This is a great cause of frustration for me.
I call it industry snobbery for lack of a better term.
By that I mean people who feel that if you have never been in their industry you can't possibly know anything about their operation.

I had a huge argument with one of these yesterday about filling a QC inspector position. Naturally this is the only company that this person has ever worked for so it's very special and far more complex than any other company in the world.
He was insisting that I need someone with significant metrology experience. I maintain that someone with significant metrology experience won't want to be a QC inspector in a machine shop - maybe a quality engineer, but not an inspector. I told him that I could take anyone with a basic grasp of linear measurement and teach him to be a QC inspector ready to do the basics within 2 weeks.
This resulted in head shaking.
I reinforced that I have trained QC inspectors in several different industries now and I'm confident that what our inspectors do is no more complex that what my other inspectors have done.
He just plain won't believe it.
I say "FOR $%&##$@# SAKE THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! Just give me someone who is WILLING to work and FITS in with my crew and I will make him/her ABLE"
Blank look.
I explain - I look for Willingness, Ability, and Fit. Right now I need the Willingness and Fit, I can train to make Able.
Oh - but you need someone who already understands metrology because our parts are so special.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH :frust::frust::frust::frust::frust::frust:

Scott, it's even more fun when you run into that attitude in a registrar's auditor. At my prior employer, the lead auditor for the registration audit to ISO/TS came from the casting industry - we were primarily a plant producing iron powders and premixes for customer's making powdered metal parts. He had difficulty moving outside the processing methods typical and necessary for castings and molten metal and expanding his outlook to powder processing where you mix materials to obtain a final product meeting customer needs/specifications. We spent a lot of time during the registration audit trying various explanations in the hope that one would "click".

We never really succeeded and had several minors raised as a result. :mad: He was not invited back as lead auditor to close them, instead we chose one of the other team members and had no difficulties the following years.

Yeah, basically been there on the shop floor too, and have seen it during interviews as well, where you really don't want to dash someone's bubble that their plant/job is so special. On the other hand, you don't necessarily want to take the position with that attitude either.

I've run into both examples.
in my opinion tho, the auditor who only knows one industry is a guy who only remembers stuff and doesn't have a lot of knowledge or education - he can't apply his knowledge to different situations. He remembers one thing. so anything different must be wrong.

The first situation is all too comon: I just remind people that the Laws of Physics are the same for everyone and every company and Human behavior (within a general curlture) is the same as well...

but these situations are typically no win when dealing with the adamant. the person's self worth is at stake.

This is a great cause of frustration for me.
I call it industry snobbery for lack of a better term.
By that I mean people who feel that if you have never been in their industry you can't possibly know anything about their operation.

I had a huge argument with one of these yesterday about filling a QC inspector position. Naturally this is the only company that this person has ever worked for so it's very special and far more complex than any other company in the world.
He was insisting that I need someone with significant metrology experience. I maintain that someone with significant metrology experience won't want to be a QC inspector in a machine shop - maybe a quality engineer, but not an inspector. I told him that I could take anyone with a basic grasp of linear measurement and teach him to be a QC inspector ready to do the basics within 2 weeks.
This resulted in head shaking.
I reinforced that I have trained QC inspectors in several different industries now and I'm confident that what our inspectors do is no more complex that what my other inspectors have done.
He just plain won't believe it.
I say "FOR $%&##$@# SAKE THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! Just give me someone who is WILLING to work and FITS in with my crew and I will make him/her ABLE"
Blank look.
I explain - I look for Willingness, Ability, and Fit. Right now I need the Willingness and Fit, I can train to make Able.
Oh - but you need someone who already understands metrology because our parts are so special.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH :frust::frust::frust::frust::frust::frust:I sympathize. One of the more egregious examples of industry snobbery is the healthcare industry. Examples abound of inefficient, mistake-prone healthcare systems and yet the powers that be seem to think that only folks who have been trained in the inefficient, mistake-prone way are able to fix it. Kind of like a golf duffer with a bad slice going to the range and practicing for hours, days, and weeks until he has the slice down so well he can reproduce it every time.

This is a great cause of frustration for me.
I call it industry snobbery for lack of a better term.
By that I mean people who feel that if you have never been in their industry you can't possibly know anything about their operation.

I had a huge argument with one of these yesterday about filling a QC inspector position. Naturally this is the only company that this person has ever worked for so it's very special and far more complex than any other company in the world.
He was insisting that I need someone with significant metrology experience. I maintain that someone with significant metrology experience won't want to be a QC inspector in a machine shop - maybe a quality engineer, but not an inspector. I told him that I could take anyone with a basic grasp of linear measurement and teach him to be a QC inspector ready to do the basics within 2 weeks.
This resulted in head shaking.
I reinforced that I have trained QC inspectors in several different industries now and I'm confident that what our inspectors do is no more complex that what my other inspectors have done.
He just plain won't believe it.
I say "FOR $%&##$@# SAKE THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! Just give me someone who is WILLING to work and FITS in with my crew and I will make him/her ABLE"
Blank look.
I explain - I look for Willingness, Ability, and Fit. Right now I need the Willingness and Fit, I can train to make Able.
Oh - but you need someone who already understands metrology because our parts are so special.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH :frust::frust::frust::frust::frust::frust:

Yes, and there are the education snobs as well, they will not let people advance without the 4 year.

Yes, and there are the education snobs as well, they will not let people advance without the 4 year.

and the Six Sigma snobs who won't even give you an interview unless you have a "belt" from somewhere.

and the Six Sigma snobs who won't even give you an interview unless you have a "belt" from somewhere.

I got "belted" by a 70+ year old man back in 1973 and was introduced to "rhinoplasty" as a result of it.:lol:

I see the snobbery all the time whether I'm auditing or training, and I'll let the folks have their fun (they probably choke puppies as well)

Industry is bad when it comes to snobbery, but the military is worse. If you ain't a member of the club (officer, academy grad, pilot, Ranger, etc) forget it because you have nothing to offer.

In the end all we can do is use our charm (:lmao:), intellect, and pray for lightning to strike.

Yes, and there are the education snobs as well, they will not let people advance without the 4 year. 4 years--hellfire! I did have a 4-year, but found myself requiring a Ph.D. to have an opinion that my school's students should be grouped together by intelligences and interests instead of just three equally very mixed bags.

and the Six Sigma snobs who won't even give you an interview unless you have a "belt" from somewhere. This used to bother me until I decided that such an organization's culture would feel pretty uncomfortable to me if I did manage to get hired on. If they think the BB is the answer to their prayers, they have bigger problems than they think.

Scott, my heart goes out to you. This person sounds like he may not understand QA very well. Maybe you can ask him for ideas on what labor pool to fish in. Where will the organization search for an inspector who is this metrology guru? Make him a part of the solution. Or I should say, make him a part of the fact finding that shows his "solution" is really just a brick wall.

4 years--hellfire! I did have a 4-year, but found myself requiring a Ph.D. to have an opinion that my school's students should be grouped together by intelligences and interests instead of just three equally very mixed bags.

I’m surprised even with a PH.D. that the school would listen to such opinions. My wife and most of my neighbors are teachers and all their schools believe in the mixed bag approach. This leads to teachers having to have at least 3 different lesson plans for the same material, one for each comprehension level and not enough time to give any level the time they deserve or need. I believe the kids at my sons High School properly named the No Child left Behind plan as No Child Gets Ahead

This is a great cause of frustration for me.
I call it industry snobbery for lack of a better term.
By that I mean people who feel that if you have never been in their industry you can't possibly know anything about their operation.

I had a huge argument with one of these yesterday about filling a QC inspector position. Naturally this is the only company that this person has ever worked for so it's very special and far more complex than any other company in the world.
He was insisting that I need someone with significant metrology experience. I maintain that someone with significant metrology experience won't want to be a QC inspector in a machine shop - maybe a quality engineer, but not an inspector. I told him that I could take anyone with a basic grasp of linear measurement and teach him to be a QC inspector ready to do the basics within 2 weeks.
This resulted in head shaking.
I reinforced that I have trained QC inspectors in several different industries now and I'm confident that what our inspectors do is no more complex that what my other inspectors have done.
He just plain won't believe it.
I say "FOR $%&##$@# SAKE THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! Just give me someone who is WILLING to work and FITS in with my crew and I will make him/her ABLE"
Blank look.
I explain - I look for Willingness, Ability, and Fit. Right now I need the Willingness and Fit, I can train to make Able.
Oh - but you need someone who already understands metrology because our parts are so special.

AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH :frust::frust::frust::frust::frust::frust:


I believe you are correct in each point. I'm told the military has a term - Unk/Unk, which means - "Unknown / Unknown." Simply put, they cannot know what they don't know. Thus, they cannot respond or react properly, if they don't know that they don't know.

This condition is also sometimes referred to as...Ignorance...:notme: