of those things. Every single time I used to come onto a project site with my reasonably clean boots and my monitor tan, I’d encounter some sort of hostility. Sometimes it’d just be a quiet mistrust, or I’d be ignored completely, or they’d try to stump me, or they’d insist that they know better, or they just hit on me (sigh).</p>
<p>It took practice, but I figured out how to talk to people in a way that wouldn’t be as threatening, but that would still command respect. One of the things I’d always do, though, is acknowledge their incredibly valuable wealth of field experience. In military terms, a good lieutenant always listens to his sergeant. When I could convince them that they had the other half of the key to solving this problem, and that I was absolutely going to solicit their input and treat them as colleagues, then things went a lot better.</p>
<p>Maybe something you could do would be to go up to that colleague of yours and say, “Hey, I know you gave me this project, but I really don’t have any experience with this. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of these in the field… Do you have an hour or so sometime this week so you can show me how to tackle something like this?” It’ll go a long way in helping them see you as one of the ‘good’ engineers who is actually interested in solving problems, rather than a college guy who’ll always look down on them.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I find this thread interesting because my husband is a non-degree engineer by experience and my son an engineer by degree. They both work in an environment where there is a mix of both types of engineers. In my son’s case, at a well known national company, he works with quite a few ex-military who are non-degree engineers, as well as a few civilians. My husband, at a smaller company, works with several degree engineers who are employed as technicians and a couple of degree engineers who work at management level positions. There are a couple of other non-degree engineers at his company working in operations. </p>
<p>My son has seen some conflict between the degree/non-degree engineers, mainly because of the difference in background. Most of the entry level degree engineers have very little actual experience, so their learning curve is steep. They tend to resent the non-degree guys who have lots of hands on experience. And the military guys are seen as order takers, they can do what needs to be done, but they have to be directed. The non-degree guys think the degree guys don’t have any practical knowledge and only know what is taught in a book. And so it goes, lol!</p>
<p>My husband doesn’t really see too much of this at his small company. The EE’s that work as techs cycle in and out from the engineering school nearby, although there are a couple who have been there for years. The upstairs guys don’t pay too much attention to the operations guys, so no real conflict but maybe a little attitude there. My husband often encounters colleagues that are surprised to learn he is non-degree, he takes it as a compliment with no resentment. And quite often, my degree engineer son will call his non-degree engineer dad to discuss a project he is working on. They are in the same industry, so makes for interesting dinner conversation for them, not so much for the rest of us.</p>
<p>And aibarr gives some excellent advice, you would be wise to take heed!</p>