Virgin Media Engineer. Really?

I have a BA in mathematics (Cambridge), an MSc in aeronautical engineering (Imperial), and a PhD from a mechanical engineering department (Nottingham). Does that make me a "proper" engineer in your eyes? :confused:

My point is simply that it doesn't really matter whether you call yourself an engineer or not - the roles of engineer and technician are rarely confused. And it isn't just people from the "proper" engineering side that get uppity about their title... Welders and fitters (such as my friends from back home) don't like "proper" engineers referring to themselves in that way either.

I think it's more because people who are 'proper engineers' don't like people who have engineer in their title just so it sounds better (e.g. Virgin Media engineer as above).

I don't think it's to do with any confusion being caused, more that the term 'engineer' is overused when it's not justified.
 
Are they really that short of 'engineers' or just v. busy?

I suspect very busy.

I think they are doing a lot of network work, and a lot of people that were getting their services "free" are suddenly starting to subscribe for some strange reason ;)

Also if it's a 50mb install I don't think they have that many installers/techs who are fully trained and equiped for it at the moment as it's still only a very small percentage of users who opt for it (I think last I heard they were at about 50k people on 50mb).
 
The being offended on behalf of others aspect of it is ridiculous, imo.

I'm not offended on behalf of others, I just admire engineers. I think engineering is fantastic and I admire the contribution engineers make to society and the considerable expense and effort they must endure in order to make to become an engineer.

To hear somebody who fixes a printer or installs your Virgin cable referred to as an engineer is just a shame - it cheapens the term considerably to such an extent that most of the British public have no real idea what engineers do and how important to our society they are - they honestly think an engineer is the guy who comes to fix the photocopier when it jams.

It's just a damn shame, really.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer. Dave from Virgin Media is not.
 
[TW]Fox;17444510 said:
I'm not offended on behalf of others, I just admire engineers. I think engineering is fantastic and I admire the contribution engineers make to society and the considerable expense and effort they must endure in order to make to become an engineer.

To hear somebody who fixes a printer or installs your Virgin cable referred to as an engineer is just a shame - it cheapens the term considerably to such an extent that most of the British public have no real idea what engineers do and how important to our society they are - they honestly think an engineer is the guy who comes to fix the photocopier when it jams.

It's just a damn shame, really.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer. Dave from Virgin Media is not.

our employers share your concern

The people we employ to go out to visit customers and fix printers arent called engineers, or even field engineers.

They call them "Network Consultants" *stifles laughing*
 
I call Hovis.

What kind of proof do you want? :confused:



edit: My Cambridge alumni email address is: d.stevens.00 (at) cantab.net . Write to it if you give a crap, and I can respond.


Reference to my thesis:
Stevens, D. The LHI method: A scalable meshless numerical technique for the solution of transport equations, The University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, 2009

A few of my papers (written at Nottingham). You can google for them if you care...

Stevens, D.; Power, H. & Morvan, H. An order-N complexity meshless algorithm for transport-type PDEs, based on local Hermitian interpolation Engineering Analysis with Boundary Elements, 2009, 33, 425-441

Stevens, D.; Power, H.; Lees, M. & Morvan, H. A Meshless Solution Technique for the Solution of 3D Unsaturated Zone Problems, Based on Local Hermitian Interpolation with Radial Basis Functions, Transport in Porous Media, 2009, 79, 149-169

Stevens, D.; Power, H.; Lees, M. & Morvan, H. The use of PDE centres in the local RBF Hermitian method for 3D Convective-Diffusion problems, J. Comput. Phys., 2009, 228, 4606-4624

Stevens, D.; Power, H.; Lees, M. & Morvan, H. A local Hermitian RBF meshless numerical method for the solution of multi-zone problems, Numerical methods for partial differential equations, 2009, doi: 10.1002/num.20577

Stevens, D. & Power, H. A scalable meshless formulation based on RBF Hermitian interpolation for 3D nonlinear heat conduction problems, Computer modelling in engineering and sciences, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 111-146, 2010

Stevens, D. & Power, H. A scalable and implicit meshless RBF method for the 3D unsteady nonlinear Richards equation, with single and multi-zone domains, International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, 2010, doi: 10.1002/nme.2960

Aside from all this, I've talked about what I do a few times, in threads where it was relevant (eg this one from a few weeks ago).

Short of posting a copy of my degree certificate (which would be pretty retarded on my part) I don't have anything to hand about my time at Imperial. But the rest should be pretty solid.


Enough Hovis for you? :confused:

And no, I still don't give a crap if a technician or a welder, or even a bin-man wants to call himself an engineer. I do get a little annoyed when my friends (who are welders / fitters / general handymen etc) tell me I'm not a "proper" engineer though. I guess every "side" has people who want to protect their title.
 
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[TW]Fox;17444510 said:
Isambard Kingdom Brunel was an engineer. Dave from Virgin Media is not.

Mr Brunel was an engineer, maybe even one of the best, but I bet he didn't go round getting his knickers in a twist because somebody else who didn't build bridges, railways and ships went around calling themselves an "engineer"

I also wonder how good Mr Brunel would have been at fixing a printer or installing cable? :)
 
^^^ Well put.

I see no reason for someone to get hot and bothered about how other people choose to describe their job, particularly if they are already a skilled professional. It doesn't devalue their past experience.
 
Really? Really? ~Proper engineers~ actually care that much? I'm not involved in anything to do with engineering, but I'd wager that ~proper engineers~ know who ~proper engineers~ are, and who are the ~technicians~... it's obvious to the general public, too. I see people who are ~proper engineers~ saying they don't actually care that much (Duff-Man in here, and Kahn in another thread I remember)... then I see people like [TW]Fox spazzing out about the use of the term engineer, when they have nothing to do with the industry/field. The being offended on behalf of others aspect of it is ridiculous, imo.

I'm actually an engineer and whilst mostly I don't care a huge amount, I'd just rather they had a more appropriate name, e.g. technician.
 
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Mr Brunel was an engineer, maybe even one of the best, but I bet he didn't go round getting his knickers in a twist because somebody else who didn't build bridges, railways and ships went around calling themselves an "engineer"

I also wonder how good Mr Brunel would have been at fixing a printer or installing cable? :)

As an engineer, I have mixed feelings about the whole usage of the word. The mis-use of the term engineer has devalued the profession to the point that pay is poor compared to other professions that demand an equal level of qualifications and constant development.
 
As an engineer, I have mixed feelings about the whole usage of the word. The mis-use of the term engineer has devalued the profession to the point that pay is poor compared to other professions that demand an equal level of qualifications and constant development.

This is the problem really. It's such a shame :(
 
The mis-use of the term engineer has devalued the profession to the point that pay is poor compared to other professions that demand an equal level of qualifications and constant development.

Has it though... Has it really? And if so - how?

Pay in professional circles is largely determined by the availability of skills, and the earning potential of these skills. I really fail to see how a cable installation guy or a welder calling himself an engineer has any effect on the demand for people with (say) skills in modelling computational fluid dynamics. Or designing bridges that survive a hurricane. Or [insert "proper" engineering application of your choice here] etc

To my eyes, it is simply that people want immediate recognition for their skills and education through their job title. This is little more than mental masturbation...
 
As an engineer, I have mixed feelings about the whole usage of the word. The mis-use of the term engineer has devalued the profession to the point that pay is poor compared to other professions that demand an equal level of qualifications and constant development.

I wouldn't say that people/employers misusing the engineer title lowers pay - at the end of the day you either have an engineering degree or you don't.

I'd say it affects more what the public perception of an engineer is, as the general public's most common interaction with an 'engineer' is probably the sky/virgin/heating/gas man.
 
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