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  • Author Author: bluescreen
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Do engineers work harder?

jeff bezos

 

Last week, The New York Times stirred some controversy with an article called "Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace." Authors Jodi Kantor and David Streifeld interviewed hundreds of current and former Amazon.com employees and portrayed a callous, punishing organization that tramples its workforce underfoot in pursuit of profits. The article received hundreds of comments and online responses. Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, even responded by sending his workforce a company-wide email in which he denied the NY Times claims and stated that he would not tolerate "callous" management practices.

 

The Amazon article isn't just talking about hard work, of course-- it's alleging that Amazon is guilty of all kinds of cruel treatment towards its employees, and it doesn't focus on engineers. But this got us to thinking: do engineers work harder than other people? Does the ability to solve complex technical problems mean that electronic engineers will always be called upon to work harder than those who lack such skills? Or is a person's capacity to work hard independent of his or her vocation?

 

What do you think? Cast your vote-- and be sure to click the "Submit" button so it counts!. You can also expand on your answer by adding a comment below.

Parents

  • Engineers are not born, curiosity gets the better of them and they jump out looking for something to improve image i find like a lot of you that its a way of life and the joy you can get from the one eureka moment when you solve a problem or simplify something and it still works just aswell is awesome, the only thing i find hard work is finding enough time to learn everything i want to or going to bed when your doing something and you know you need to be back up in a couple of hours but you just keep saying a couple more minutes then you hear the birds outside and realized you have done it again and stayed up all night image

Comment

  • Engineers are not born, curiosity gets the better of them and they jump out looking for something to improve image i find like a lot of you that its a way of life and the joy you can get from the one eureka moment when you solve a problem or simplify something and it still works just aswell is awesome, the only thing i find hard work is finding enough time to learn everything i want to or going to bed when your doing something and you know you need to be back up in a couple of hours but you just keep saying a couple more minutes then you hear the birds outside and realized you have done it again and stayed up all night image

Children
  • in reply to binarygenius

    I kind of disagree.

     

    Every good engineer I ever met grew up inquisitive and wondering how things worked.

    Without that drive, you only have limited success trying to teach someone engineering.

    I have seen it tried by people who thought they were smart enough to be engineers, but it was clear that they just saw a quick step to management with technical credentials.

     

    I am just saying that without that inquisitiveness, few people are willing to endure the learning process to go from taking things apart to planning, designing, building and testing successful products.

     

    DAB

  • in reply to DAB

    i think you have gotten me wrong i was trying to say the same thing as you being an engineer is a way of life not a job, what i was trying to say was that engineers cant sit in the womb waiting for nature to allow them to be born because they can hear something going on outside and their curiosity gets the better of them. Any way i agree with you image

  • in reply to DAB

    Hi DAB,
    I TOTALLY agree with you. I am one of these engineers you talk about. I always was wondering how things works and was curious about the manufacturer's mind. The 1st screw driver I used at the age of 4 to find out how an electrical toy car  works. At the age of 10 I was dissasembling many devices (but most of them I was not able to asseble them right) to see how it works. I bought my 1st soldering device when I was 16. Nowadays some people ,the process of disassambling somethinng and find how it works, call it reverse engineering or back  engineering . Till now I have this curiosity to find (or decode something) how the manufacturer was thinking and I show to myself I can do it too.

     

    In conclusion a pure engineer is born!

     

    thanks DAB you remind me my childhood.

     

     

     

     

     

     


  • in reply to akaka

    Yes!  By the age 9, (back in the late 50's), I was repairing TV's for all of my neighbors.

    I also could hardly wait for the next issue of Popular Electronics! Remember Greenburg?

    Or Electronics Now.

     

    Currently I get Nuts & Volts in the US, and EPEMAG out of England.  And since I joined the

    Raspberry Pi Craze-- I get MagPi each month.