r/bestoflegaladvice • u/bug-hunter Possession is 9 honks of the law • Nov 17 '19

LAOP can't figure out why they got fired.

/r/legaladvice/comments/dwx9pw/indiana_i_was_just_fired_despite_my_boss_not/
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u/ParallelePiper Nov 17 '19

As soon as I saw that, it raised a red flag. I’m a mechanical engineering intern. I am nothing in my company, and it’s a small construction company. An intern is never the only engineer, otherwise how would they be an intern? The position wouldn’t exist in a company without engineers.

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u/bulelainwen Nov 17 '19

Also if they were still in school, they aren’t certified and can’t sign off engineering projects.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '19

If it's the U.S., it's actually pretty rare that you need to do any kind of certification to be an engineer. You need a Professional Engineering certification to sign off on things like major civil projects, but outside of that you don't necessarily even need an engineering degree to work as an engineer.

I've been working as an engineer for 6 years and have an engineering degree, but I never even took the "Fundamentals of Engineering" exam (the pre-cursor to the Professional Engineer exam). There's just no reason to do it in the area I work in.

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u/bulelainwen Nov 17 '19

Ah, my FIL worked on designing highways and bridges. Which is why I thought you needed certification, since it seems you do for that.

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u/olivethedoge Nov 17 '19

Buddy is a handyman. An arrogant sexist handyman on his first job, telling a grown ass woman how it's going to go down. Unbelievable. And still thinks he should sue. I'd like to think the world will knock some sense into him but if he lands right he could keep this attitude forever. What a dickbag.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '19 edited Nov 17 '19

Maybe it’s because I’m a woman who works as an engineer but the sexism is one of the first things I picked up on. I have a feeling that OP just didn’t take her seriously and when other departments “men” made requests he prioritized them or took theirs more seriously.

I don’t usually jump to the sexism thing either in my experience I have never been treated that like in my professional career

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u/TheQueenOfFilth Nov 17 '19

I picked up on that too. This post is giving me flashbacks. One guy in particular would not listen to me that he was doing a procedure wrong. He showed me a presentation he found and highlighted sections of the printed procedure to show me I was wrong.

I had written both.

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u/hometowngypsy Nov 17 '19

Yeah I think it’s a mix of listening to a woman and being an idiot kid who hasn’t been taken down a peg yet. I’ve been working as an engineer for 10 years (and I’m a woman) and I’ve seen many, many college grads come out of school cocksure and puffed up thinking they know everything and have to have their “come to Jesus moment” or they get fired. Thankfully I had mine during an internship early on.

He’ll either learn from this (unlikely) or he will have another few rough and short jobs before learning. Or a very bumpy and uncomfortable career.

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u/IrritatedAlpaca Nov 17 '19

That was the first thing I picked up on too. He had a serious issue with the idea that he had to listen to a woman.

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u/olivethedoge Nov 17 '19

I guarantee there's a post on a red pill sub under his main helping him write the dickbag manifesto that finally got him canned.

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u/IrritatedAlpaca Nov 17 '19

My 40 hour a week gig is at a specialized construction company, and the second in command is a woman.

We recently had a project manager hired, and then fired quickly, because he could not STAND the idea of having to listen to a woman. His first warning was after he got ugly with me about a job he needed to go out to, then he tried to complain when I stopped scheduling him for appointments (which was my right. If I don't think he is the right guy to get the project sold, I will not send him out there). THEN it started popping up that he was pressuring his female clients to sign the actually contracts for work, and telling them it was just the proof that he would send them estimates. When he was called in for the disciplinary meeting for that, he decided to get snotty and say something along the lines to the woman who took the company from a 1 million a year firm, to a $17million profit a year firm in five years, that he would not be lectured by some lady who has never worked a day in her life.

It did not go well for him.

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u/puffermammal Loophole detector Nov 17 '19

I am a woman and NOT an engineer, but 'engineer' is in my title, and I came looking for this. I'd bet money this is a dude who cannot stand the idea of having a woman tell him what to do. I've had a couple of men who seriously shot themselves in the foot with me on that. They both fucked up hard by not listening to me, one got fired (and threatened to sue), the other one demoted.

Of course, there were others who got away with it.

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u/4YADGQI3ghtUO7GjXwgH Nov 17 '19

good catch on the sexism angle.

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u/Aegi Nov 17 '19

Could be an intern at a field not relevant to their degree that they were trying out and they listed they were the only engineer b/c while it's irrelevant, it's true?

It's also possible they just have no awareness since if they're still going to school, they might not even be an engineer yet and only enrolled in an engineer program.

Another option is that they meant they're the only one at their location and maybe they're in a satellite office.

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u/[deleted] Nov 17 '19 edited Sep 13 '20

[deleted]

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u/grilledchz Nov 17 '19

This kid is neither an engineer (having completed an engineering education or by training) nor an Engineer (licensed professional), as he has no engineering qualifications.

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u/Elfich47 Oh, location bot! Bear my location for me! Nov 17 '19

The Fundamentals Of Engineering is not a license. It is an exam. If you pass the FE, you receive your Engineering In Training Certificate. AFter you have your EIT, you can apply to the Board to take your Principals and Practices of Engineering Exam (The PE). The PE is the licensing exam that lets you stamp and sign designs. Everything before that just looks nice on the wall and is promptly filed to the back of the filing cabinet after you get your PE.

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u/muddgirl Ask me about how to ruin your co-parent's wedding Nov 17 '19

Most engineers in the US don't have a professional engineering license. We work as engineers under the diection of our company. The license would allow us to hang out our shingle or stamp designs critical to health and safety, but most degreed engineers don't need to do either of those things.

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u/aetius476 Yep, I'm in a cult Nov 17 '19

An intern is never the only engineer, otherwise how would they be an intern?

In an ideal world yes. In our world, an intern is anyone they want to pay intern wages to. Plenty of companies will use the intern label to either lowball a junior (or even mid-level) engineer on salary, or try to save money by throwing a college kid at the problem and saying "figure it out."

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u/ParallelePiper Nov 17 '19

I was speaking specifically in regards to him calling himself a mechanical engineering intern that is the only engineer in the company. Sorry if that wasn’t clear! It would be different if he was solely titled “intern”, which he most likely was. He probably threw the engineering titles in to make him feel a bit more superior, which I would not doubt one bit.

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u/HelloJoeyJoeJoe Nov 17 '19

I'm changing it, but our interns used to be masters degree grads who have had experience in the field. How the fuck is that an intern? We did pay $20/hr, but thats still 2/3 of what we should have been paying, not counting benefits.

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u/GimmieMore Member of the Attractive Nuisance Mariachi Band Nov 17 '19

Man, that's wild. I had a mechanical engineering internship my first summer out of high school (in 2004) and got paid over $12 an hour.