Fraud

Thursday, May 27, 2010
I'm a "STEM" worker. STEM, the abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, made its way into the common lexicon as grass roots organizations attempt to increase the number of college graduates who pursue these disciplines.

My official, HR approved title at my job is "Systems Engineer III." The title on my business card is "Senior Systems Engineer." I self-identify as an "SE." My boss is identified as an "SE Manager."

But it's a fraud.

I don't have an engineering degree. My immediate team-mates don't have engineering degrees. From where I sit, we're technologists, not engineers.

That's not to belittle what we do - we provide a valuable service to our customer base, and the breadth of knowledge required to do our jobs is considerable. We're required to pass professionally proctored certification exams as a condition of employment. In order to remain effective, we must maintain our technical skills and stay abreast of current technology trends.

But we're not engineers. 

I think one of the reasons the U.S. has fallen behind in our STEM education is because we've allowed labels like "engineer" and "scientist" to be watered down. When people like Walter L. Wagner are allowed to call themselves "Dr." without challenge as a result of attending an unaccredited Law School, and self-identify as a "physicist," again without challenge, as a result of a minor course of undergraduate study, then we cheapen the accomplishments of actual scientists. It takes work, and lots of it, to become a scientist, or a professional engineer, and to be quite frank - I haven't done that work.

Instead, I've done different work. I've spent my entire adult life (26 years, for those keeping score at home) learning the technology that allows me to make a living. I've worked damn hard to become an expert in Enterprise Telephony, and I'd put my skills up against my peers any day. In other words, I'm a proficient Technologist.

But I'm not an engineer. Not in the sense that is meant when people talk about STEM. And I think we'd all be better off if such loaded terms were applied a little more conservatively.

15 comments:

The Mechanicky Gal said...

I'm a PPBS! A Paper-Pushing-Bullshit-Specialist! Or maybe i can promote myself to Doctor!

PPBD, FTW!
I have found that being able to process paper, especially in a job that deals with the government, is a valuable skill and that the majority of people cannot do it, with any efficiency.
So heh, I'll do it.
Pays well.

Warner (aka ntsc) said...

I disagree with you. Will the Professional Society of your discipline, probably IEEE, accept you as a full member?

A Professional Engineer is something else and is a reserved title, granted by examination.

Interestingly, while I am not a PE, I am certified to teach CE classes to PEs.

Janiece said...

Warner, I suspect they would, simply because I've been an SE for so long.

Perhaps I undervalue my own skills, but it's hard for me to compare myself to someone who has done the work to obtain an MS in electrical engineering when I myself only recently passed statistics. The skill set just doesn't seem comparable.

Dr. Phil (Physics) said...

One of the reasons why there is a P.E. certification is because there are many routes to being an "engineer". And not all of them involve getting a B.S. in an engineering discipline from an accredited engineering program.

"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and paddles like a duck -- it's a duck."

Dr. Phil

Nathan said...

Hell, I've known you were a fraud since the day you gushed and gushed and gushed about that shoe store -- and they you only bought two pairs!

Janiece said...

To be fair, Nathan, the Smart Man bought me those shoes.

WendyB_09 said...

Much the same in many disciplines.

I have an aging BS in Information Science (IS), the father of the Information Technology (IT) degree. Not to be confused with Computer Science (CS) - which involves programming.

After 7 very happy years in IT support, a corporate merger and a RIF, I ended up on the outside of the industry. The things I thought I wanted to persue required training and expesive cert processes. No job, no money, no certs.

But people knew I wrote well, and I started temping in the office/legal support field. Actually taught MS Office products to aspiring paralegals at one local college for a while.

Then a friend got out of law school and passed the bar, and I helped him start his practice. I never went to paralegal school, don't have a certificate. But as one attorney told me - if you do the work, you're a paralegal, with or without a certificate. And I do the work very well.

So now I'm a paralegal. and yeah, MG, somedays I'm a PPBS as well!

Steve Buchheit said...

Title inflation, the professional mirror image to grade inflation. One of the reasons that titles aren't my big motivator. And I enjoy referring to myself with made up titles, such as Bit Slinger Extraordinaire.

ErinBurlingam雅萍 said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Janiece said...

*TONG*

Thordr said...

ooooo, soon there will be a clang!
Anyway, I remember back in high school when I first heard of this phenomenon. I was reading Alan Dean Foster’s “Spellsinger” books. One of the main characters tried to summons an engineer and ended up with a janitor (sanitation engineer). Luckily I went into a hard science field, geology. There really isn’t much room for that kind of pretension there, or in the drilling industry, where there is room, but no one cares. On the other hand, like Dr. Phil says, if it looks like a duck… Engineer: Engineers work to develop economic and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics, scientific knowledge and ingenuity while considering technical constraints (from wiki). But my old dictionary doesn’t really say any different. You’re an enginner, live with it.

Nathan said...

Actually, riffing off of what Steve was saying, I'm used to working on regular movies and TV shows that are shot in the same fashion. A few years ago, I worked on a Reality Series, which follows a whole different set of rules and organization. They wanted to give me an "Associate Producer" credit...which, at first, sounds really good, right? Then I realized that "A.P." is essentially a catchall title they throw around like Monopoly money instead of paying you much real money. One of the "Associate Producers" on the show was actually the "Associate Producer in charge of making sure the Cream Cheese at Craft Service was fresh, but spreadable".

I took a Production Supervisor title instead.

Anne C. said...

I'm of two minds on the subject:

On one hand, I think titles are overrated. A few of the smartest people I know never went to college (or started to and then quit). Instead, they went out into the world and paved their own way, learning in the trenches. School and testing, while a useful evaluation tool, are not necessarily indicators of intellectual ability. They simply indicate "this person is good at figuring out what others want." If someone has challenges dealing with a testing environment or with reading, they appear to be less able than those with good testing abilities. (You wouldn't believe some of the licensed idiots I've seen in my own profession.) So, for me, it's more about what people DO rather than how they or others label them.

On the other hand, I am in a regulated profession and before I passed the licensing exams, I would preface my profession with "unlicensed" or with a brief description of where I was in my career, even though I was doing the same work. So, to be able to say simply "I'm an architect" is a big deal. And yet, other professions have hijacked the title and use it in an unlicensed fashion, so that there are thousands of architects out there that do not do what I do. Now my explanation comes after my title - "no, I'm not in computers... I build buildings."

Jim Wright said...

Tong!


Man, that cracks me up.

Carol Elaine said...

Once upon a time, when I was about to be hired permanently at Lions Gate Films (after temping there for about a year), they were offering me a teeny, tiny salary, but with the title of Accounts Payable Analyst, thinking that, because I had been a Sales Analyst at Disney (whatever the hell that meant), that would mollify me and, well, jobs are hard to come by and everyone in Los Angeles wants to work in entertainment, so I would have to take the pittance they offered. Right?

Luckily, before any of this came to my attention, my boss told them that the pittance they offered (under $30k/year - less than I was making as a temp) was an insult and insisted that I be offered at least $32K/year. They agreed. As that was more than my temp salary, I accepted that. And soon ended up supervising others (which always felt fraudulent to me).

I'm always amazed at how some companies think that a fancy title will trump a living salary.

(BTW, every time I read PE in this comment thread, I think about Physical Education and I get confused. Maybe I shouldn't read before I'm fully awake. Or before noon.)