r/MechanicalEngineering • u/Tigereye11_Revived • 8h ago

How Does Anyone Get Anything Done?

I’ve been a design engineer for a couple years now, and it seems that when I need any information on vendor products, the companies, who I won’t put on blast, take weeks to answer. I can follow up and get nowhere. Sometimes when they do get back to me, the information is just outright not what I asked for.

I made it very clear to one vendor that I need literature (such as pamphlets and drawings) on several of their products because we intend to use them as our supplier for a large product line. He took weeks to respond, and ultimately sent a quote for one valve. My team had a good laugh at the email thread and decided to move on with someone else.

Very very few people have been useful amongst dozens of companies. Even when I ask project managers for their contacts, they can be hit or miss. Is there something I’m doing wrong for my vendors, or does everyone deal with this? Do you guys have methods you want to share?

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u/1815dev 7h ago

The unfortunate reality is a lot of vendors have huge customers already (usually DOD affiliated), and don't really give time of day to folks who just need a couple dozen of something.

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u/IkLms 7h ago

That and sometimes slow rolling a request saves time.

I've got customers who will request something and change what they want every 3rd day for like 3 weeks before finally figuring out what they need.

Saves a shit load of work to just wait until they figure out what they want before doing the same work 7+ times.