The Truth about Engineers

By Cole Levine

The Truth about Engineers is unique look inside the world of engineering that will leave you laughing and shaking your head in disbelief. Cole Levine is an engineer with over 30 years of experience designing manufacturing facilities for some of America’s largest corporations. He draws on his wealth of experience as he covers everything from quirky office rituals to travelling with other engineers to dealing with upper management. He doesn’t pull any punches when he talks about how owners and architects lay waste to the best laid plans of engineers. If you’re an engineer who’s been yearning for someone to write a tell-all book like this or you’re thinking of becoming an engineer or there’s an engineer in your life, this is a must-read for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cole Levine
• Release date: Aug 25, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370667598

Book preview

The Truth about Engineers

by

Cole Levine, P.E.

Copyright © 2017 Cole Levine, P.E.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the author’s prior written consent, with the exception of brief excerpts for blogs, articles, or book reviews.

Neither the author nor the publisher offer this book as engineering, legal, or any other professional services advice. While best efforts have been exercised in the preparation of this book, neither the author nor the publisher shall be held liable or responsible to any person or entity with respect to any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, legal, or commercial damages, including, but not limited to, special, incidental, consequential or other damages caused or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book. This book is presented solely for entertainment purposes.

Introduction

When I was a child I played with a chemistry set and studied things under a microscope. At night I gazed at the stars to identify the constellations in my astronomy book. Whenever an appliance broke I asked my mom to let me keep it so I could take it apart and see how it worked. I caught turtles and spiders and snakes and kept them as pets and watched them eat. Clearly I was destined to become an engineer before I even knew what one was. When I received good grades in my high school math and science classes the die was cast. My parents sent me to college and four years later I graduated with a bachelor of science degree in engineering.

While I was in college I had aspirations of designing transmissions for General Motors or engines for Caterpillar. As graduation approached I sent my resume off to hundreds of U.S. corporations. The only ones that took any interest in me were manufacturers of household goods so that’s where my career began. As the years went by I worked for a number of different companies and became a licensed professional engineer. Working for engineering consulting firms I designed schools and office buildings and shopping centers. Then my career took a turn and I began designing industrial facilities – large factories of every kind that produced everything from frozen pizzas to airplanes. What I discovered along the way is that there’s a greater demand for engineers who design factories and buildings than there is for engineers who design engines and transmissions. The reason is, factories and buildings are unique and each one requires its own design team whereas companies like General Motors and Caterpillar only make a handful of different engines and transmissions so the design for them is essentially once and done.

Like so many people my career is an example of someone who set out to do one thing and ended up doing something entirely different. That’s not to say it’s a bad thing, it’s just the way life works out sometimes.

This book doesn’t aggrandize the profession of engineering or put it on a pedestal, rather it exposes it for what it really is. No punches are pulled and by the time you reach the end you will have a clear understanding of what it’s like to be an engineer and work around other engineers. I’ve been a design engineer for over 30 years and can attest to the fact that everything in this book is true and drawn from my own personal experience.

I am not aware of any book of this kind on the market today about engineering. I should mention that it’s a quick read. One of the great things about eBooks is that a book of any size can be published and this one is less than half the length of the average nonfiction book. With conventional books a certain number of pages are required so a lot of them are filler. This book is all meat, all the time, no filler.

As you might imagine, writing a tell-all book about my own profession didn’t do anything to enhance my career or reputation, but I am not concerned with that. If this book saves one person from making a terrible

Reviews for The Truth about Engineers

[CLINTON W HUNTINGTON · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It was really practical and I have been an engineer for 50 years, P.E. in Colorado. Thanks for writing it. In Guam we will start to place control valves througout our water system to help find and prevent Non Revenue Water and properly manage our pressure zones for all the residents. Clint Huntington, Guam Waterworks Authority

[zahrul azha · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For the first time I found one book that concisely depicts the actual daily life of design engineer. As someone from the consulting engineering itself, I fully agree with the author.

The books may sound like a medium to voice out dissatisfaction/complaint, but the author intends to highlight the segments of engineer's life which can be learned by other team players within the construction industry and by the engineers himself.