Rich Graziano wrote:

> I think it can perhaps be somewhat problematic if or when an engineer 
> has had to work hard to get his or her degree and competes with a 
> non-degreed engineer that eventually becomes the lead engineer or the 
> manager.  I am not sure what to say about that except in my organization, I 
> would not consider moving a non-degreed engineer in a supervisory position 
> over a degreed engineer even if the non-degreed engineer was a better 
> organizer and administrator.

I think this is possibly common and possibly necessary to keep the peace
with all the egos floating around in the workspace, but in essence, it's
counterproductive. As is that the one higher up in the management chain has
to make more money than the lower ones. 

I've been in charge of projects with /very/ good specialists on board; they
were much better than I was in certain fields, they sometimes had higher
degrees, and they sometimes made more money than I did. But my job wasn't
to be better than everybody on my team, my job was to make the team work,
to make sure everybody has everything she needs to be productive, provide
the infrastructure, coordinate the work of every individual with everybody
else and the client, and so on -- project management work. 

And for every single of those very good specialists it would have been a
big mistake to put him in charge of the project -- that's /not/ what they
were good at. And they knew that. So we got along quite well.

> I am sure some will disagree.

Here you got it... :)

Gerhard

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