Lessons

Professional Communication class has helped to get me used to a work environment. It has taught me to be critical of my work and make it more readable. It helped me to market ideas through public speaking and reports. It also helped me to market myself better for a job. Communications class has helped equip me for a professional occupation.

The extensive editing we did in PCom 132 showed me how bad my work is before it is edited. It showed me that the words I put my thoughts into don’t always read the same way I think. I need to make a habit of getting someone else to edit my work and editing critically.

Two valuable tools from Pcom 132 that help make writing more readable are the 3 C’s and PAFEO. Concision, clarity and coherence form a valuable checklist to keep writing understandable. PAFEO is a needed reminder to stay on topic, convincing, and relevant to the reader.

I definitely need practice public speaking, and the 5-minute presentations in Communications 142 have given me some much-needed practice, with useful criticism to help make my speaking better. Preparing for the large presentation has been a useful experience, and presenting it will be also.

Before technical communication class, my resume writing was terrible. I learned the format in high school, but I didn’t learn how to promote myself. My resume still needs work, but Pcom 132 showed me what’s wrong with it and gave me some tools to make it better.

Communications also familiarized me with memo write-ups, internet research, and blogs. It helped me get to know my class better, and taught me how much time you can waste on blogger.com.

Overall, Professional Communication has taught me three very important lessons:
1) Don’t get a job that requires report writing
2) Leave English grammar to the Brits
3) Leave public speaking to Mr Bean

The Tale of Three Plumbers

In my mind, professionalism is all about doing your best. It’s what separates the people who make sure that their work fully satisfies their customers from those who just get the job done (or pretend to), and run off with their paycheques.

Picture a few hypothetical characters (again): Fred, Bob and Big Tom. All of them are plumbers. All of them charge the same price per hour.

Fred is a perfectionist. He makes sure everything fits together perfectly and cleans up after his work. He has a policy of using every toilet he installs to make sure it even feels right. Whenever he is fixing something, he doesn’t just replace the damaged part, but inspects the whole system for the cause of the problem and anything else that could go wrong. He wears suspenders to avoid improper exposure.

Bob is a fast worker. He puts everything together as fast as he can, and just does a quick check to see if it works. He figures he shouldn’t waste any time since plumbers’ rates are expensive. When fixing something, he just replaces the damaged part, and avoids time-consuming troubleshooting. He does wear a belt.

Big Tom works at a snails pace, since he enjoys his hourly rate. He doesn’t care if everything fits together right. After all, if something doesn’t work, his customers can pay him for more time to fix it. When asked to fix something, he just gives the damaged part a quick patch that should last a while. He can’t bother with a belt or boxers, and enjoys excellent ventilation.

Fred is very professional. Even though he takes extra time to generate perfection, he saves time and money in the long run, since his work won’t randomly flood your house, and he solves potential disasters. Bob is also quite professional. Even though his work isn’t perfect, customers appreciate paying him for less time. Tom’s redneck relatives think he’s professional.

In mechanical engineering, we’ll have to be professional in the way Fred is, because if we’re not, we might not just be flooding someone’s house.

Why Can't We Collaborate on Stress Midterms?

Collaboration has two rather different meanings. The negative meaning of collaboration is working with an enemy in treason. An example of negative collaboration is how, during World War II, France and other countries cooperated with Germany once they were conquered.

The positive meaning of collaboration is working together toward a common goal. This kind of collaboration can be a very valuable practice.

Military tactics provide some of the best examples of positive collaboration. Maybe that's because most people who don't collaborate in war don't live to share their ingenious tactics. While military operations are insanely complex, a simplified tactic is very helpful in explaining what collaboration is all about, and how valuable it is.

Infantry alone can't accomplish much, since snipers, artillery, mines etc. easily pick them off. Long-range artillery is clumsy and useless in close combat. When artillery and infantry work together, they are very effective, since the artillery can blow away the infantry's threats from a distance, and the infantry can hide behind the artillery while protecting it from close-range threats.

The same tactic applies for those fighting for success in businesses. Some people are good at one thing, while others are good at another. If one person tackles a problem alone, he might get stumped by a problem that someone else would solve easily. When the right people work together, their strengths make up for each other’s weaknesses.

Another benefit of collaboration is that when people share their work, others who are doing something similar won’t have to reinvent the work done, but just adapt it to their project. This saves money, time, labor, and stress-induced heart attacks.

Unfortunately, collaboration can encourage a serious problem: laziness. Some people don’t take pride in their work when they work in groups. They let others do the work for them, or are sloppy since they don’t feel responsible for their work. Others might hog the work, and not let other people contribute. And then there are the personal conflicts that can erupt.

Overall though, collaboration is a very valuable technique. However, it has to be done right, so that everyone contributes to the goal and does quality work.