Engineer Shortage??? Why???

IEEE sounds the alarm, but the situation might be less bleak than it seems

According to Wanda Reder, president of theIEEE Power & Energy Society, the Green Economy development plan of US president Barack Obama will be impossible to effect due to a shortage of electrical engineers. In response to this, IEEE founded the U.S. Power and Energy Engineering Workforce Collaborative. This workgroup published its first report in April, drawing a very dark picture of the situation. Though the authors clearly have some good arguments, one must wonder if the situation is really as bad as they make it out. In the past, workforce shortages in certain professional domains have usually been solved automatically by the law of supply and demand.　　

(http://www.leonardo-energy.org/green-economy-risk-due-engineer-shortage)

Engineer Shortage Puts Green Economy and Smart Grid at Risk

Amy Fischbach

April 21, 2009 — As a cornerstone of his energy, environment and economic plans, President Barack Obama urges the country to transform its energy system to make it greener and smarter. But a growing shortage of electric power and energy engineers will make the path to reaching that vision rocky. Due to the aging electrical engineering workforce and educators, there may not be enough engineering support to design, build, operate and maintain the kind of reliable electric energy system that is required in the future.

(http://blog.tdworld.com/briefingroom/2009/04/21/engineer-shortage-puts-green-economy-and-smart-grid-at-risk/)

There seems to be the same problem everywhere in the world!!! Yes, here, too at PTM, we are running out of electrical engineers!!! Young ones especially. For 6 years we could not recruit any young electrical engineers and this April, there came only one guy finally, but he is so young (21!!) that he has a long way to go still.

So my boss and I went engineer-hunting to this tech-college in Tokyo the other day. There was a job fair at this college that some medium-small companies gathered together to have interview with the Senior students, who have not found jobs yet.

It is a pitty that those students in electrical department do not know how precious, valuable, worthwhile they are...they are so-called "golden eggs" to us, who are desparately looking for electrical engineers. All of the students we interview, well only 5 or 6 though, did not have any clue what we do, what MEP consulting engineers are. We were so eager to explain about our jobs to those students...we would have kidnapped them literally, but we tried not to...haha.

I was very anxcious to know if any of those guys were insterested in the job. Then some days later, one student came to our office to check out the working environment (which we could not really pround of...). This was the boy (to me, he is a boy...) that my boss and I really liked when we met at the job fair. We thought this would be our one-way love, but it was not. He is very much interested in our job!!!

I used to think, even though I majored political science in educational administration in Grad school, that it has something to do with the Japanese government...it should be all their fault that we lack better science/math education at school so that there is this engineer shortage. But since this is happening many many places in the world, who's fault it this? Why are we running out of electrical engineers then?

I am sure there should be many mixed reasons for each situation in each country, maybe not only on education level, but also some other reasons. Maybe I can find out the background sometime, but I do not have those gutts anymore after I left Grad school...I am now too lazy to do those researches!

Do anyone know why and how we can fix this problem

Are you engineers?

http://www.jobengine.jp/rd.html?url=http://hp.rhp.jp/~ptmtokyo/bosyu_ichiran.html&rf=/estate/survey/cps.html%3Fc%3Dt101e5%26hpimg%3D1%26and_or%3D&cid=66021&aid=23907&type=nps&lid=01&adp_mid=767888&adp_lid=1

Shangri-la Hotel Open!!!

Shangri-la Hotel Tokyo successfully opened on March 2 2009 and has begun their journey!!!

(That's what they said on the banner, "Our journey begins on 2 March 2009!)

This means one of the long-term giant projects of PTM is finally over and we are all relieved.

We, along with our KOKUNAI (Domestic) Group, have been working on this project since the fall of 2006.... nearly 2 and a half years have passed since then!

We were their MEP consultant, IT consultant, and AV consultant.  Since we designed the M&E systems for their base building that hotel is tenanting (Mori Trust Tower), we were involved in A/A'/B/B' and also C works altogether.  That building has so many footprints of PTM members!!!

Maybe the hotel price is away away expensive for our kind of people to stay so we (at least I) may never be able to afford it on our own, it is always nice to imagine somebody enjoying the facilities that we designed and consulted and picture people complementing the electrical system (or complaining the A/C status!!!).

People grade hotels not only on facilities, but more importantly on hospitality that hotel provide for their guests.  Shangri-la hotel is truly famous for their hospitality and that is why they are ranked as a 5-star world wide hotel.

Maybe it is too much to go vacationing abroad this year due to this recession, yet if you are interested in Shangri-la hospitality and MEP system that they have, why don't you save up your money and go visit the most convenient luxurious hotel (right by Tokyo Station!) in Tokyo?

Personally, I was very much interested in their "CHI Spa", a well-known luxurious relaxation massage course that Shangri-la provides.  Hopefully my boss will treat me the course someday for my hard working in this project!!!

"Touching Room" again!

Here is our lovely secretary, Ms. Arai ... Shinobu-chan!

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A Happy New Year!

After the happy & relaxed holiday with my family, I came back to Tokyo.  It’s nice to see the friendly faces again in the office.  Kotoshimo Yoroshiku.

 

There’s one thing I still regret about the last year.  One day, when I showed some foreign visitors into the meeting room, one of them asked me in Japanese, “Is this room the meeting room (会議室)?  And, what is another room called?”  In my mind, I said to myself, “What a strange question he made!”, but I just answered, “Yes, this room is 会議室, and another room is called 応接室."  He might want to practice Japanese, I thought.  Some days or weeks after while I was visiting this Blog, suddenly his question made sense to me.  He wanted me to call another room as Touching Room!  I had read about the “Touching-Room Incident” before, but it was completely out of my mind then.  I still regret for my stupid answer.  If the visitor comes back to our office in the future, please give me another chance.

 

Steve as a reporter!!!

Here is an update from our mechanical engineer, Steve!!

*******

Its Xmas after all. Modify or throw away at your leisure. I am an engineer not a reporter.

Public transport in Tokyo, no more need for cars,

In the weeks prior to leaving the UK the amount I used my car seems now to be completely amazing.

-I lived in one city and worked in another,

-Regular meetings at architects office

-Regular site visits to check on construction progress, and

-Occasional marketing trips to client’s office.

-In total an average week could total between 600 to 800miles.

 Since arriving in Tokyo, I find that I have not needed the use of a car to do any of the above due the high quality of the public transport and underground systems. Train Stations located within Tokyo are spaced around central Tokyo. The aim was to be able to walk to the nearest train station from any point within central Tokyo. Each of our client’s offices, construction sites and city officials offices are all located within easy reach of a train or subway station.

So  now after 2 years in Japan, I find the only reason to use a car is for personal freedom to set stuck on a highway at rush our whilst going shopping in an out of town supermarket. So if you don’t mind carrying your shopping here, don’t bother with a car. If you want to buy a vehicle to go exploring with, get a motorbike. It will be cheaper and you can get thought the traffic a lot faster. 

Laters,

Steven J. Alvey

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Working in Japan

I can’t imagine that I can work in Japan without being able to speak any Japanese!!
If you are a foreign “GAIJIN” engineers who are interested to work in Japan but without knowing any Japanese, you can stop by and spare a few minutes to read through my blog here. Sounds like a commercial advertisement, haha.

Overall living in Japan can be regarded as difficult for foreigners. I got experience of living abroad but related to Japan feel different. I’ve come across comments on various websites from the foreigners complaining about how it’s difficult to find an apartment, to apply for a credit card, to open a bank account, to communicate in a hospital etc. I can say life is inconvenient without knowing Japanese. But our company is great; they get me into the company by requiring my English ability and technical experiences only. And they will provide (pay for) the basic Japanese course to make my daily life easier. There are a lot of chances to practice inside the company. May be I don’t have much talent in language; I still cannot master the simple conversation very well after a few months of Japanese lessons. My company also gave me a lot of support and help in getting my apartment within a very short period.

I am lucky that I joined a good team, my coworkers and managers are so patience and tolerate that they will translate / explain anything that I cannot understand to English. Of course, it is essential for us to understand all the requirements and deliver the corrected products to the client. Overall it is an interesting experience for me to work in Japan.

Yes, we often have meetings in "Touching Room"

Thanks, Simon!!! O(^_^)O

Yep, we loved this "Touching-Room Incident" and we still use this phrase internaly often like "We shall have a meeting in Touching Room!" or "Where are you going to be?  - Oh, I will be in the meeting room, not Touching Room!".   There is no funny translation for meeting room yet.  If anybody have, let me know.

Now it's Sonny's turn, but he is too busy this week.

I will chase him around and make sure he write something soon.

If he doesn't know what to write, maybe we should have a meeting in Touching Room then.

Nonsensical English

In Japan over 90% of Japanese to English translation is carried out by native Japanese speakers. I’ve come across estimates as low as 3 percent for the number of such translations carried out by native English speakers.

The result is that visiting English speakers can see lots of very bizarre English slogans written everywhere, which are sure to provide endless amusement. From hotel lobbies, train stations & airports, in official documentation, advertising and even the advertising slogans on biscuit packets.

The accepted view in most countries is that translation should be carried out by native speakers of the target language. It is virtually impossible for a non-native speaker to write a sentence that sounds natural, and the chance of making howling bloopers is very high.

Here’s an example:

The Japanese word ousetsushitsu means meeting room or reception room in English. One Japanese engineer translated it as the touching room. The Japanese characters for this word are 応接室. The middle character alone, 接 means connect, adhere or touch, and I can only assume this is why the engineer came up with touching room.

The documentation eventually came my way so I could correct it, but many companies do not have any procedures in place to catch these kinds of errors. I suppose there just aren’t enough native English speakers in Japan.

Walk through Tokyo any day and you will see a huge number of clothes and fashion goods decorated with nonsensical English. A tee shirt that says BUY MORE SOCKS!, another that says Stability of a Penguin, or a bag that is decorated with the words Enjoy nice bag for your happy trip. A popular brand of coffee had the slogan “I wonder why coffee tastes so good when you’re naked with your family” The thing is that in many cases the designers don’t really care about what the English means. It is purely a visual design feature - an attempt to make it look fashionable or cool - so they are not even interested in checking the meaning in many cases.

Our business is different of course. We often deal with British and American clients so it is essential that we make sure the English we present them is correct.

Starting PTM International Project Group Blog!!!

Hi Everyone,

This is Maki, Project Coordinator at PTM International Group.

We are now starting our group glog, broadcasting our daily work, news, interesting topics (and some complains) world-widely!!!

We would love people to know what we do everyday, how fulfilling, exciting, interesting (and tiring and frustrating) our service is. Yet the main purpose of this blog is not only to increase our homepage access numbers!!!, but also to recruite GAIJIN engineers overseas to work and be slaved with us at PTM.

We will have our GAIJIN engineers, David from Australia, Sonny from Hong Kong, Steve from U.K. (with Scottish accent!) and our brillient translator Simon from U.K., write on this blog by taking turns. We also have our Manager, Totsuka-san and our Director, Kawauchi-san, join sometimes.

Hope you will find interesting topics here. Enjoy it.

Maki xxx