Making mistakes

Structural Analysis/Design

Hi all. I'm a first year graduate. Been working for 9 months now and I can't remember a single project that I worked on without getting stuff wrong, even seemingly less complicated tasks like load takedown and attributable areas. A lot of these mistakes just end up costing me so much time in fixing and more project hours. My question is, is it normal to make these mistakes, even at senior level and any of you out there that experience the same thing? I just find it very demotivating and given the potential severity of our mistakes and their consequences, I sometimes think twice about this career path. Just eating into my evenings only to fix something that I did wrong.

Please share some of your own stories and journeys. Thank you all 🙌

in StructuralEngineeringby Perfect_Image3622

89%

ExceptionCollection

P.E.

That early in their career, everyone makes mistakes. Try to make sure you only make them once, work on your attention to detail, and you’ll be fine.

JudgeHoltman

P.E./S.E.

The trick is to not make the same mistake twice. And definitely not three times.

There's a reason you bill out cheap and everything you design still has to be blessed by someone that actually knows what they're doing.

Never hide from your mistakes either. Once you see them, flag it and make the changes required. Being ashamed to admit you fucked up and hiding the mistake is how you end up on a Discovery Channel special about engineering disasters.

SpurdoEnjoyer

Mistakes happen. I have a "things to check.docx" that I update every time I fuck up and read it through before delivering anything. Writing things down already makes you remember what to look out for and prevent doing the same mistakes again.

Hang in there, you'll notice you're spending less and less time fixing stuff when you gain experience.

In a way being experienced means you've made mistakes and learnt to catch them early

Reasonable_Sector500

Really like this idea, thanks

Ouchking

A master checklist like this is golden

IHaveThreeBedrooms

Exercise reflection!

Write down mistakes you made, ponder on how it could have been avoided. I keep all of the emails that indicate I made a mistake in an Outlook folder and scroll through them from time to time and try to determine if my improved process prevents the same issues.

It's not a celebration of mistakes, it's internalizing that I can do better and keeping an eye out for patterns.

ShutYourDumbUglyFace

I've been working for 20 years and I still make mistakes. Not everyone is going to know everything and mistakes are how we learn. It's also why we have such robust QC procedures. Don't worry about getting things wrong. Worry about getting the SAME thing wrong REPEATEDLY.

Kremm0

Also, a second pair of eyes is important in a good QC process. It's much easier to spot a mistake in someone else's work rather than your own, as your brain tends to skip over certain bits when you're reading back through. People make dumb mistakes all the time, most of which are minor, but the QC process really aims to limit the ones that make it out the door

gostaks

This is what we have QC for! The idea is not to make 0 mistakes, it’s to document your work so that it’s easy to find any mistakes you make. You will make fewer mistakes as you go on, but they will never stop entirely and it’s important not to get cocky.

dlegofan

P.E./S.E.

It's normal to make mistakes and make less mistakes as you gain more experience. It takes time to make less mistakes. Your employer should expect that you are making mistakes.

Syyntakeeton

🍰

It's totally normal and happens to everyone. Try to learn from your mistakes, write stuff down, be open and ask things from the more experienced colleagues.

Perfect_Image3622

Thanks for your input folks. I really like the idea of noting down past mistakes for reference and to be more aware of it for the future.

Which year of work did you notice significant improvement in your the speed at which you do things and having that inherent judgement?

Eversogood98

It's only a mistake if it goes out the door. As long as you learn from each one I wouldn't be too hard on yourself, you'll spot them quicker and easier as you get more experience.

Been in the industry since I left school 8 years ago, been a graduate for 3 years now and still slip up myself. Being honest and outright with where you went wrong will put yourself higher than the people who ignore theirs or don't own up to them.

Don't take it personally and move on to the next project, there's always more work after all.

Rob98723

Everyone makes mistakes, what you need to do is check your work. That doesn't mean staring at a screen for hours hoping the errors jump out at you. It means finding different ways of looking at it and reconfiguring the calculations to see IF there is an error. Produce one bit of work and be 100% confident it doesn't have errors, use this as a comparison for new work.

soaring-eaglex

I agree that we’ve all made mistakes as we have learned through our careers. What I have found to help avoid mistakes is to create very clear calculations, with very neat handwriting. Also, do not crowd information onto a page, and use visual aids to show each step of your design.

heisian

P.E.

You will always make mistakes. How quickly you learn to catch them and find ways to avoid them will make or break you.

LividCode1117

Mistakes happen, There were even buildings built until about to complete, only to find out that structural cracks occur everywhere. They demolished the building and build it on piles.

No1eFan

P.E.

are you a robot? no?

you make mistakes.

listen to that Roger Federer commencement speech at Dartmouth. He won 54% of the points he played and he one of the 3 greatest players to have ever played tennis. 54% is barely over half for someone who is a tennis god.

You will make mistakes as long as you breathe. The difference is as you age and get experienced you make better mistakes.

ross06187

Mistakes happen all the time. I am actually surprised stuff does not fall down more often. Guess the review, checking process works but got to think stuff gets through.