As my one or two readers know I’m working with the State of Oklahoma trying to keep my PE license. I have a continuing education requirement. I got audited and I sent in my documentation and the State rejected it all for what I think are arbitrary reasons.

I don’t really need a PE license because I don’t do engineering anymore. I’m in more of a sales job now. But that PE license took a lot of hard work.

First I had to fill out a detailed resume detailing all the engineering I had done. I had to describe my role in detail and provide references who could attest that what I said is true. That took months.

Then I had to take a test. It was only a one day test. The CPA test takes several days so I’m not expecting any sympathy but the test about killed me. When you take the test they mix up the disciplines. So Chemical, Mechanical, Civil, and Eletrical engineers don’t sit next to each other. After the test was over I knew right away I didn’t pass it. I felt worse because the guys sitting around me were saying, “I thought this was supposed to be hard” and other such comments.

Anyway, that was in late October and in due course of due time I found out that indeed I had not passed the test. I turned around and took it again the following April.

Sure enough, I showed up for the next test, and there were the same guys! Maybe they were taking it again for fun but apparently they didn’t pass the first test either. I am not ashamed to say that I was glad to see those guys! I do hope that they passed the test the second time and perhaps learned a little humility in the process. Does it show my rotten character if I admitted that I wouldn’t be heartbroken if they didn’t pass the test?

I passed the second time. Hallelujah! I got my certificate and I got a stamp and a seal. I have never used them except when I stamped the Engineering Badge certificates that I passed out last spring when I taught SuperPizzaBoy’s Patrol the basics of engineering. Too many laws, rules, and regulations about stamping engineering drawings and documents for me to be stamping and sealing things left and right.

Anyway, the PE is very dear to me because it took a sustained effort over time to get it so I try and follw the various rules closely to keep it. I’ve been told by other engineers that a PE is not that big a deal. Funny though, none of the people saying that actually have a PE. I don’t know why that is. I might be one of them if I don’t get this straightened out!

Well I’ll get back to the point. I obtained a letter from the organization that provided the seminars I attended for my CE credit. The letter verifies that I was there at the meeting where the seminars were held. They were nice enough to hand deliver the letter to me downtown. So I scanned it and emailed the scan to the State PE board along with a letter asking them to reconsider their earlier decision. Was it too much to mention my hungry wife and children and the landlord who was going to evict us and how world peace (or at least whirilled peas) hang in balance?

So, we’ll see what happens next.