Bonus for engineers, is that done?

[Rick C]

On Thursday, January 23, 2020 at 10:04:03 AM UTC-5, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 23/01/20 14:25, Bill Sloman wrote:

I should have said "hearing from a number of customers about what is
important tends to kill off the more bizarre bells and whistles".

I've seen some customers add baroquely complex bells
and whistles, because that's what their marketing
thought they could sell to their end users.

There's good marketing and bad marketing... same as engineering. But marketing is done whether or not you have a department for it. Someone needs to find out exactly what is and is not a good idea to design and will sell. Only then can the engineering dogs be turned loose on the goals.

I've worked for several companies that got good intel from the marketing departments. They were the guys out there pounding the pavement looking for the good ideas.

When in the position of being their end user, I wanted
simplicity. But the salesmen like having strange alternatives
to give the man in the street the illusion that they
are making a useful choice.

Often marketing has data to defend their preferences. Laptop makers have decided to trade off functionality in laptop keyboard design for aesthetics. I'm sure this shows up in the resulting sales figures so they doubled down in their efforts and have been further compromising laptop keyboards.

Individual customers frequently want to keep on doing what worked for them on
their crude experimental lash-ups.

To be contrary...

I've even seen marketing say
"do what you did before (sotto voce: whatever that
was because we don't know) but add X",
when the customers were saying
"don't do what you did before, we only put up with it
because there was no alternative back then".

Yes, often the customer literally doesn't know what they want. They know what they don't like though. They'll tell you that in the sales figures.

Sometimes it's cheaper to give them what they want, rather than going to the
trouble of demonstrating that they don't need it.

Yes.

Summary: if an idiocy is possible, it will happen.

Or, "The customer is always right!"

--

Rick C.

-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:00:41 +0100, Piotr Wyderski
<peter.pan@neverland.mil> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

We don't have "marketing" as such, but if we did, how would marketing
droids know what is possible or what might be useful?

Knowing what is useful or needed and being punished for the inability of
the employing company to sell its own products are two completely
different issues. Being punished for designing crap that the company did
manage to sell is legitimate.

"Meeting the specification" sounds dull.

As a customer I don't care if you enjoy your job or hate it.

But I care. I don't want to be told exactly what to do, by people who
often don't know themselves. I want to understand the customer's
systems and problems and make suggestions. As EEs, we presumably
understand electricity, control theory, signals and systems,
transducers, and we took physics so appreciate some optical and
thermal issues; what we don't know we can cram for before we meet the
customer.

It's fun to go to oil refineries and jet engine manufacturers and
enormous lasers and IC fabs and cookie factories and brainstorm with
people.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 23/01/20 19:55, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:00:41 +0100, Piotr Wyderski
peter.pan@neverland.mil> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

We don't have "marketing" as such, but if we did, how would marketing
droids know what is possible or what might be useful?

Knowing what is useful or needed and being punished for the inability of
the employing company to sell its own products are two completely
different issues. Being punished for designing crap that the company did
manage to sell is legitimate.

"Meeting the specification" sounds dull.

As a customer I don't care if you enjoy your job or hate it.

But I care. I don't want to be told exactly what to do, by people who
often don't know themselves. I want to understand the customer's
systems and problems and make suggestions.

Precisely.

The key point of a successful relationship of any
sort is that you try to understand what the other
party needs, and try to supply it.

In a professional role that means you understand
the value that your customers give /their/ customers.

Or, going the "other way" in the "value chain", you
understand what makes it easier for your suppliers
to give you what you need.

As EEs, we presumably
understand electricity, control theory, signals and systems,
transducers, and we took physics so appreciate some optical and
thermal issues; what we don't know we can cram for before we meet the
customer.

It's fun to go to oil refineries and jet engine manufacturers and
enormous lasers and IC fabs and cookie factories and brainstorm with
people.

Yes, provided all parties understand and appreciate
the "game" you are "playing" while poking their concepts
with a stick.

It is also necessary to have some humility about what you
really /don't/ understand about the complexities and
subtleties of their position. Often, they haven't articulated
those to themselves, so it is unsurprising that they
don't always articulate them to you.

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 21:34:24 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 23/01/20 19:55, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jan 2020 08:00:41 +0100, Piotr Wyderski
peter.pan@neverland.mil> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

We don't have "marketing" as such, but if we did, how would marketing
droids know what is possible or what might be useful?

Knowing what is useful or needed and being punished for the inability of
the employing company to sell its own products are two completely
different issues. Being punished for designing crap that the company did
manage to sell is legitimate.

"Meeting the specification" sounds dull.

As a customer I don't care if you enjoy your job or hate it.

But I care. I don't want to be told exactly what to do, by people who
often don't know themselves. I want to understand the customer's
systems and problems and make suggestions.

Precisely.

The key point of a successful relationship of any
sort is that you try to understand what the other
party needs, and try to supply it.

In a professional role that means you understand
the value that your customers give /their/ customers.

Or, going the "other way" in the "value chain", you
understand what makes it easier for your suppliers
to give you what you need.


As EEs, we presumably
understand electricity, control theory, signals and systems,
transducers, and we took physics so appreciate some optical and
thermal issues; what we don't know we can cram for before we meet the
customer.

It's fun to go to oil refineries and jet engine manufacturers and
enormous lasers and IC fabs and cookie factories and brainstorm with
people.

Yes, provided all parties understand and appreciate
the "game" you are "playing" while poking their concepts
with a stick.

It is also necessary to have some humility about what you
really /don't/ understand about the complexities and
subtleties of their position. Often, they haven't articulated
those to themselves, so it is unsurprising that they
don't always articulate them to you.

Most people like to talk about their science or processes. Ask a few
interested-sounding questions to get them going.

I find it hard to sell to organizations that have in-house EE. The
inside guys don't want competition, have managements' ears, and can
make ludicrous promises about cost and performance. I've has such
people wait until I deliver, and then steal the design. I won't name
names.

The people who appreciate good EE interaction are generally not EEs
but have a complex problem that we can really help with. They
generally don't know exactly what they need, or what's possible.

I had one customer that, doing what the journals said, was firing
their process at 10 Hz. We got them 100K.



--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Klaus Kragelund wrote:

Let’s say you’re a standard paid engineer

Let’s say you put in an extraordinarily effort and saves your company +20
million dollars per year

A sales guy would be getting an enormous bonus, but are there any examples
of engineers getting a percentage of the savings?

A really small percentage. When I worked for Boeing, we had a reward program
which paid in Best Buy gift certificates. Saved the company a few hundred
million dollars. Got a desktop LCD TV set (3" screen).

--
Paul Hovnanian mailtoaul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
"To learn who rules over you, simply find out
who you are not allowed to criticize." - Voltaire

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Tom Gardner wrote:

The key point of a successful relationship of any
sort is that you try to understand what the other
party needs, and try to supply it.

In a professional role that means you understand
the value that your customers give /their/ customers.

That's exactly what we have in our company and is pretty typical here.
We have full-time analysts that work together with a client and try to
extract as much information as possible. Our engineers digest that and
tell the analysts the next batch of questions to ask, be they technical
or legal. On top of that there is a dedicated sales team that makes sure
the process goes smoothly.

But nobody in their right mind would punish an engineer for a sale
opportunity failure or a salesman for a solution that does not work as
advertised. The very next day they would be working for our competitors.
There are designated employees to handle all the aspects of the process
correctly, blame them -- this is a serious and heavily regulated
business, not a one man show.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

John Larkin wrote:

As a customer I don't care if you enjoy your job or hate it.

But I care. I don't want to be told exactly what to do, by people who
often don't know themselves. I want to understand the customer's
systems and problems and make suggestions.

I have never said that you are not allowed to prepare the specification
together with the customer in a way you like, or not have any other form
of activity you consider fun. But later failing to provide a product
that meets the agreed specification is exactly that -- a failure, which
makes all the fun irrelevant. I just claim that if the engineer
succeeded, but is unable to sell as much as the company wishes, it's not
his fault. Blame your sales team or any other employee that is supposed
to sell.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Bill Sloman wrote:

> Sometimes it's cheaper to give them what they want, rather than going to the trouble of demonstrating that they don't need it.

This is good for short term, but can raise your maintenance costs
enormously. "No" is often a good answer.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Clifford Heath wrote:

To such an engineer, money is not a motivation, so much as inadequate
pay is a demotivation. Money matters, but only if there's not enough.

I beg to disagree, the purpose of a job is to make money. You basically
sell your time, of which you have limited amount, so you are interested
in selling it at the highest price you can get. True, this is not the
only factor that matters, but one of critical importance.

Indeed, good engineers design stuff for its own sake, but not
necessarily during their office hours.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

The most effective reward is probably salary. If you give them a
megabuck bonus, they will likely quit and become a surfer or
something.

If they like their job, then not necessarily. Once upon a time
I made some shitload of sterlings from our stock options, but modestly
continue my employment. My retirement period was then secured, I hate
watersports.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Paul Hovnanian P.E. wrote:

A really small percentage. When I worked for Boeing, we had a reward program
which paid in Best Buy gift certificates. Saved the company a few hundred
million dollars. Got a desktop LCD TV set (3" screen).

Lessons learnt?

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 25/1/20 1:06 pm, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

Clifford Heath wrote:

I still disagree. The purpose of a job is to make a life.

Yes, but a life in general, not only to cover your current spendings.
IOW, you need to think about securing your retirement expenses, medical
expenses, unemployment periods, etc. Only after reaching this level of
security you can start making a life in a responsible way.

I've seen many people spend almost all of their vital years trying to
reach that level of security, and then die without having really lived.
Life is what you happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

If all I had wanted was money I would have made a living, but not a life.

But why "only", I really don't understand. Salary and satisfaction
are completely orthogonal entities, you can make any linear combination
of them (if lucky enough). You can have a satisfying and well-paid job,
as well as a well-paid dull job and a very satisfying hobby. It's your
life, optimise the proportions!

I've been fortunate enough to choose jobs that I care about.

And why shouldn't such a job be well paid?

In my case it was quite adequate. I considered becoming a violin maker
at one point, which might have been satisfying, but not in the same way.

Again, worthwile and interesting are orthogonal. Garbage disposal is
vital, yet not extremely inspiring.

To me, something matters if it makes a difference. Some people have more
opportunity and ability to leave the world a better place than others do.

CH

 

[mpm]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 9:01:17 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:

The places where I worked, the marketing droids didn't want the engineers in contact with potential customers, because they didn't want the customers to hold off buying an existing product in favour of waiting for the new product coming down the pipe-line. There was also the problem that at least some of the engineers knew a lot more about the product than the marketeers, and made them look under-informed from time to time.

From the point of view of getting the engineers to understand what the customers really wanted, letting them talk to customers is an excellent idea, but it's a two-way street.

"I deal with the god-damned customers so the engineers don't have to.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcIMIyQnOso

 

[mpm]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2020 at 4:50:06 PM UTC-5, Rick C wrote:

I don't think that was about motivation. Contracts (at least in the US) require both parties involved receive "consideration" meaning something tangible of worth. A contract can't only be about one person promising something to someone else. To make sure no one can claim there was no "consideration" and so making the contract invalid, the party getting all the significant "consideration" promises to give the other party valuable consideration of $1.

Likely that is what the 1 EUR was about, they just didn't want to explain it that way.

Correction:
In the US, consideration in contract law does not have to be money, or even something tangible. A simple promise to do something (or to not do something) very often constitutes consideration sufficient to bind a contract, so long as that promise has value to the parties. Same thing with actions.

That said: Yes, it has to be a two-way street to be a valid contract in the US. There must be consideration (in whatever form) for both parties.

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Clifford Heath wrote:

> I still disagree. The purpose of a job is to make a life.

Yes, but a life in general, not only to cover your current spendings.
IOW, you need to think about securing your retirement expenses, medical
expenses, unemployment periods, etc. Only after reaching this level of
security you can start making a life in a responsible way. Reaching it
requires sufficient stream of money, which means a good job. You can
also win in a lottery, but it doesn't exactly sound like a plan.

> If all I had wanted was money I would have made a living, but not a life.

But why "only", I really don't understand. Salary and satisfaction
are completely orthogonal entities, you can make any linear combination
of them (if lucky enough). You can have a satisfying and well-paid job,
as well as a well-paid dull job and a very satisfying hobby. It's your
life, optimise the proportions!

> I've been fortunate enough to choose jobs that I care about.

And why shouldn't such a job be well paid?

I
found most of those around me also cared to be doing something worthwhile.

Again, worthwile and interesting are orthogonal. Garbage disposal is
vital, yet not extremely inspiring.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 11:48:16 AM UTC+11, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:

Sometimes it's cheaper to give them what they want, rather than going to the trouble of demonstrating that they don't need it.

This is good for short term, but can raise your maintenance costs
enormously. "No" is often a good answer.

It wouldn't have, in the case I had in mind. We gave them a floating video output from the actual detector - floating so that they wouldn't inject current into the instrument ground. A sufficiently ham-fisted customer could perhaps have blown it up, but that wouldn't have been the only thing that such a customer would have destroyed.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Clifford Heath]

On 25/1/20 12:04 pm, Piotr Wyderski wrote:

Clifford Heath wrote:

To such an engineer, money is not a motivation, so much as inadequate
pay is a demotivation. Money matters, but only if there's not enough.

I beg to disagree, the purpose of a job is to make money. You basically
sell your time, of which you have limited amount, so you are interested
in selling it at the highest price you can get. True, this is not the
only factor that matters, but one of critical importance.

I still disagree. The purpose of a job is to make a life. If all I had
wanted was money I would have made a living, but not a life.

Indeed, good engineers design stuff for its own sake, but not
necessarily during their office hours.

I've been fortunate enough to choose jobs that I care about. Mostly by
inventing things that inspire other people to build a business around. I
found most of those around me also cared to be doing something worthwhile.

You only get one life. Most people have at least some desire to make it
matter.

Clifford Heath

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 1:29:49 PM UTC+11, Clifford Heath wrote:

On 25/1/20 1:06 pm, Piotr Wyderski wrote:
Clifford Heath wrote:

<snip>

Again, worthwile and interesting are orthogonal. Garbage disposal is
vital, yet not extremely inspiring.

To me, something matters if it makes a difference. Some people have more
opportunity and ability to leave the world a better place than others do.

Sometimes it happens in unexpected ways. Australia has plastic banknotes (and invented the idea). One of their security features is a hologram printed onto the plastic by squeezing it against an etched pattern written onto metal block by a Cambridge Instruments EBMF 10.5 electron beam microfabricator, which we sold the Victoria Mint.

That machine had a long history, and included roughly a hundred 200mm x 200 mm printed circuit cards. In order to get its writing speed up to 10MHz (the 10 in the 10.5) three of them had to be quite extensively reworked, which kept me busy for nearly a year.

What really entertained me was that the idea of replicating diffraction gratings in that way had been invented by Allan Walsh for some atomic absorbtion spectrometer or other.

https://www.science.org.au/fellowship/fellows/biographical-memoirs/alan-walsh-1916-1998

When I met him - around 1968 - he'd shown me his little ruling engine for making diffraction gratings. Writing the grating onto a metal block and replicating it by pressing the metal block up against a plastic film was defintley a way of making a cheaper grating spectrometer.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Rick C]

On Friday, January 24, 2020 at 9:29:49 PM UTC-5, Clifford Heath wrote:

In my case it was quite adequate. I considered becoming a violin maker
at one point, which might have been satisfying, but not in the same way.

One of the worst jobs I ever had was in a commercial park. Just down the street in one of those buildings put up with concrete slabs in sections was a violin maker working in front of a glass window. I remember watching him work and wondering if he got more satisfaction from his job than I did. I wondered if he felt violin making is a performing art. It worked for me.

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

Clifford Heath wrote:

I've seen many people spend almost all of their vital years trying to
reach that level of security, and then die without having really lived.

That can happen. But I've seen many people who had never cared about
their future and then the future came. Total panic is an understatement.

> Life is what you happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

True, I can be hit today by a car and die suddenly, absolutely
plausible. Should it prevent me from planning my future and securing me
and my family?

The plans are pieces of a global optimisation algorithm -- it just pays
off to spend some time working on not exactly the most exciting thing
here in order to get very significant gain there. Yes, I may be wrong
or I may not survive to enjoy the gains, but it may happen to all of us.

Heck, even education is an instance of the above. Studying is a total
waste of time in the short term, as it distracts you from earning money.
But once completed, magic happens and suddenly you are able to negotiate
completely different kinds of jobs. At least in my part of the world.

> In my case it was quite adequate.

So it has almost always been in my case. But I would have not been doing
that job for 1/3 of the salary. I would have been doing completely
different things for 3x the salary if I had the opportunity. I can sell
different services at different price. I will do my best to ensure
superior quality in all cases, but well... I'll not design you Taj Mahal
if you are willing to pay for a cottage. Adequacy, as you said.

Best regards, Piotr