I work in technical support department for an AC manufacturer in the UK. When we get technical calls it amazes us how poor (in general) the 'engineers' on site trying to fix the problems are. I'm not suggesting for a moment that it is always entirely their fault, in many cases their employers just cannot be bothered to get them fully trained. However it does make us wonder what the percentage of 'qualified' engineers is compared to those who just decided to get into the industry because 'the money is better' than what they did before. I regularly take calls where the 'engineer' has not even bothered to remove the covers on the unit before calling us for assistance!! And if they do actually get to that stage, half of them don't know what they are looking at anyway.

Being as I come across this poor level of service engineer almost on a day to day basis, I wondered how any of you perceives the state of our industry in this regard, particularly if you work in technical support...?

Additionally I just love the way the equipment carrying the manufacturers' badge always seems to get the blame for the service engineer's incompetence!