Congrats FBN, we have a new winner ... for the most amount of utter ****e in one post!
I am a degree qualified, professional engineer who worked in the industry prior to aviation. I have no problem calling LAMEs ''engineers" and if anyone should be offended by this it should be me. Your post demonstrates not only do you know nothing about LAMEs, you also know nothing about professional engineers.
Because they we able to push themselves through the endless hours of study , in late teens early twenties when it was pretty much party time for the Trade boys.
Yeah, 'cause those uni kids never party at all. Or maybe you didn't, sitting at your desk for endless hours of study, but didn't you wonder what all the noise was about?
I can tell you that working as a grade 1 engineer your daily workload involved hardly any actual 'engineering'. Not only that, you also relied very heavily on what were our equivalent of LAMEs (we called them Technical Officers and Assistant Technical Officers - no degree, generally trades background) for technical advice as they had the experience and knowledge of implementing work methods and practices. A good TO would make or break the job, much more so than a good engineer.
My classmates who ended up in various industries have all had fairly similar roles. And as they've progressed up through the ranks over the years to become project managers, compliance audit managers etc they do
absolutely no engineering. They manage budgets, manpower, and other non-technical aspects of the job. Apparently it's ok to call them engineers.
Ask any LAME how many of their classmates still know which way to turn a spanner.
Notice Clifford who is Professional Eng is your Chairman don't see too many self called aircraft spanner men "engineers" gracing the boardrooms.
How long do you think it's been since LC has had his slide rule out? And unless you've been heavily drinking, why would you hold up anyone on the Qantas Board as a paragon of engineering virtue? At the moment they're having trouble tying up their own shoelaces.