When someone shows me how to do something the tight way, I get excited. I want to mine their brain for whatever knowledge they have to offer. Often they’ll want to mine my brain too. If the subject is technical, that is. In addition to Science Technology Engineering and Manufacturing people, I also worked for years with English profs, psych profs, and social sciences profs. A lot of them were good people, but the subjects really didn’t interest me. I never really could get into dangling participles, whatever THEY are.
mountainbike
I agree . . . those guys that ask me how to do one particular job very often know a better way to do something else, and we both come out ahead 
Engineers for some reason tend to come off as being highly opinionated, and that maybe rubs some folks the wrong way. I recall years ago in one of those “Tell me your problems” newspaper columns, Ann Landers or the like, one reader wrote in saying her husband was an engineer and she was very unhappy w/him. She said he earned a good income, a good provider, loyal, good with the kids, but she said he was so boring and opinionated he was too difficult to live with. Life was just no fun w/him at home. Then a few weeks later thousands and thousand of letters came in from wives of engineers, saying exactly the same thing. The columnist said she’d never seen anything like this about any occupation before. Even wives of physicians were more copasetic w/their hubbies than wives of engineers.
Since I live in Silicon Valley I see lots of engineers and lots of wives married to engineers, and most of them seem to do ok with each other, but it must be maybe some personalities paired with an engineer spouse, that just doesn’t work.
Boring? Yeah, I can definitely see that. Most people aren’t interested in hearing the physics behind a question. They’d prefer a simple answer, without the “why” explanation.
My own son commented on that once when he was young. However he DID get all A’s in physics in a very highly rated (and expensive) private school without ever breaking a sweat. I’d been subjecting him to the gory details his entire life, and while he didn’t enjoy them as much as I do, he apparently was listening more than he realized.
TSM, I expect your son will become more and more curious about stuff as he gets older. I wasn’t nearly as curious about stuff in my 20’s as I am now. Curiosity is a good hobby.
You’re right, George. He’s already older, with a few degrees and combat service behind him, and he’s continued to be curious.
My daughter, whom I also love dearly, is exactly the opposite. Her heart is a big as all outdoors, but she has zero interest in anything technical… although she IS enjoying fixing up her '63 Comet with her boyfriend.
It’s the old nature vs. nurture debate illustrated. My son has been a 40-year-old his entire life, my daughter is a gypsy. I love 'em both dearly.
@moutainbike I agree; engineers need factual info before they voice an opinion. They therefore often have to ask a lot of questions before being able to formulate a solution or an answer.
Engineers often bore people for that reason. At a a cocktail party, liberal arts graduates will often parrot the latest thing they heard on the news, often based on opinion rather than fact. The “super food of the week” is a popular topic.
I just heard a real food scientists debunk most of the food “facts”, like animal fat is bad for you, everyone needs gluten-free food, etc. In fact, it you ate what your grandparents ate you’re doing just fine! Just get the same amount of exercise they got.
TV personalities, lawyers and politicians can tell lies and make them sound like facts. Engineers would have great difficulty doing that. Every time Al Gore opens his mouth he gives real climate engineers goose pimples.
What hath OP wrought?
I am the OP: a liberal arts (BA, MA) major and I have often said in my next life I’ll be an engineer - not to negate anything I have learned, but rather to augment it and to allow me to participate more fully in another worthy realm.
Anyhoo, today I removed the wheel that has one of the offending out-of-round Goodyear tires. The tire does look to be mounted concentrically onto the wheel. The out-of-roundness appears at the outer circumference of the tire. Sidewall flex may be enough to overcome this. I will have the tire balanced again, at a different shop, and find out if the problem all along was a poor job of balancing when the tire was installed and again when I had them all balanced one more time. The discussion here has confirmed my reticence to rely on others to do the job right in the first place.
Thanks again to all who responded.
Mountainbike, I suspect that your opinion of engineers is different because you are one of them. It has been my experience that they listen and are willing to learn from each other, but not from anyone who they consider less educated. No degree=no creds.
Since retiring from the Navy, I have worked mostly in manufacturing. Once in a while, a guy on the production line will have a good idea, but try to get the engineers to listen? Once their back is to the wall, (I would go straight to the CEO sometimes), they would look for a way to make a minor change so they could claim the idea for themselves. I always made sure the credit went where is was supposed to go.
I think it was Tom that said something like, engineers now everything that is needed to know, physicists know everything whether they need to know it or not and nuclear physicists know things that aren’t even known yet. My experience, he was right. I’ve worked with all three.
You can buy a tire changer at harbor freight.
@keith I’m an engineer but experience in Total Quality teaches you that good ideas can come from anywhere in the company. Both Toyota and Honda have very active in-plant programs for employee suggestions. The Big Three seemed to have been very short on that topic.
Honda’s problem solving method involves getting anyone connected with it, from line workers, to design engineers sitting at a ROUND table with only a coach as informal leader to keep the discussion focused. Nothing is laughed at or off limits, and Honda claims this problem-solving method (I think it’s called Nagaya) allows them to solve a problem three times as fast as normal structured methods. This straight from the mouth of Honda’s president in the 80s.
Remember, the guy on the shop floor may have the answer.
I have a brother-in-law with only a high school education who is a farmer and a good mechanic as well. He’s made a number of changes to farm equipment that were a result of bad or marginal design. This guy would have been a better engineer than me if he had gone on to a higher education. He also flies an airplane.
I have seen all sides/degrees.
I have had to deal with the engineering types Keith describes that will not take advice from those that have not “earned” their respect.
It’s like any job in life, there are all types.
Some institutions foster an environment of mutual respect and idea sharing better than others. There, the premadonnas and know-it-alls are filtered out or hammered into conformity 
I’ve said it before, the most dangerous combination is arrogance coupled with ignorance…
It pays to be reminded of the 4 quadrants of knowledge; things we know that we know, things we know we that don’t know, things we don’t know that we know and the granddaddy- things we don’t know that we don’t know
Any organization that does not leverage every bit of capability their resources have to offer is likely to fall behind the competition or, at the very least, not perform up to their full potential.
The person who is most likely to know the most about any issues is the person working with it on a daily basis, not the person that designed it. They almost always have some ingenious means to fix the problem too so better listen to them.
I am a firm believer (and practitioner) of full cross-functional involvement at all stages of product development. Lots of people have experiences that extend way beyond their current role in the organization. And they are not encumbered by blinders that may contribute to tunnel vision (e.g. they taught us in school that isn’t possible).
@shanonia I fully understand your tire predicament. Years ago I bought a set of Marshall tires for my Chevrolet. These were made in Korea and promoted by a local tire chain. They proved impossible to balance, although initially they were not bad. It turned out the rubber was of varying harness around the circumference and as a result they wore into an oval shape.
Since the warranty had run out I just threw them away and bought Michelin X tires which need no initial balancing and lasted for nearly 10 years.
I’m surprised that a company like Goodyear would put out such a shoddy product. The Marshal brand tires have long ago left the market.
Docnick: I have a book with much information concerning design and engineering of Mazda’s Gen 2 RX-7. They were on the same page as Honda. They tasked specific designers and engineers and encouraged input from all employees. An example was “Operation gram per head”. They completely disassembled a prototype, laid the parts out in a large room and invited all employees to examine the parts then submit any weight reduction ideas. The theory was if a 1 gram average per employee could be achieved the project would be worthwhile. It was.