That's a fair comment from AdamW. I sort of implied that the pen-pushing engineers couldn't do a good job. They certainly can; it's the demarcation of labour in the larger industrial companies that keeps them stuck behind a desk.
I can only speak for electronics engineers (sewage is a different ball game) but a lot of them don't like this one bit. I spent my days writing test procedures or doing failure rate analyses for equipment I would never see, still less get to work on, and I wasn't the only one who cast envious glances at the test engineers (or would that be test technicians) who got all the interesting jobs. I met very few desk-bound engineers who wouldn't rather be holding a soldering iron or a scope probe and it's these few I was talking about.
I wonder what it is that Teccy hates so much about industry (there's plenty to choose from). Is it being stuck behind a desk all day or is it another common problem. They kick you all around the factory because they want a job done then, when you've done it, they kick you out the door! Been there and done that too - twice.
Engineers going to work in suits? I've seen plenty of that. Chances are they work for a company that judges them more on their appearance than their technical ability. Perhaps their boss has no possible way of judging their technical ability!
How do you define an engineer? That's a very good question but I do have a possible, if somewhat simplistic, answer. An engineer is one who thinks in diagrams.
PS: Before somebody throws this one back at me, there are a few good engineers (but too many bad ones) who go to work in a suit and stick to their desks because they would rather be project managers. Somebody's got to do it.
But, we all have to do what brings in the readies, because readies bring in the jollies. 
