lmh wrote:
Describing a problem properly on a message-board actually requires quite a bit of thought and observation. The person with the problem needs to recognise the essential parts of their instrument and method, record the symptoms clearly, filter out irrelevant factors etc.; all this requires them to develop a fair amount of understanding before they've even solved anything.
This understanding is exactly what you need to fix the problem anyway, so I suspect that the sort of person who's approaching message boards in the right way is also solving their own problem a lot more often than the "it doesn't work any more, please help" person.
I don't entirely blame "the younger generation". They are often working in environments that require instant solutions and won't make the investment to make sure that staff really understand what they're doing (either by employing highly trained/experienced staff, by giving staff the time and resources they need if they're to get that professional knowledge, or by retaining staff long enough for them to become experienced!). The decisions that make it hard for the younger generation are often taken by the older generation...
It's a pity that so many people see message-boards as a one-way traffic: I have the problem, you have the solution. I see them more as an online two-way discussion. Contributing, and occasionally finding that I've contributed rubbish and been disagreed with, is pretty educational in itself.
All very true. I have to deal with the problem that management wants me to have a new analyst fully trained on every procedure and possible trouble shooting task in just a couple weeks. They don't understand that it took me 20 years to get to the level I am and it will take the next person a similar amount of time to also reach this level. I wish I could simply download the accumulated knowledge and pass it on, but until that is possible, people will just have to learn it the old fashioned way
I also noticed that our jobs became much more difficult when TV shows like CSI began, when our clients and management began to believe that the instruments we use can give an answer to a complex problem in mere seconds. I try to tell our management that it is not easy to develop a method in a week or less, yet they seem to think I should just be able to do a five minute internet search and spend a day in the lab and have some new method all validated and ready to accept samples for it.