Dead serious. I thought it was a joke and started laughing. He said no I'm serious this isn't funny. I told them to go pound sand in a nice way.
We rebranded and declared war on plastics. They're taking the f-ing vending machines due to too much plastic being sold. I asked about recycling and was told it costs too much lol.
Our main office is oil based mind you. No no don't look at the oil look over there see the bastards with plastic straws get them.
They've been getting feed back from the young engineers group since they're so fresh and woke. The vending machines was one of their brilliant ideas. The lead chair for the young group got sent home early last week due to whining so much about it being too hot and dirty in the field.
Never listen more than 10% to the new engineers. New engineers show up as interns with wet EIT certs and have often never built a thing in their lives. Not a P51 flying model. Not a slot car. Not a dog house, or a birdhouse. . . . ZIP!
But if you can find your way through the code and crunch numbers like a pro, then you get a shot to design things that cost too much, fall apart, can't be built, or are simply re-inventing the wheel.
I had built lots of things, and I still made mistakes, yet I had much advantage in practical & tech experience.
BUT THE ONE THING . . . the "one thing" (as Curly the cowpoke would say) that made a difference for me in business, was the willingness to take on things I couldn't quite do and see them through to the end. It's how I got that experience. Others who also felt unqualified (and certainly were in some respects) were hampered by timidity.
We had a very young guy quit, because the boss found him temporarily without work & asked him to clean up the messy plan storage room. It was a nothingburger, but that guy couldn't bring himself to play maid-for-a-day for the good of the office. I took his job, got our horrible shop foreman fired, got a better man promoted, and that company started to really make waves. We did some very high profile jobs up and down the West coast.
OMG the stories . . .
But I gotta work on the house today.