Why You Suck at Designing

It’s not your fault that you suck at designing.  

Look, I’m not one to make, or grant an excuse but in this particular case I think it’s justifiable stupidity.

But wait you say…..”I got an A+ in my capstone design project at Teetor Totter Tech and I have been working for Neverheardofit.com for 5 years designing a 14 piece door wedge”.  Yep…..You are most definitely clueless.  Let me explain a bit.

I’ve been running a fabrication business for over a decade and have seen literally thousands of designs from hundreds of companies. The number of projects that I have said “damn, this fucker knows what’s up” would be less than the number of dates you had that got past second base.  You’re an engineer….do the math.  The odds that you know what you’re doing are pathetically low.

See the thing is that us engineers that work on the manufacturing side of the business are like the cashier working the night shift at 7-11 with 4 kids from 3 (maybe 4) dads……We’re jaded as fuck.  We don’t have the time to deal with your bullshit.  You send over your “Final Design Package_Final_REV2_Final” PDF package under the email heading “RUSH -NEED ASAP”.  We open your supposedly complete design package and look through it like that mom working at 7-11 who just found out her 11-year-old got kicked out of school for smoking pot in the bathroom.  We say, “fuck it, he’ll figure it out on his own eventually”.  I’m not one to give parenting advice, but we can see there is a breakdown in adulting somewhere between the house and school in the same way that there is a breakdown in what you think happens when you send in your final design.  No one taught you any better.

Hopefully now that I’ve insulted your Alma Mater and your mom in the three paragraphs of this diatribe, you’re now ready for a few pointers to help you round 3^rd base for the first time and I can feel good about myself for trying to help you out.

1. This is America, and the only thing we like more than too much apple pie and reality TV is inches.  Millimeters???? Never heard of her.  Look, I get that there is something about milliliters and grams and water boiling at 100 degrees Celsius, but the fact is that you can’t get metric material in the good ‘ol U.S. of A. so please don’t tell me that you sized your frame with 100mm square tube, and it has 10mm plate.  If your company has a policy that it wants to identify as metric, I’m not going to judge, but do yourself a favor and at least keep the raw material in units that your grandfather would know.

2. Just because SolidWorks lets you do it, doesn’t mean it can be done.  This could probably be about a whole lot of things, but I’m primarily referring to sheetmetal.  The press brake is quite literally the simplest machine in the entire manufacturing arsenal.  It’s a giant piece of steel that goes up and down…..that’s it.  Seriously…..that’s it.  There is some nuance to them, but thankfully technology has gotten to the point where a 11-year-old that got kicked out school for smoking pot in the bathroom can run one between stints in county.  There’s some deep irony in the world when a pot smoker with a GED has to call an engineer and explain to them the complexities of the press brake ram going up and down and how they have to change their design in order to work.  Do yourself a favor and watch some YouTube or call us up and ask for a lesson.  Our press brake operator has lots of community service hours past due and teaching special needs engineers counts towards them.

3. Nothing says “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing” more than covering a shop drawing with, what I suppose you are calling weld symbols.  Like, it’s bizarre how badly someone can understand something that can be explained in less than one page.  I assume that as the cultured man of the world that you are, you dutifully studied how to order shrimp fried rice the correct way on your trip to Vietnam last year so that you didn’t look stupid to a guy you’ll never see again.  Do yourself a favor and learn how to properly call out welds so you don’t look like an asshat professionally as well. And I mean this seriously, if you don’t know, just call and ask.  Just like which type of animal meat that is in your bowl of rice should be important to you, so should the weld symbols.

Now wipe away the tears. Saying this to you has hurt me more than it hurt you.  Think of me as your manufacturing stepfather using my metaphorical belt to help you learn some lessons that you probably should have already known.  Depending on how much time I have between fixing your designs and court ordered anger management therapy I’ll write some more lessons in the future.  Now go get after it!

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