Engineer goes "postal"

All you postal workers please excuse the comparison. But if some things continue the way they are going, I wouldn't doubt that one day the expression may change to "going engineer". I am not at all surprised by what happened in Orlando today at the RSH office. The problem? Engineering work is tied to construction. When construction makes a nose-dive, so does engineering. Our national leaders, engineering organizations, schools promote engineering as a reliable, secure, lucrative field of endeavor. When the work load declines, the easy way out for the employer is to just randomly pick the number of employees they don't need and lay them off. It used to not be this way - employers used to cut hours first for everyone and salaries accordingly. No one got laid off unless things got really serious. Now, they don't bat an eye - they just dump these folks who bought into the idea of a secure future and invested their years and money in getting the right education for these jobs.

I have worked in these companies for over 40 years and have witnessed first-hand the randomness of the selections in most companies. In most factories, when laborers are laid off, they usually adhere to some sort of seniority system. Not so at the engineering firms - they don't go by experience, knowledge, but just the random luck of the draw.

JackMG...I understand......loyalty and service means crap nowdays.......

That's true, Wyatt - with the extent of the problem, I am amazed it hasn't happened much sooner, and hasn't here in Greenville. We have several engineering offices here and one of the highest if not the highest concentration of engineering firm employees in the world. This recession has put probably thousands of folks in this line of work out of jobs. The firms just do it the easy way nowadays, I can't for the life me understand their logic.

At my company all of the key personel keep handguns either in their toolboxes or in their desks, we believe an armed workplace is a polite workplace, we also all have carry permits and frequently shoot and train with each other....

We are all ex-military, and a couple of us have our ffl's, we , along with the owners are very pro-2nd amendment, and the employees respect that about us.