Tiresome spats aide, I actually find this thread quite interesting, as it highlights to me the gulf between the parts of the job most people know about (local pub/club type gigs) and the area very few people get to see (large scale touring shows).
At the pub end of the scale, yes, if I'm perfectly honest the stereotype of the grumpy, jaded, metal loving guitarist, will be encountered more often than not. It's a fun job but the pay is pretty crap, the hours are awful and you frequently have to deal with total arseholes. For every decent bad you get to mix there will be 10 others that are terrible and think that the rock star attitude comes before talent. And yes, at this level the term "engineer" is somewhat undeserved. "Sound Technician" might be more apt. You turn up, plug in a few bits, do a mix and then pack it all away and fuck off home. What sets the good ones apart at this level is those who can drop the grumpy act and learn a few people skills. Be friendly, try and help the idiot who doesn't know how to plug in his amp and do the best you can.
But at the other end it's a different world. I'm incredibly fortunate in that Ia lot of the time I'm able to make a living working with groups of people who are the best in the word at what they do. A large scale touring show nowadays is an incredibly complex and technologically advanced affair, utilising equipment that costs hundreds of thousands of pounds and requires an incredibly high level of technical skill to design and operate. Even before you get to the audio aspects the basic rigging of a large PA system requires a lot of planning to make it safe as you're hanging several tons of gear over peoples heads. Fuck it up and people will die. For this sort of stuff the "engineer" label is fully deserved. You are living in close proximity to others for potentially months at a time in a highly pressured environment, often running on very little sleep. A grumpy, surly type won't last 5 minutes.
