Dingilian  and Associates, Inc.

The sense of appreciation that we get or we give to others gives us a sense of hope that we will be appreciated for doing genuine engineering work without cutting corners or overlooking details, while making sure that what we have done is really for the benefit of the entire engineering team. Interestingly, such appreciation does not have be in long recognition letters or fancy plaques. Instead, they could be in simple Hopeful Engineering Moments.

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Remembered Long After You Leave

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      A few years ago I was on my way out from a plastics show on the way back to my lab to continue my tests. Needless to say, knowing the heavy Los Angeles traffic I would be facing, I was in a hurry to get to my car and get on the road. In the distance I saw a former coworker whom I had mentored and known that he was promoted to management years after I had left the company. I had not seen him since, so I thought it would be appropriate to at least congratulate him on his promotion. So both of us changed our paths and walked towards each other across the parking lot. When we came close and shook hands and I congratulated him, I noticed that he had perhaps half a dozen engineers with him. I reasoned that they must have come together in the company van since their plant was not close to the show location.

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      After the hand shake and exchange of pleasantries, as I was getting to walk away, suddenly he looked back at his group and said in a loud voice: “Do you guys know the ‘Jacob’s Mold’ that you use for testing?”

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      The young engineers looked at each other in a puzzled way and shook their heads with the affirmation and I could hear them mumble to each other: “Yea, so what?”

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      To my surprise, my former coworker pointed the finger at me and told the group with a sense of pride in his voice: “This is the ‘Jacob’ of ‘Jacob’s Mold.’”

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      Of course I was pleasantly surprised because I did not know they named the test mold that I had developed after me. The point is, solid engineering work that helps many is remembered even decades after you leave a company and especially by peers who respect one another.

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I am sure you too have hopeful moments and I would like to share them on this website if you send them to me.