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Oct. 4, 2004 Here are some things that I learned (the hard way!) during my 27 years of working for American corporations, plus 15 years as a professor and consultant, with two years in the U.S. Army squeezed in between. Note: I started working at summer jobs as a lab technician in an Exxon oil refinery, and then part time during college years at J&J Company's Band-Aid [T.M.] factory, in, like, 1947! (Yes, that's not a misprint --- I'm getting sort of "old," although I sometimes have trouble admitting it.) Then I had full time jobs as a scientist/ engineer/teacher after college. LESSON NUMBER ONE One of the things I learned was, "If you're successful in a project, don't let it go to your head. In other words, don't get overconfident and think you're always right --- your success might have been mostly just good luck." (If you toss a coin four times, you are quite likely to get 3 or 4 heads instead of only 2, but it wouldn't be because you're so darned smart!) Or, if you fail, don't let it depress you --- it might have been mostly just bad luck, rather than stupidity. I said that more efficiently in a textbook that I wrote (but I have slightly altered the wording here, because of copyrights) as follows. Much of the author's experience in industry reminds him of a comment made by his compatriot in the U.S. Army while on night patrol during the Korean War: "I'd rather have luck than brains!" But it applies to a lot of civilian tasks, also. That comment was on page 280 of the "Organic Additives" chemistry book that I eventually wrote. You can see a nice Customer Review of my little book at amazon.com if you click on this colored thing: "Organic Additives" book LESSON NUMBER TWO On page 275 of that chemistry book is Shanefield's First Law, which reads, "Everything takes longer than you thought it would." Amazingly true, amazingly often. LESSON NUMBER THREE On page 289 of the book is Shanefield's Second Law, which reads (again, slightly reworded), "Don't choose to work on a task where you are not likely to gain much, just because you can make easy progress there." A little parable to remind us of that idea is the following: A drunk dropped his keys in the dark but was looking for them under a light. When asked why, he said, "I can see here, but not over there where I lost them." LESSON NUMBER FOUR On page 8 of the same book, I claim that one of the best tests of any theory (such as the theories that famous professors teach us) is whether the theory can successfully predict anything. We use that test in physical science, quite a lot. But can economics or sociology or psychology professors predict anything important with their theories? Once in a while, maybe. Of course, they are dealing with extremely complex issues, but they do "profess" to understand those things. So, can those guys predict what will happen to the stock market that controls your future retirement income? Once in a while --- maybe. The lesson that my experiences in industry taught me is that, any time you come up with an interesting sounding theory, try to use it to actually predict something, before you "believe" it. LESSON NUMBER FIVE On page 191 of the book, I wrote that bad news gets the headlines, but good news (or just "no problem" news) is often ignored. I said this tends to magnify the scare factor in environmental science, sometimes out of proper proportion. Of course, such studies can be very important, for potential dangers, but also for potential costs. For example, do we have to worry about "electromagnetic fields" from cellular telephones? The scientific results have said "no problem," but you only see that reported down low on the back pages of the newspapers. LESSON NUMBER SIX I wrote an unusually easy-to-read book that explains the basic ideas involved in electronics (why "digital" instead of "analog," what's inside a transistor, etc.). At the bottom of this web page you are now reading, If you click on the blue picture of that book, you will be taken to amazon.com. Then, if you click on Customer Reviews, you will see that people said my book is very easy to understand.) On page 85 of that electronics book, I tell a very short story about Edison. Surprisingly, he was not the first person to get a patent on the carbon filament in a vacuum bulb, for use as an electric light. But he was able to explain his idea to Wall Street investors and sell it to potential users. the lesson is, "Successful engineering is not just engineering." I learned these lessons the hard way, by "falling flat on my face," as well as by occasionally succeeding. If you are curious to read five of my more spectacular short stories about such things ("splat" goes my face!), click on the following colored link. "The Green Monster" I guess there was "more luck than brains" in those happenings, but you are welcome to disagree. ------------ About the author: Dan Shanefield is a retired engineering prof, who worked at Bell Labs and then at Rutgers University. He wrote the book "Industrial Electronics for Engineers, Chemists, and Technicians". Visit his website or email Dan Shanefield: shanefield@ieee.org Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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