best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
(OP)
I have recently switched jobs and feel like I've hit career gold. The company I am working for has really good rapport with its retirees. They come for lunches once in a while and out to dinners several times per year. I am mid career (roughly 10 years out of university) and want to make the most of this opportunity.
So my question is, what do you think are the best questions to ask individuals (senior engineers/retirees) during a social lunch/gathering?
I've collected the following list (some from here http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/02/28/10-k...)
How did you get this job?
What is your best piece of advice?
Is this where you thought you would end up?
What used to be your biggest weaknesses? And how did you get over them?
What was your favourite project?
Was was your toughest project?
What was your most memorable mistake?
So my question is, what do you think are the best questions to ask individuals (senior engineers/retirees) during a social lunch/gathering?
I've collected the following list (some from here http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2014/02/28/10-k...)
How did you get this job?
What is your best piece of advice?
Is this where you thought you would end up?
What used to be your biggest weaknesses? And how did you get over them?
What was your favourite project?
Was was your toughest project?
What was your most memorable mistake?





RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
"A July 2012 article on the New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants website suggests that mid-career is approximately 10 to 15 years into your career. If you look at a professional career as roughly 35 to 40 years, you could reasonably consider a mid-career professional as being in years 10 through 25."
Although, I can't say that I look forward to retirement. So maybe I am still a junior if I were to consider a career length of 50 years instead of 35 to 40. Food for thought.
As for stock tips, I highly recommend reading the blog Mr. Money Mustache! Added bonus: the author is an engineer.
Cheers,
K
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
I don't have any stock tips, but I do have a war story.
Take a look at the stock prices of Dow Chemical. Dow Chemical. Click "Max". See what happened in Feb/March 2009? You can read one version of this "perfect storm" here Dow Chemical: Kuwait Strikes Back . The root cause of this mess was the Great Recession.
So, here you are, sitting with 100% of your 401k invested in cash (a guaranteed return fund) because you are in . . . the Great Recession. In the halls, at the canteen, in E V E R Y meeting, you hear "the sky is falling!", over and over and over again. What do you do? Of course, you sell every penny of that guaranteed return fund and buy Dow Chemical stock!
Best thing I ever did!
Good luck,
Latexman
To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
I had the opportunity to mentor 6 junior engineers (one at a time) during a 21 year career at that corporation. Needless to say, they are no longer junior employees. As a retiree, it is nice to return to company events and know the executive management and senior staff on a first name basis. Also rewarding to be treated by them as some sort of "employee emeritus".
www.SlideRuleEra.net
www.VacuumTubeEra.net
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
Yes. Not surprisingly, I have more investment war stories, but most are on the losing end. That particular story is just more fun to tell for various reasons.
Good luck,
Latexman
To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
Buying stocks of individual public corporations is a risky business- some riskier than others, but all are risky without doubt. Perfectly good companies are killed, or kill themselves, for the dumbest reasons and with no substantial warning to even the employees much less the great unwashed public shareholder. The shareholders in those corporations are idiots like us! I own some shares in some businesses I do business with personally, but everything else is in index ETFs and bonds that I hold to maturity, and of course my house.
All my flyer money is in my own company. That's been a good bet so far but I didn't bet the farm on it- if I had, I could retire tomorrow. The company's success so far makes me, in total, rather poorly diversified, but if I lost all of that tomorrow I could still retire without privation, albeit not as soon as I might otherwise like. Betting it all on 7 might have made me richer, but I'd probably have died from stress a year or more ago had I taken that decision. Sleeping soundly at night is worth a lot!
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
Although you may not want to follow the advise of an old engineer, since they are still working - Yea for the fun of it.
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers
I'd like that
RE: best questions to ask retirees/senior engineers