The Professional Engineer - A Prelude

 The Professional Engineer - A Prelude.

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيْم

Salam

 

I'm not perfect. Allah SWT is Perfection.

My mistakes here are of my own. What I am writing here is out of good intentions, insha Allah.

 

Guidance, not spoonfeed.

 

Many of you probably didn't know that I got to be a P.Eng when I was 50 y.o and after working since 1994. Yeah, why not way sooner kan?

 

Well, let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll tell you why in person, insha Allah.

 

I'm 54 now - as of now, Alhamdulillah. Not an 'atok' yet, let alone a Dato'. ;-)

 

My first ever project was the Petronas Twins - Tower 2. I was a mechanical engineer with the Main Contractor. Alhamdulillah, I didn't look for the job. The construction company communicated with ITM for a list of graduating students to fill up some positions with the company and Allah SWT has willed it upon me to join them, Alhamdulillah.

 

I know it became UiTM after a few years I graduated, but old-schools like me fondly call my alma mater ITM.

 

Well at least that is what printed on our Advanced Diploma. I never bothered to get it 'upgraded' to B.Eng.

 

As my interest is actually number crunching, i.e design, I left the job after a few months. But I've learned a few things such as what goes into the construction of a building - basic terms such as slab, rebar, formwork (including the self-climbing kind), column, bondek (or composite slab, some people call it metal deck), core wall and pipe sleeves, just to name a few. 

750mm is the thickness of the core wall of the twin towers. Imagine if a pipe sleeve is accidentally removed from the rebar and goes unnoticed by the M&E (the term 'MEP' wasn’t popular back then) team (us and the subcons) and the wall is cast (it's not 'casted')..

 

Yeah.. You see the trouble, right?

 

I've also learned the concept of sub-contracting and I dealt with the sub-contractors to obtain from them their shop drawings (bear in mind this was '94 and internet wasn’t a popular thing back then). Yup, we dealt with 3.5 inch floppy disks at that time. No such thing as Google Drive or wetransfer.

 

One of my main task at that time was to check on builders work construction progress.  It's tough for a fresh grad like me as the learning curve was very steep. Besides, that was no ordinary building. Because my English is a bit better than my Korean bosses', Alhamdulillah,  my former assistant department head has tasked me with memo writing and at one point, had asked me to figure out a way to summarize the contents of the form of contract.

 

I learned the meaning of the word 'indemnify' from that exercise and finally managed to obtain advice from a colleague from the Contracts Department on how to go about summarizing the contents of the document. He's Malaysian and he told me politely that to summarize the form of contract can be a difficult thing to do as it takes more than just language proficiency.

 

So, I went back to my boss and told him that it's difficult and I was advised by the QS not to attempt it to prevent misleading my immediate superior and perhaps other people also. Besides, I had quite a bit on my plate too. Alhamdulillah, he was a reasonable man.

 

I later put up my resignation and shortly after and on one fateful night I bumped into Ir Dr Ow Chee Sheng, who was my former Fluid Mechanics lecturer (my final year project supervisor also) and told him that I was looking for a job in the consultancy profession.  

 

He asked me to contact *Nama Kompeni A* to find out if they have vacancies and Alhamdulillah, I got the job. This was in September 1994.

 

There'll be more grandpa stories in later posts, insha Allah.

 

Reason for me writing all these is because - I love to share, I can tell grandpa stories and I can type with 10 fingers. Most importantly, I have a bit of time to sit down and type.

 

Alhamdulillah.

 

Besides, if any of you who have read the stuff I wrote on my blog page - sonofmyparents.blogspot.com, I've put up some pointers for young engineers who are pursuing their career in the consultancy profession.

 

Apart from the tales of yesteryears, I'll be writing on the knowledge I'd like to see an engineer possess in pursuing his or her Professional Interview to become a Hex. Strictly from my own point of view, which I hope and pray can inspire some of you here, insha Allah. 

 

Consider this to be a prelude to the stuffs I would write about in future posts, insha Allah.

 

Until then,

 

Wassalam,

Peace,

FbI