The Engineer
Page 25
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AA PART from a few-large fleets, goods transport does not accord ..either.adequate status or salary to its senior executives. This is as true on the-traffic side as it is on the engineering front:-but today it is the road transport engineer who is spotlighted. On Monday the president of the Institute of Road Transport Engineers, Mr. R. Gresham Cooke, made a plea for improvement in status for the road transport engineer (see page 36). The Commercial Motor associates itself wholeheartedly with this.
Generally. speaking the fleet engineer receives poor recompense for his efforts. To be a good transport engineer he 'mist -be dedicated (indeed, he would hardly work the hours he does otherwise). It is also fair to say that, as a race, engineers are not renowned for their love of desks and paperwork. They are happiest when—figuratively, at least—covered in oil with a broken half-shaft or differential spread over the back sear.
This image could well be at the root of their troubles. Both Mr. Gresham Cooke and the president-elect of 1.R.T.E., Mr. E. B. H. Elsbury, pointed out the need to improve engineers' status by engineers themselves. As Mr. Elsbury put it, they should be technologists and not technicians. Winning the title chartered engineer" may, indeed, help matters.
Whatever is done will have to he a long-term effort; but in the short term engineers can help themselves by boycotting some of the big fleet jobs offered at ridiculously low salaries and by regarding themselves not as spenders of revenue so much as savers (due to their expert knowledge) of their company's money—a subtle but important difference not always appreciaied by a board of directors.