What do you enjoy most about your piping designer career?

What do you enjoy most about being a piping designer? What do you dislike the most? Is it challenging? Are there many opportunities to learn and advance?

What keeps you at your job?

I enjoy the long hours usually at least ten hours a day. I enjoy the engineers who are straight out of school and don't know anything, and I like the ones who have 25 years experience and are still dumb as a rock. I like all the new GREAT ideas of how to shortcut stuff that takes longer to execute. I like being pestered by underling drafters constantly who don't know which way north is or the front door. I enjoy working with the design guys from the engineering firms who have no clue what is happening out side their vacuum, and don't care and refuse to acknowledge the importance. I love working with people who have 25 years experience 1 year at a time and still don't have a clue. I like having budgets and schedules that are ridiculous and can not be met. I like having my pipers call me in the morning to tell me thay won't be here or that they will be late again. I like it when the electrical department doesn't even bother to call at all, that's a lot of fun. I like it when there is a fire in the plant and stuff blows up, especially when I am nearby. I really like having to stay late on Friday because someone has to have something that they forgot to tell me about during the week, and I had plans to go out of town. I like missing the experience of watching my kid grow up because my company suddenly wants me on a plane to God knows where to look at some piping that isn't fitting because an underling is a worthless bag of paper. My suggestion to anyone who has grand ideas of being in the engineering business doing design work is to run as fast as you can. Go be a dentist instead. You will make FAR more money, be able to take off every Friday, have a house at the lake, have a boat at the lake, watch your kids grow up, and have good looking dental hygeinist all around you and have nice teeth. Most pipers have dated at least one stripper. But hey this is just a good ole red(neck), white(trash), and blue(collar) profession

The old Piper from San Antonio forgot one thing.

When the layoffs come you will be out the door and the worthless underling that you had to fix their mess will remain.

The old piper is right. I am now retired after 45 years and I wish I had changed fields many times. Yes they keep the little &%$*@$## underling because he is fast on computer but ask him to go on a field trip and draw field isos and see what you get. But I do miss all the good pipers I have known.

Boomer still in the red stick

I love the new computer aid design programs that are availably and have the stated goal ..."to make my life as designer easier"! ...And now I have to know all 20 of them if I expect to get a job anywhere!
I love working with "experienced engineers" that don't know what a 3R elbow is! And think A36 is steel that is normally used for pipe!
I love engineers that want all piping done in 3D …WITHOUT dimension ...just "pictures", because he figures that the welders would get it right anyway so as long as they are "close"!
I love how drawing tolerances have gone from 3” at 3/8” scale down to 6 places pass the decimal point!
I love how a filet weld symbol now covers ANY type of welding on a drawing, whether it is drawn correctly or drawn backwards!

I love all that was said above. I also love ignored "lessons Learned", back stabbing and that hard work and integrity will get you no where. If your still interested, no matter what you know, @$$ kissing will be your most valuable job skill.

I love working with stress engineers who are always telling me “Stop pushing my leg” and have to take a month off so they can go back home and visit family. I love coming in on weekends to get iso’s out for an issue date and not being able to put the time on my time sheet because I can get it as comp time in a few weeks. Yea frigging right I’ll be on another project then. I love it when all the smokers take 15 minute breaks every hour but if I check the basket ball score for my NCASA bracket I get my butt reamed out for it. I love it when someone new comes on a project saying they have 10 years in the software we are using but can’t figure out how to extract an iso from it. I love it when a designer gives me a set of stress iso’s from the offsite rack he is doing and he doesn’t know where to put the expansion loops because at company “B” the stress group did it. I love it when I have to go and take a drug test and it comes back positive and I get to hand them my bag of prescription and let then figure out which one made it go off the chart. Oh and I love it when you have been with a company for over 14 years and get told you are going to be laid off only to be told after you find another job that they found a place for you.

I love that you need to be a really good A$$ kisser or family! If not, then after 16 years of service, when things get rough you'll be at the house while the Fathers, Brothers and Daughters will still be employed!!! And any other family member.....

I've just turned 60, and was layed-off 2 years ago as my (puke dept. manager) wanted all engineers-only (Latinos preferred) on their proposals. It didn't matter that they were fresh out of school with no experience. It just looked impressive on the proposals.

Having come out of old-school board drafting making the transition to CAD, a few things stand out.

When I started, I was under the tutilage of a senior designer who knew his field. He inturn was under the surervision of a project manager who KNEW his craft.

Then came the advent of computers. No longer was careful thought & planing applied to the project scope, as the new thought was "we have CAD, we can change it quickly.

Add to this managers & engineers with no proper training going about project after project making the same poor decisions causing extra work and frustration to us guys in the trenches.

I could go on & on but my fellow pipers already know this. This is why I will never go back to design work. The whole field has changed. It is no longer about the quality of design & construction, sadly it revolves around manhour billing. I used to be proud of what we as a design team could accomplish and got a great feeling of a job well done...........no more.

Captn Ron

Boomer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana said: The old piper is right. I am now retired after 45 years and I wish I had changed fields many times. Yes they keep the little &%$*@$## underling because he is fast on computer but ask him to go on a field trip and draw field isos and see what you get. But I do miss all the good pipers I have known.

Boomer still in the red stick

Well Mr Boomer if that is your real name!!!!!hahaha
this is mikey in God's country you know Hanford....Are you still married to Rose that sweet lil thing? 45 years in the biz....hmmm

boomer? like Dale Mack? Man I've been wondering about you for years. Glad to hear you are doing well.
Hank Santana (from OH and RI)

Hey boomer what is going on? how is Rosie
e-mail me when you get a chance dawctor@yahoo.com

Be cool I am still with bechtel

Mikey

fb&d is the worst in BR. the fat man is the worst piper in Louisiana.

(QUOTE who="Animal in Gonzales, Louisiana"]I love that you need to be a really good A$$ kisser or family! If not, then after 16 years of service, when things get rough you'll be at the house while the Fathers, Brothers and Daughters will still be employed!!! And any other family member.....

wrong boomer , sorry

mikey in Richmond, Kentucky said: Well Mr Boomer if that is your real name!!!!!hahaha
this is mikey in God's country you know Hanford....Are you still married to Rose that sweet lil thing? 45 years in the biz....hmmm