Engineer?

Sometimes I don't understand how our Engineers think. They are supposed to be professional and well trained in engineering field. However, their decision can always surprises you.

To us, "Engineer" is a gang of people in our company that do not think but just following guidelines. They do not care about the actual situation and cannot choose the most suitable solution. They make no design but only copy from the books. The "right" decisions to them are those that have been carried out by others previously. They never take a step forward to make a trial or even an investigation. They make solution by just seating in their office and reading the report/emial, they seldom make a site visit or view the actual parts. But, they have the power to push you work in their way.

Why am I so depressed? I have a job work with our Engineers recently. We found some cracks on the weldment of a framework of equipment. Those are crater cracks and toe cracks that were formed during fabrication. We could not find any indication of the fatigue or fracture due to the cracks. The normal practice is completely grinding off the cracks and buttering on the surface when necessary. The Engineers agreed what we said. Then we had disassembled the framework and performed the repair.

But when we had finished everything, including assembly work and load test, the Engineers came to us and told us to add some gussets on the cracked area. The reason for this is they have another case that gussets must be added to all cracks found. However, the case that they refer is a fatigue structure.

We still have one day left as the equipment cannot be isolated anymore. It is not suitable to weld on a structure with load and without additional support. What can we do?