>>  I'm a professional electronics tech.

>Just look carefully at the word professional. If you are
>a technician then by definition you are not a professional.

Really ???? That is a statement I would definitely take issue with, and if 
that was how a prospective employer saw me, then I would seriously consider 
if I should work for them.

As Olin said in the EE thread, 'professional' means you get paid for the 
job, as your normal source of income. It is also taken to mean that you care 
about the result, and will perform to your utmost ability to do a good job.

Far too often 'professional' is taken to mean having a university degree. 
While there are legal terms that can be used to back this up in the USA, it 
is certainly not a global expectation of the term.

My first boss, who took me on as an apprentice, straight from secondary 
school, took the general attitude that he would sooner employ someone with 
the qualification that I gained, as an apprentice, than an engineering 
graduate straight from university, because those with my qualification had 
to show a specific length of time in employment at an appropriate facility 
relevant to their certification. Now, I appreciate that this is specific to 
the consumer goods/radio telephone industry that the company was involved in 
at that time, but there are still truths in this that I see around me even 
now, 40 years later.

After that job I worked at a government laboratory where I worked with a guy 
who had a doctorate, and he freely admitted that he had come to appreciate 
the technicians around him - because they had the practical experience that 
he hadn't got through his education path.

Even now, working in another government lab, in a different country, I see 
the same problem, with those with Doctorates and Masters - the people who 
are often considered 'professionals' - making stupid errors or coming up 
with impractical circuits, items where they should know better. The number 
of times I have come across items where a technician has stepped in and 
asked 'how is this going to be assembled' and has then pointed out how the 
design as laid out is impossible to assemble physically, has amazed me.

Do you really feel that the people you have doing your PCB layouts are not 
doing a professional job ??? Do you really have people with University 
Degrees doing this, as that is what your comment that I quoted at the top 
seems to imply. Maybe the work you are doing is specialist enough that this 
is needed, but the other comments in your mail don't seem to say this is the 
case. 

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