The engineering consultant who didn't do his job

10/22/2010 11:51 AM EDT

One of my favorites from the despair.com demotivational calendars is this one:

Consulting
"If you're not a part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem."

10/22/2010 1:53 PM EDT

So, let me get this straight. You're taking credit for refining your consultant's idea, then you're bashing consultants. Did I get that right?

10/22/2010 2:03 PM EDT

The only problem I have with the article isthe stereotypyping going on in the title - It all boils down to people. All consultants aren't bad and all engineers aren't always ethical. Under any given set of circumstances any given person's behavior cannot be predicted. Unfortunately, the article leaves the impression that all consultants or contractors or temps or whatever you are going to call them or thier companies are somehow less effective than full time employees (I've been both), and it's just a bad generalization. Problems of this nature are most often caused by a failure in the personnel selection or specification process -- the skillset and qualifications don't match what really needs to be done. Similarly problems where the individual's performance doesn't meet the requirements should be followed up with the requisite financial penalties and or barring the contractor from working for the company again. If it had been me I would have given all or part of the consulting fees back.

Again it all boils down to the individual.

10/22/2010 2:07 PM EDT

I would say that bashing that particular consultant would be justified. I have worked in that area (twenty-five years ago) and a peizoelectric transducer is the first thing I would have thought of. He neither realized the isolation requirements nor noticed the lack of the expected delay. In my mind, that makes his competence pretty questionable.

10/22/2010 2:56 PM EDT

What a pathetic article by William Ketel. Here comes this individual (consultant) with a good idea none of the others in the team thought of and which obviously needed work (engineering does not come without sweat) and William has to immediately bash the consultant since the idea was not perfect, and further goes on to claim the glory for the idea for having stolen it and then finished it.

By the way if you add the overheads for employees including 401K, Medical etc they actually cost the same or more than consultants. Consultants of course can be hired and fired at an instant notice.

10/22/2010 4:15 PM EDT

z1 is right - this is a pathetic article. My experience is that the majority of the time, the problem is with people in the client's organization -- not with the consultant. People like Ketel are over-night experts who generally knew nothing about the subject until poaching someone elses idea. I bet his co-workers really love him.

10/22/2010 4:57 PM EDT

What a pack of coyotes we are! Please, guys, try to keep this thread on an engineering basis. If you don't like an article, write your own, its accessible enough here.
I agree about the links though. Probably some valid cyber-reason for it.

10/22/2010 5:19 PM EDT

I have been in the consulting biz for more then 30 years ( unfortunately ). The outside consultant has classically been the duty whipping boy. The consultant is not always like by the engineering staff, because he represents their failure to solve the problem. I see it like the role of a Irish wake eater. The consultant is their to eat the sins of the engineering department and 'make it all better and have the problem go away' for the engineering department manager.
As they often say, the consultant knows exactly where to kick the box and make it work, not necessarily how to kick the box. He is the idea man the comes in to refresh the train of thought of the engineering staff to a new solution approach. this is often his best value. Engineers that work on a project for over a year, get tunnel vision and need new ideas

10/22/2010 6:00 PM EDT

In this day and age of downsizing and layoffs I think that perhaps most of the replies bashing consultants ought to thank their lucky stars that they have full time jobs. To some of us, the only paycheck we can get right now is to consult.

10/22/2010 6:31 PM EDT

Wow! Consultants are apparently a thin skinned bunch.

10/22/2010 9:32 PM EDT

OK, Folks, clearly I need to add a bit of explanation here. For starters, our consultant is VERY SMART, actually, quite brilliant. He just made an error one time. The mistake was in not being a bit skeptical about the results. My experience has been that it pays to verify ones results prior to telling others about them. Also, if a solution seems "almost to good to be true", it may well be that it is not true. In addition to all that, in most scientific publications, the classical verification of a claim of some discovery is having others be able to duplicate the results. If others can do what you claim to have done and get the same results, then generally your claim is presumed to be valid.

Besides that, the point that I was making was that his error led me to find a working solution. So don't be so harsh! We shared the solution with our consultant and continued the project. My main benefit from my finding a solution was some enhancement of my credibility within my peer group. We continued to regard our consultant as brilliant, since he is.

William Ketel, (the author)

10/23/2010 4:59 PM EDT

I thought the article was a good illustration of ingenuity of engineers, and a disproof of the idea that "all engineers are interchangeable."

If there was any unfairness, it was only the natural amount that one might find in any story. Stories have dramatic elements that can be intrinsically unfair, but are needed to highlight the point of the tale. Again, if we were always completely fair, then communications would get bogged down in a mass of balancing detail, and you'd lose your audience.

Sarcasm works the same way; it makes a point at the expense of someone or something, but it is very effective in promoting a particular point that otherwise might be lost.

Here's an example. I originally was going to make this comment, in response to the article: "Engineers are interchangeable? He must mean until they're 40 or 50. Then they suddenly don't fit anymore."

I changed my mind after I read some of the other comments to the article, and realized that it was probably going to be taken the wrong way, and criticized for being unfair. So, let's analyze:

My first impulse to leave a funny comment (or sarcastic, but in a collegial, friendly way) was to refute the point made by the engineering division manager, that engineers were completely interchangeable. My point was, if that is so, then why is there such age discrimination against older engineers? Now, I purposely left out a discussion of how not everyone thinks that way, because that would have buried the point I was trying to make.

The bottom line is that sarcasm, humor, and stories in general need to be somewhat economical in their speech, logic, and reason, to make a point stand out. I wouldn't fault the author of this article for using standard techniques of communication to get across the point that the presumably lower paid staff engineers can be just as good as the consultants, and that NOT all engineers are interchangeable.

10/23/2010 7:51 PM EDT

There's only one justification for employing consultants, and that is in companies whose need of expertise is either of too limited duration or too limited time per week to justify a full-time employee (FTE). There's possibly some justification for employing one on the above basis if the existing employees are lacking in a particular skill set. That clearly was not the case here.

The employment of consultants where there are already FT employees is, to my mind, a deliberate spit in the face of the FTEs.

A previous manager in my division had a plan to outsource our work (looking after a multi-faceted comms network over a huge area). He produced figures showing he could (he thought) do this for much less than the cost of his existing employees. He asked us "What do I tell the CEO about this?" My reply was to tell him that he already had a bloody good team and that he was unlikely to get the work done to the same standard by anyone else. The market told him this too when expressions of interest came in. But, like WK's manager above, he still didn't believe it. What is it with Bean Counters?

Fortunately he got pushed sideways and I still have a job. But the "Us and Them" attitude of managers like this is so damaging to employee morale that they can become self-fulfilling.... piss your employees off enough and their standard of work will drop such that you CAN outsource them cheaper.

Between Rich above, and myself I'm sure you'll be asleep by now... ;-)

10/23/2010 7:57 PM EDT

One other point, to Z1 and Davidb. The tagline and header of the article are probably put in by Karen, not the author. Any perception of arrogance you get is probably mainly due to this, not to the content of the article, which does not set out to bag the consultant, as WK states later in his comment. Though the fact that the consultant WAS sloppy shines through.

Karen, could you comment here?

10/23/2010 8:28 PM EDT

There are "consultants" (i.e., experts for hire) and there are "contractors", but I guess they are often treated as one and the same these days -- temporary employees that are hired and paid on a 1099 basis to do some work for a company.

There have been news stories over the last year about the IRS cracking down on U.S. companies misclassifying statutory employees as contractors. From the IRS point of view, there are unpaid taxes due if a company hires someone to do the same type of work as it's regular employees, but doesn't consider them full-time employees and doesn't pay the usual FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, etc. on their earnings, simply because it is paying them on a 1099 basis instead of a W-2 basis. Interesting enough, the electronics engineering field was described, in one article, as one of the worst abusers of this alleged 'tax evasion'.

Don't misunderstand me, I have nothing against consultants. I have had great experiences working with several of them over the years, and some of my former colleagues, who are genuine experts at what they do, have chosen to be contractors rather than be 'regular employees' at a company. There are many pros & cons to either choice, but hey, it's a free country.

Let's just say many of us are aware of the types of situations these news articles are talking about -- not an expert brought in on a very short-term basis to solve a specific problem, but rather, an engineer doing the same work each of us is doing, on an ongoing basis for a long period of time (in some cases a couple years), but being paid on a 1099 basis with no benefits and no taxes withheld.

Some would say that such a person is not a 'consultant' but rather is an 'employee'.

10/23/2010 11:17 PM EDT

I have worked both with, and as a consultant; had good and bad experiences in both realms. The consistent difference being: communication of and realistic expectations. In one instance the boss expected "walk on waters" results from a consultant; he delivered a half baked idea that did have a germ of the solution. The problem was he had no idea how to make it work, the skill set needed to "get er done" was lacking. The full timers were able (once the consultant was "excused" - with pay) to work on and develop the solution. Not pretty but it was done. I have worked as a consultant and when asked about capabilities strive to tell it like it is; this sometimes does not get the job, but like the doctor's creed: "does no harm". Clearly, the right skill sets, expertise, and clear communication of expectations are needed for the success of any endeavor.

10/24/2010 6:08 AM EDT

Frank Eory - point taken, there is a vast difference between a consultant employed for some specific expertise, and a contractor who exists because the @#$%^& bean counters think that engineers are commodities.... In WK's case in the article it seems to have been a bit of both though??

10/24/2010 1:13 PM EDT

Very entertaining reading for all of your comments. I've worked with consultants and guess what - they're human people like everyone else. They make mistakes, they're funny, they try to impress, they try to justify their higher cost, they boast, etc., etc. I've often thought that they're just like regular employees (with special skills) but they got the guts to try it on their own! So they should be commended for that in my book. I always look forward when a consultant is hired because I think I can learn something...or perhaps that consultant will be a part of my network for my next job search. And , as someone pointed or earlier I think, sometimes you become a contractor/consultant because thats the only kind of work (because of your age) that you can get....Lastly, in the business, it seems the norm is to tout "I'm a better engineer than you". O.K. if that's what you want, fine, you are a better engineer and yes, you can get recognition and the promotion you want......all I want is for us to work together and design the product we're paid to produce. Makes no difference whether I made the error or the consultant.

10/24/2010 5:12 PM EDT

Good article, Mr Ketel.

This is not about full-timers vs consultants, rather it is about the more-experienced vs the less-experienced.

The experienced engineer grounded the metal plate without a second thought. He knew from experience that this was the way to go.

The less-experienced engineer was not as aware of practical considerations (possibly a virtual simulation expert?) and completely forgot about capacitive coupling through floating metal and that there should be a mechanical propagation delay. On the bright side, he did learn from this and became a bit more experienced in true hands-on testing. Possibly some others on the team also benefited from this learning experience. (It's always better to gain your "do-not" experience from the mistakes of others...)

Again this has nothing to do with being a consultant, it is all about common sense and accumulated experience, or the lack of. The same accumulated experience that is currently being sent to the unemployment lines.

10/24/2010 6:47 PM EDT

I chuckled when I read at the beggining of the story.
'The challenge was to do this fast, and with as little expense as possible' which immediadately triggered the old saying. Time, Quality, Price. Pick two!

10/26/2010 2:31 AM EDT

This author is most probably a newbie in his area but with some good fundamentals. This should have been aptly titled as "how to learn from others mistakes"

10/26/2010 3:04 PM EDT

Thanks Ketel - sorry on my harsh comment. I was reacting to the article header and tagline which penalized someone for coming up with a good idea.

I understand the article better after reading your comment. I agree the consultant should have done the research and work completely before claiming glory.

10/27/2010 6:54 AM EDT

Dear William Ketel when i read the few lines of this application the first thing came to my mind is to conect a mobile phone vibrator motor or solenoid on the metal sheet and test it!

10/27/2010 12:47 PM EDT

" Hiring a consultant is an excellent way of turning problems into gold. Your problems into their gold."

10/29/2010 2:52 AM EDT

This is one tricky story to interpret.

Generally, a consultant comes into an organization to bring upon a new perspective that regular workers might oversee This the reason why consultants exist and this consultant has done so. He has given a fresh perspective to a solution. Pursuing the consultants’ hint, an internal engineer has solved the problem which is great. That is what is to be expected. If the consultant has merely come in as an external pair of eyes, he has done his job. It is rather too optimistic to expect an external consultant (who is not an engineering expert) to practically solve an engineering problem for you,

However, if this consultant has presented himself as an engineering expert, it is not very smart of him to deliver untested solutions, and quite childish of him to expect to publish on such. I strongly believe that if you present yourself as an expert, you have to be one. Ideally, such engineering expert should be heads and shoulders above the internal staff engineers if they are to be contracted to solve engineering problems. Therefore, in my opinion, the problem is with the people who make such decisions and neither with the staff-engineer or the consultant.

While there are many ways to interpret the story, I have to disagree with Silicon_Smith that consultants are always gold diggers on other peoples hardships. They come in useful at times, the company has to be wise enough to contract the correct person at correct times. In my view, the call is with the management.

11/2/2010 9:33 AM EDT

Much depends on why the consultant is there and who decided that he or she was necessary. Management ineptitude seems to me to be tolerated to a degree that would have long seen any consultant or engineer dismissed for it. Bad feeling between engineers needing help and consultants doing their best to give it smells strongly of inept management. Good engineers welcome all the help they can get and give as much as they can. Only bad ones hug their knowledge to themselves and try to outdo their colleagues by withholding information. I know the breed and have no time for them in any role.

11/14/2010 8:15 PM EST

I think the title of the article doesn't seem to match the body of the article.


Given that the consultant probably should have tested more to ensure the results he was getting are valid. However, to completely dismiss him is not fair either. After all he came up with the so called solution that the EE refined. We have to give him credit for coming up with the solution.

I wonder what have happened if the consultant didn't come up with the solution?????