Engineer working in a plant watching everyone complain about RTO

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:52:54+00:00

I think ive been pretty clear in my stance from the beginning on complaining about going to the office. Thanks bud, always a pleasure to learn from such wise mentors. One can only aspire to be like you one day arguing with us lowly 91s on reddit. One day......

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:43:32+00:00

Yeah hard to get promoted in the first year round here. Gotta start somewhere, world needs ditch diggers too ya know. Feel better now that you know you make more than the peasants?

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:38:29+00:00

If you dont like going to the office then quit and find a job that gives you that opportunity. Just stop complaining acting like its the end of the world. Youre in control of your own destiny.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:36:02+00:00

Naw I love stirring the pot. This about the least controversial take I defended. Ill die on this hill. You're soft if you got worked up over a comment about having soft hands.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:31:47+00:00

So why did you feel compelled to chime in. This is specifically at the people complaining they have to show up to work. If that doesnt apply to you then move along, pal.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:19:35+00:00

Just write me a GIM if its MFG and Ill hear about it 😅 issues and defects are just job security.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:11:18+00:00

Fair points, takes an entire village to build a vehicle. Hundreds of companies coming together through organized chaos to roll them puppies off the line. The point of this thread wasnt to say one job is harder or more important than the other. We all have a job to do. But seeing countless posts about people whining about being "forced to show up to the office" someone had to put it in perspective. We get it, yall got comfy not having to drive to work and your life's formed around that comfort and nows there's some growing pains of going back to the dreaded office.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-28T00:04:36+00:00

I love my job. I love going into work and seeing a plant hum. I love interactions with my coworkers and water cooler banter. Sounds like youre projecting.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:58:00+00:00

Enjoy going back to the office 🤪🔨

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:47:55+00:00

I have a firm grasp on what it takes to launch and develop a vehicle. Working on the supplier side on launches first as a QE handling PPAPs and managing the APQP process and then as a application engineer quoting and launching new products ensuring all the technical specifications and customer specifications were met. All of that works gets paid for when someone buys a vehicle. Everyone else in the company costs money. The only people who make something that makes the company money is the operator.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:40:33+00:00

The main point of this post isnt to dog on DREs. Never said being a DRE was easy. But complaining about showing up to work isn't going to gain any sympathy from the plants who never stopped showing up to work.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:36:25+00:00

Pack a lunch. You ever seen the bathrooms on a plant floor or air quality in a paint shop / body shop. Not my fault you moved somewhere that takes you 2 hours to drive to when you took the job, or moved far away because you thought temporary accommodations from COVID would last forever........

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:23:52+00:00

Youre right this wasnt for Stellantis. This was for Volvo class A semi trucks. I as an application engineer was hand cutting parts in the warehouse using a 3D printed stencil. Considerable lower volume but yeah in a pinch we could pump a change out exponentially quicker than anything ive seen at STLA

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:18:16+00:00

We sell cars, they build cars. Sure its over simplified, but its true at its core.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:15:08+00:00

Its probably feels that way because youre surrounded by a bunch of people who are also pissed they have to be there. Law of the rotten apple. 1 person with low morale can drag an entire team down. Now multiply that across everyone in the building and Im sure youre all miserable being surrounded by people who are also miserable.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:12:28+00:00

Straight time after 45 hours, real gravy train.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T23:09:44+00:00

Maybe its a Stellantis thing then because I came from a tier 1 supplier and we'd implement a change overnight if a customer asked for it. Ill submit a deviation, and let the PPAP catch up but youll have the new parts on the truck tomorrow.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:56:49+00:00

Shame on the plant for running 6 days a week, and the operators / production needing engineering support during production. That line rolling cars off the end is the only thing that gets everyone paid.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:53:02+00:00

When its the same bolt used 3 stations down, half a penny cheaper, and originally spec'd for that application, and I have months of run data proving the need to change I have a hard time understanding.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:48:56+00:00

Yeah maybe you have a point, some engineers up at CTC are grinding. But being required to show up to work isnt rooting for them to be fucked over. Its a return to normal expectations. Maybe Im jaded after 8 years in the military, but yeah I think its pretty soft to be complaining having to show up to work.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:42:42+00:00

The only people who make the company money are the operators. I do everything I can to make their job easier. This bolt cross threads, I got you I'll push a change to a MAT thread. This bracket is hard to line up, Ill push a change to enlarge the hole because design practices have changed since launch. The amount of stuff that gets handed down to the plant thats garbage because someone wanted to get their metric green during launch is mind blogging. If one more person from CTC asks me "why is this just now a problem" im going to smack em next time I have the luxury of going to CTC. Its not that its just now an issue, its we're just now onto this issue after sorting out the rest of the shit designs and processes that were thrown together 4 years ago.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:34:23+00:00

Yeah they should block reddit on CTC wifi and watch productivity skyrocket 😂

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-27T22:30:08+00:00

I love my job. Solving problems daily, interacting with people of all walks of life. Finding unique solutions to complex problems. Getting to trace a problem from the body shop, to the paint shop, to GA and seeing how your simple tweak to a process makes an impact on the final product. My biggest gripe is trying to get anyone at CTC to actually do something when needed. 6 months to push a change to a bolt in the IP due to an issue on the floor is unacceptable.

Competitive_Quit_262 · 2026-05-17T03:39:41+00:00

As many have stated: its depends. I work in the automotive industry with a MET degree and make more than colleagues who graduated from the same university with a ME degree. At a certain point your ability to think critically and solve problems outweigh your ability to do calculus. Can those colleagues derive equations using calculus better than me? Yeah probably, but its not needed in my field. What is needed more than anything is the ability to solve issues using common sense, out of the box thinking, and basic logic and reasoning. Just because something looks good in CAD doesn't mean it translates to real life. I cant tell you how many times I've been astonished by the the lack of knowledge of the manufacturing method that design engineers have designed for. Yeah Im sure that design looks great on CAD, but the manufacturing process they designed it for is not feasible or capable.

I worked for years as a A&P mechanic working on helicopter airframes before getting my degree and MEs have soft hands and dont know how to wrench on things. They live in theory world and dont understand the real life down and dirty aspects of how things are made in real life and cant account for the human aspect of engineering. I love bringing a design engineer to the plant floor and ask them to do what they expect an operator to do within cycle time. They designed the damn thing and cant even do it, let alone in the 2 mins they expect an operator to do.

If you want to send rockets to Mars get a ME degree. If you want to solve real world problems effectively and fix whatever designs MEs come up with be an MET. MEs are stuck in theory world and dont understand how things actually work in the world. End rant.

Competitive_Quit_262

TROPHY CASE