The Engineer and upper Management

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don't know where I am..'

The man below replied, 'You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.'

'You must be an Engineer,' said the balloonist.

'I am,' replied the man, 'how did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist, 'everything you have told me is probably technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact is, I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip by your talk.'

The man below responded, 'You must be in Management.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist, 'but how did you know?'

'Well,' said the man, 'you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my frigging fault.'

a reply to: 727Sky

LOL

Being in management who's worked with hundreds of engineers over the years, yup, this pretty much describes the relationship to a tee.

- Engineers speak in a condescending holier-than-thou language and refuse to admit when they've screwed something up.

- Managers speak in a condescending holier-than-thou language and refuse to admit when they've screwed something up.

Meanwhile the real workers (the so-called grunts) have to clean up the mess left behind from both idiots.

a reply to: 727Sky

Chuckle. You have any material about PhD's?
I'd like that.

LMAO!

Thanks for this. My husband is an engineer. I'm management.

a reply to: 727Sky

HAHAHAHA !

As long as she didn`t bring her cat along just like you, it`s funny.

a reply to: 727Sky

nice story and very true.

It works for all industries that require an expert to do the work.

Here is a video that sums up my job every single day as a web developer.

Just for reference. I would be Anderson the expert. My immediate manager would be Walter sat next to Anderson. And this is when i'm lucky enough to be in the meeting. Half of the time my boss goes to them alone and promises everybody whatever they want and then tells me afterwards what needs doing.



The world is run the same way a business is run, in that the people in charge don't have a freakin' clue

a reply to: 727Sky

Only too true - As a support tech/engineer, I get to experience it in person.

Manager/Boss/Higher Ups: "Sure, we can do that for you! You there, you can do it, right?"

Me: "Of course I can. However, doing so will be risky, and might cause data loss, corruption, missing file..."

Manager/Boss/Higher Ups: "I don't care, it will be done, and if you don't do it...".

I don't get it; I was hired in to help get the job done, and make the company look better from behind the scenes. And yet, when I offer my opinion (in my case, with supporting evidence), the management people always assume I don't know anything (just as in return, I assume they also don't know what they are talking about).

-fossilera