Had to shove my threpence hapenny in to this. The Numpty that is supposedly in charge of me recently got chartered by IMechE.
Shortly afterwards I found myself having to explain to him why, when you mesh two gears together you have to leave a little gap! The problem is that he's done all the project, programme & finance management courses which are now apparently vital to an engineers career plan but the only Mechanic's he's done is number crunching on a PC. There are an awful lot of now supposedly qualified people out there who have no practical experience of the world and it shows. At the lab where I currently fester one department tried to do away with tradesmen and just have graduates to do all the installation and maintenance as befits an establishment of international standing -------- and as you've probably guessed it was a bloody disaster! What we need to have are the right people in the right places, a blend of people with practical experience and theoretical skills. This used to be achieved by allowing experienced people from the shop floor to migrate upwards if they had the ability. Nowadays the emphasis is on academic qualifications and a gulf between the sharp end and the top is growing. At the end of the day it's not the bit of paper that counts it's you and how you carry out your responsibilities. However there's one good thing that's come of my Numpty becoming an "Engineer" if he'd gone into accountancy which he's far more suited to he'd be making a lot more people miserable than just the few he affects round here!