Every profession is guided by a well-established and structured code of ethics that ensures its personnel acts professionally. Ethics outline what one can say or do in relation to a particular field of practice. Though everyone has an opinion of expression, it is of paramount salience that they only give founded information to the general population. The engineer in question has the right to give his view on the matter, and like any other community member, he can also speculate on the cause of the collapse (Davis, 2022). His comments should have been confined to matters within his scope of knowledge.
The engineering code of ethics indicates that engineers should regard their service to the public welfare as paramount. Therefore, they should be faithful in what they do and share and ensure that they do not cause a conflict of interest. The engineer was an electrical engineer and not a structural one, and he, therefore, had little knowledge of the status of the roofing of the house despite being the one who wired the building. To avoid conflicting with his structural engineer counterpart, he should have confined his comments to matters within the scope of his professional practice as an electrical engineer.
The engineer was not wrong to give his thoughts from a general view. However, for clarity, the engineer should have consented with full knowledge. Therefore, he was required to identify certain specific information to be provided to him before he could give his comments on the matter. The engineer needed to identify some aspects of the reporter before sharing his thoughts. He ought to have indicated that he was not a licensed or experienced structural engineer, and whatever he was saying were only opinions that were not founded on professionalism. The reporter should have been informed that the information he was providing was to be published, and the questions should have majored in his ideal profession.
The general aspect emphasis of the engineering profession emphasizes customer service. Despite not being a structural engineer, he ought to have responded to the incident to ease the tension of the community members (Davis, 2022). The fact that he was part of the engineering them that contributed to the general construction of the building, his opinion was important. Suppose the engineer had made it clear that his observations were entirely speculative and not grounded on a professional idea. In that case, he could have avoided section 77 of the code of ethics, as his views could be assumed to be the same as any other community member.
Mutual inclusion and coordination are essential in the engineering fraternity. For harmony to prevail, conflicts should always be avoided (Davis, 2022). The engineer ought to have noted that the issue had caused a lot of tension in the community, and he should have been careful in his words. Further, he should have elaborated that he was not accusing anyone of the incident. It could be unfair to blame the construction or maintenance team as what happened was a natural disaster.
Upon being questioned by the reporter, the engineer should have clarified that he has no structural engineering experience. He also should have indicated that his opinions were mere speculation. To answer the question about the roof’s collapse, it could have been better to focus on the immediate cause rather than talking about the construction and maintenance of the top. A strong windstorm is a natural calamity that has the potential to cause adverse effects, such as the collapse of a roof that may have been properly constructed.
Reference
Davis, M. (2022). Codes of engineering ethics: Recent trends. Codes of Ethics and Ethical Guidelines, 35-54. Web.