A Joke on Meritocracy
Why Are Engineers Angry?

By BRANDON L. WARD

It's been said that familiarity breeds contempt. Indeed, one can make the case that it does not happen right away. In the beginning, familiarity breeds desire, then mere comfort, then only tolerance, then resignation, and then contempt.

Certainly as an advocate for equity and opportunity in the workplace, I believe injustice is perhaps the biggest accomplice of employees' contempt. As an inside observer, I am well acquainted with the daily stress, strain and tension of most city employees, especially engineers. After all, as an engineer, I hear the grumbling and cursing under the breath of my colleagues over the fact that some engineers who have not paid their professional dues, per se, are seemingly on the fast track to being their agency's future leaders; that job vacancies for senior level positions are being filled by individuals coming from the private sector instead of in-house staff; or that non-engineers are repeatedly being appointed to manage engineering units.

Tone Comes From Top

Certainly, as one who deigns to challenge the assumptions of what constitutes qualified leadership, I am convinced that no agency, division or profession, for that matter, rises above its leadership. Add to this the fact that the professional chauvinism of job titles in agencies incites professional arrogance. I must confess that as an engineer, I have nothing against clowns so long as they stay in the circus.

The issue of non-traditional managers managing technical agencies such as DOT, DEP, DDC, DOB, raises two thorny questions. First, are engineers the best qualified to lead technical agencies? And the second and more perplexing question is, does an engineer bring more insight than a non-engineer to the management of a technical agency?

Certainly, if you listen to Sal Galletta, chairman of the American Engineering Alliance (AEA), his answer to both questions would be that the next Department of Transportation Commissioner selected to replace Iris Weinshall should be an engineer or someone with a transportation background to, at best, address a political mandate of the mayor: unclog the city of traffic. And non-engineers should not be managing engineering units much less supervising professional engineers.

Crash Barely Dented Her

I know, I know: I shouldn't pick on Iris now that she's left as Commissioner, but I've been amazed at how she continues to reap the benefits of job security. After all, following the Oct. 15, 2003 ferry crash, I was inclined to believe that her mismanagement of the agency's ferry operations would have given a whole new meaning to the idea of a career "crashing and burning." Well, not quite. She's been hired as the Vice Chancellor of Construction at the City University of New York.

Hence, it is not far-fetched to say that the beatitude of the politically connected must be, "blessed are they that walk around in circles, for they shall grow up to be the big wheels." Interestingly, I knew other big wheels when they were turning DOT in circles.

For instance, back in the days when Eliot Sander (currently the CEO of the MTA) was DOT's commissioner, one of Mr. Sander's bright ideas (not including his changing the agency's management structure from a pyramid to a matrix or re-doing the agency's letterhead) was to cross-fertilize the agency's management. As it turned out, this theory meant a baseball coach was assigned to coach soccer and vice versa. Unfortunately, only the more prescient observers saw this for what it is.

Hit-and-Run Politics

To put it bluntly, thanks to the hubris of the Giuliani administration, DOT became the target for a series of hit-and-run non-traditional commissioners (four in six years). Bizarrely enough, I have also witnessed the technical leadership of my agency degenerated to being political. So much so that among the many competencies of technical leadership, "excellent oral skills" is considered a "specialized skill" in the standard job narrative for most senior engineering positions. And as far as I am concerned, the title Chief Engineer has become a deceptive title. As a theoretical matter, it's an oxymoronic formulation - it does not mean that you're the best-qualified engineer in transportation engineering or bridge design and construction.

Unfortunately, at the core of this incongruity is the fact that it's not hard to figure out what skill-set comes first with the title: the engineering or the politics.

To my way of thinking, "excellent oral skills" is a red herring, a philosophical distraction from the core troubles that are inextricably bound to the race and national origin of the city's engineering workforce. For example, 60 percent of New York City Transit's engineers are foreign-born, with the majority being of South Asian descent. Thus, to put it succinctly, the F-word of some agency "minutemen" managers (like Fredrick K. Smith, the VP of Construction Project Management at the MTA) is foreigners. After all, during an Oct. 7, 2005 meeting with Local 375 officials, Mr. Smith allegedly stated in a xenophobic tantrum that the union's foreign-born members "could not be paid or recognized in their home countries as they are here" and should be "kissing the ground for the opportunities they are receiving."

Unfortunately, as you can probably guess, it is hard to show "intent" to discriminate against someone with a foreign accent or possessing a name that doesn't exactly roll off your tongue. However, as the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said about hard-core pornography, "I know it when I see it."

Unlikely Choice

Having said that, I must admit that every once in a while there's a funny side to meritocracy in determining who gets a job. After all, a "nervous man" (that's the New York Times's description, not mine) with mediocre engineering abilities and an almost pitiable tendency to get lost in the current of his own voice emerged to be my agency's super chief: both Chief Engineer and Chief Bridge Officer. Oddly enough, I asked the non-traditional commissioner about this hire and his response was he needed someone who understood the capital budget. Go figure!

Quite frankly, those of us who are sufficiently bold and hold a healthy opinion of our professional worth to our agency must sooner or later face the realities and implications of engineers' putative acceptance of the chief engineer whose kryptonite is engineering, versus the non-traditional manager who projects a sentimental affection for the ideals of developing in-house engineering expertise while promoting pro-consultant policies. Unfortunately, some of us willfully ignore the inevitable treats of incompetence in order to take advantage of the inevitable opportunities that incompetence brings.

Amazingly however, many engineers in city agencies are like the circus clown; we hold our collective noses and kiss the pig. After all, the show must go on!

Brandon L. Ward is president of the New York City Municipal Chapter of Blacks in Government, an employee advocacy group. He is a Mechanical Engineer with the Department of Transportation. He can be reached at brandonward@nycbig.com.