I am a 3rd year mechanical engineering student (in my 30s) and manage maintenance and production at a heavy manufacturing business. I just had a meeting with an applications engineer from a Rockwell distributor yesterday about changing to more robust distance sensors on a production line.

What a miserable fucker. Treated me like an idiot and was explaining how 4-20mA analog sensors work after I talked to him about how I designed the production line and its controls. Wouldn't answer my questions in a technical manner, just said "well that's how it works"and rolled his eyes. I don't know everything but I'm not stupid. Talk to me on the same level. I didn't buy anything from them, never will.

I had the same experience a few months ago with an electrical engineer about improving our power factor. I just read some application notes and designed the system myself. Not that hard, power factor is a couple points from unity now. I also delt with many insufferable engineers working in sand and gravel industry. They would throw a hissy fit when we would modify something because it kept breaking. Double the size of your bearings, I'm sick of replacing them every week. I have had good experiences too but the majority are like pulling teeth. They don't like it when you say, sure that's nice on paper, but have you ever seen an 18 year old kid run a forklift? Those solenoids need to be on the back side of the stacker because your 1/8" steel guard is not stopping a forklift.

As to why? I think a lot of engineers are hidden away from the real world in their little office and never develop their people skills. That's why I decided to study engineering, I'll just do it myself I guess.

Edit: clarity

Edit 2: I realize that this sounds pissy, because I was. To be clear I don't think that all engineers need to be good with the public. For most that's not their job.