I work in a similar environment to yours, kind of. I however am on the "office" side of the fence. Yes, fence! It seems there are always two sides of the fence, Office and plant (or laborer) type personnel. Typically each side disagrees with the other side. The "plant" employees at my work are Union, the office is not, which creates a divide. My company I work for is publicly traded on Nasdaq so we are pretty big. Anyways, there are 60+ plant employees and about 20+ office (not including outside sales). In the plant there is shipping/receiving, fab shop, liner crew, setup crew, cement finishers, stripping crew, prep line, painting crew, finish crew, yard crew that operate Mi-Jack cranes and loads trucks. None of these guys/gals would have a dang job if it wasn't for the office AND VISE VERSA. Can't sell product with out outside salesmen, can't have production drawings nor preliminary plans for customer approval with out designers and drafters, can't have state approved drawings without a PE stamped set of drawings so you need an Engineer, how is the building/product going to get from plant to site? You then have a logistics team to get the correct truck that needs to be the correct height to you can clear bridges and the correct weight capacity so you can get through the scales, field operations team to setup local general contractors to install building/product and coordinate cranes, underground utilities and pad prep, electrical/plumbing connections and local inspector visits. Once products is in customers hands final remaining payment is made to accounts receivables, this person also makes sure ALL companies bills are paid for and on time. Let's not forget purchasing which orders all proper materials for all projects, tools, saftey equipment, keep fill etc.
In short, it takes BOTH sides for a business to run. We need you guys and you guys need us. I'm an Engineer and I wear STEEL TOED BOOTS to work everyday and my hard hat is two feet away from me as i'm typing this. I can go out in the plant and do about 90% of the work that's being done right now expect for some of the crane operating like the Mi-Jack. I'm sorry you feel that way about your work and for the others dissing on Engineers that think we all are only book smart but that's not true. I however do have a wet behind the ears fresh out of college Mech. Eng that we hired (not to my liking) and he is an egotistical a-hole that when he gets asked the simplest questions he tells them he'll back to them with an answer shortly, they leave, he looks up an answer on the internet and then attempts to instruct the plant employees on what to do. This is what a $60k degree gets you, internet searches for Engineering support. This guy is your poster child for that picture that
@02 281 GT posted except it should say "Google says you're doing it wrong"
Sorry for the long reply, carry on.
