We can hope, although it's unfortunate that the judge didn't rule on whether the University owed a duty of care - which would have been a very useful bit of case law. However, realistically we would be talking about a huge cultural shift here, unfortunately engineering does not have the greatest reputation for being a caring profession towards its customers or, indeed, other engineers. As an example, somewhat related to the threads you link to here, I am forever having to push projects to appreciate that it is not sufficient for engineers to design signage, manuals, etc designed for non-engineers - they need to involve human factors staff who are really good at this stuff and understand how people in different situations will actually react to these.

And somewhat related to the BBC story, we can't expect everybody in the profession to be comfortable giving presentations, writing reports (ref your first link), etc etc, the question is whether they can do it well enough to fulfil their engineering function - which may be providing notes to another engineer who can give the presentation or write the report.

Give me an engineer to work with who is brilliant at the technical side and I'm quite happy to tidy their reports and give their presentations for them if needs be. And I'm afraid I have little time for those who put down anyone who lacks those skills (or any other skills) as being a "bad engineer", mostly I find it is simply bullying. Genuinely helping those who would benefit from developing these skills of course is a completely different matter. It's always dangerous to comment on cases without knowing the facts, but in the BBC case chances are the University could have done more to support the student to develop their skills to give an adequate level of presentation with confidence, rather than maybe just assuming that a successful student ought to "just be able" to do it.  

I will say that, in a corporate environment at least, it is interesting how often you find that those engineers who spend their lives pointing out the incompetences of other engineers, or of customers, (while, of course, being totally unaware of their own) end up shunted away in a room with no-one else talking to them, and have no idea why...

So interesting point, thanks for raising it. I hadn't read either of those threads you linked to (just as well as one of them in particular, being someone with dyspraxic tendencies, would have got me very cross - and my resolution for 2024 is not to get cross with people who post their opinions on social media). I agree there is a relevance here, we do need to consider who we owe a duty of care to, and whether we are fulfilling it.

Talking of (slightly) "off piste", I'm in the middle of watching the (brilliant) first series of "Slow Horses", and noticed a scene where the lead character, a very hard bitten ex-cold war spy, "motivates" his team by telling them how useless they are. Which is a technique I've often seen in real life throughout my career, particularly by ex-military people. I've never actually seen it achieve anything positive though, apart from developing a great capability in the team in hiding their mistakes - or even worse, blaming them on to others. It did make me wonder whether that approach is still heavily used in the military world, and whether it is ever effective. Certainly doesn't work with me.

Thanks,

Andy

One of the things which I like about fora is that one can reconsider before pressing, "send" rather than just blurting out whatever comes to mind face-to-face.

This is an interesting case and it would not surprise me if the University seeks to appeal the case to the Court of Appeal.

I think that the Judge has neatly dodged the issue of duty of care. It would be the thin end of the wedge. Imagine if the IET had a duty of care towards anybody who might read our discussions!

Chris Pearson said:

This is an interesting case and it would not surprise me if the University seeks to appeal the case to the Court of Appeal.

I think if you read the article, they did appeal ... right to the High Court ... and the judgement was upheld.

Chris Pearson said:

I think that the Judge has neatly dodged the issue of duty of care.

Yes, I was interested in that too, although that doesn't mean there wasn't one (he just said that in this case it didn't matter), and similarly of course we can't  wildly imply parallels with things we've discussed in the threads I linked to.

But it does illustrate that individual needs may need to be considered more across the board?

The university could appeal further to the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court.  Whether they should do that is another matter.

gkenyon said:

I think if you read the article, they did appeal ... right to the High Court ... and the judgement was upheld.

The COA is the next level up. (Like going from BS1362 fuse to RCBO to main fuse.)

gkenyon said:

Yes, I was interested in that too, although that doesn't mean there wasn't one (he just said that in this case it didn't matter)

He said that he did not need to make a decision, which is because the Claimant had already succeeded on other grounds. (i.e. only one circuit protective device needs to open.)

The judgment has now been published here.

All that said, I fully appreciate your sentiment. Luke 6:31.

It could request permission to appeal. That would depend upon a real prospect of success and whether the issue is considered to be sufficiently important. It would also depend upon their willingness to spend a lot of money defending their reputation.

ETA: the very last sub-paragraph of the judgment is interesting: "Finally, regardless of any view which I might express, in the event that there is an appeal, the Court of Appeal will be able to address the issues in relation to negligence and duty of care should it consider that it is appropriate to do so."

Chris Pearson said:

Luke 6:31.

I wouldn't argue with the points made in that reference.

There are, of course, many other terms of reference in terms of ethics, religion and philosophy that could be used to illustrate the sentiment. Someone whose counsel I value greatly would perhaps put the inverse (adverse?) of the principle as follows: "If you poke someone in the eye with a muddy stick, what do you expect?"

The important point ... is to have a "philosophy" in the first instance, and live by it. It's amazing what that can achieve!

We should all be more considerate, but we also have a responsibility to call people out. Not doing so is far more dangerous to our industry and perhaps to our society in general.  However, the we go about that can be, and should be, done in a considerate way.

But look at the OP. Two references made to posts that I started and then in some maladroit fashion an attempt was made to connect the content of my posts to the tragic case highlighted. To the casual observer, the references made to my posts might imply that I, or indeed the people who responded to them, lack the empathy or compassion for others that might prevent a similar tragedy.

Yet, the OP was made in total disregard to that consideration. Perhaps if the author had dropped me a PM just to advise his intentions, it might have served well in demonstrating the level of consideration he advocates for others.

From what I know about the author, I doubt whether there was any intended malevolence in his post. It was just a tad clumsy and inconsiderate for my liking.

It is unfortunate that you started both posts - one as a light-hearted look at the world too.

lyledunn said:

but we also have a responsibility to call people out.

Agreed ... and it cuts both ways.

lyledunn said:

Perhaps if the author had dropped me a PM just to advise his intentions, it might have served well in demonstrating the level of consideration he advocates for others.

An interesting perspective.

lyledunn said:

From what I know about the author, I doubt whether there was any intended malevolence in his post.

I fully apologise if any is perceived.

I just feel very strongly about the (as I see it disproportionate) number of people I come across in our industry that face huge barriers that ought not to be there for very capable people.

gkenyon said:

I just feel very strongly about the (as I see it disproportionate) number of people I come across in our industry that face huge barriers that ought not to be there for very capable people.

I have been watching Astrid: Murder in Paris at 21:00 on Friday evenings for the past few weeks. It is a bit of a caricature, but does demonstrate what can be done and how capable "different" people are.

One nugget was to the effect, people laugh at me because I am different, but I laugh at them because they are all the same. :-)

Back to the recent case: I have not read the whole judgment (nor the one below), but I do not think that the University staff were lacking in compassion. The impression that I get is that they were out of their depth. They wanted to help, but the deceased would not engage and they were not medical professionals. (Father, who incidentally, gets the money, had already reached a settlement with the NHS.)

It would hardly be surprising if neurodiverse people were over-represented in engineering disciplines just as, I imagine, they are under-represented (but not absent) in the performing arts.