Diary of a Structural Designer

Assalammu'alaikum,

Now, I just want to write as a structural designer. Life as a structural designer is truly dependent on the Engineers that we were assigned to. If the engineer is good, life will be a breeze. Your questions no matter how precise and how deep into details, the engineer will gladly answer you without hesitation and you can't help but feel confident of his work, and ultimately yours as well.

I have worked with a number of great engineers - most of which are from the first company I worked for. And here are some of the common types of engineers I've worked with over the last 6 years.

The Knowledgeable
These type, they are truly beyond knowledgeable- they don't need to have a drawing in front of them, they can tell every feature of the structure at the back of their hands even when they have 5 projects under his design.

Decisive  A
These type are very decisive which is good, but this type A do not welcome suggestions - these are pretty easy to work with provided it works. In some cases, the designer has worked on a similar structure and had gone through a living nightmare due to the stringent authorities who do not accept certain designs, so with these kind of engineers, we designers can either just play along pretending the nightmare wont re-occur, or we can stand firm and tell him about the previous project that we have done or ask the previous engineer to have a word about it with him.

Decisive B
These type are very decisive, make good judgement and consider suggestions from us. These ones are the best type to work with. They are decisive, thus making us work faster without being unsure. Should they be unsure, they are usually upfront and assure us that he/she will get the answer by a certain timeline.

Noisy Unsure Egoistic
NUE type is the worst kind ever! They talk a lot, they love talking when you're talking. They will still enjoy talking even when they are talking to the Director. They will ask you questions and then answer it themselves while you're answering, they like to reason with all their wrong judgement and reason with their second guessing, they love reasoning when they are clearly in the wrong. Guess what? They love it more when they are right in one small part, and they talk and talk about it like they hit the lottery. The worse is when we, designers, go to them to ask about the designs, where some dimension may be missing or unclear. They always answer with a prefix, and the prefix is a killer to us. This type of engineer will forever answer you with "I think " and sometimes with a long pause before answering. It makes us so unsure, and so pissed, because it will be very likely that this engineer will come back to us and say "Oh, earlier was wrong, it has to be xxx - i think"
Frustrating is an understatement!

Last Minute
This type is tricky is a lot of ways. This type of engineers like to keep their designs and mark-ups up to the very last minute. The kind of situation will be such that he/she will go to you with this stack of mark-ups and designs and tell you they need it by end of day at 3pm or tell you they want it first thing in the morning at 5pm! Crazy, of course!

You draw first, I design later
This type is usually for those engineers who have been stuck with you from the first day. They trust your experience, knowledge and feel that they can do the design faster after we produce the drawings for them. However, I am usually uncomfortable when a new engineer or someone whom I have never worked with asked me to do this. I will be reluctant because I don't know how he like to design. I became unsure because I am afraid he will take my daft inputs to be real. (I just experience one - and he asked me for the calculations!)




-to be continued-





I have more types to write about, but will keep it for later. Work is piling! I got to go!! Have a great lunch peeps!





Yours Truly,
One of the Structural Designers.

Wassalam