Merry Christmas everybody. Note my use of the actual name of the Christian holiday that is indeed celebrated on December 25. It seems that the word isn't used much anymore, for fear that it may offend. At the Mecca, it seems that not mentioning Christmas is about the only inoffensive thing happening.
I do have some news to report. Both good and bad, I guess.
The good news is: Swiper found some more suckers. We will be in business for a while longer.
The bad news: Swiper found some more suckers, and I will have to put up with MNB for a while longer - until I quit, or he fires me.
Despite a supposed hiring freeze, MNB has taken charge and made many several staffing changes. He left it to the Sarcastic Brit and I to serve notices to the Hyena and Mr. Smarmy. Both are capable, efficient, and easy to work with. Definitely not a good fit for the Mecca. Mr. Smarmy has already left. He seemed relieved to be rid of the insanity. I am actually a bit jealous. The Hyena finishes out his contract at the Mecca on Monday. Of course, his part of the project isn't finished, so somebody else will have to pick it up. No problem. I've always been told it's good engineering practice to lay off one of the key engineers before the project is finished.
Also gone are Princess Amidala, and the Vacuum Cleaner Guy. He was almost MNB (my new boss), but he lost the game of survivor, and was voted off the island. They were both friendly and reasonably capable. Therefore, they must be eliminated.
Flyboy has managed to survive thus far, although he is being severely marginalized. Jar Jar, on the other hand, is on vacation for a month, but will most certainly return to perpetrate more crimes against humanity.
As for the replacements, they are what you would probably expect. The first replacement is The Toad. He comes in to work at 6:00 am, and feels that this makes him a superior example of a human being. I get in to work at about nine (who am I kidding - it's usually closer to ten), and feel that this makes me a person who has some semblance of a life.
Of course, the Toad thinks that MNB is the best guy ever, and has followed him from job to job for over ten years. Perhaps that's loyalty. Perhaps it is because the guy is creepy and has the charisma of a fence post, making him unable to get through a even first job interview. He has been billed as many things by MNB, who takes every opportunity to tell us that the original engineering team is incompetent, obstructionist, lazy, and dumb. The Toad seems to have three hobbies (that he has talked about anyway) - making ammunition, drinking in the pub, and finding ways to cause trouble for his coworkers. He routinely tells me that all of the optics shouldn't work. Apparently, he took a course on mounting optics, and that entitles him to make stupid comments on how the optical system works. It would seem that the fact that optics perform well and have never suffered shipping damage is irrelevant. I have patiently explained to him why the design works, but it isn't written in his textbook, so it must be wrong. Nothing annoys me more than people who are UNWILLING to apply their brains to think about a problem.
I don't have much to say about the second new hire. The guy has worked at the Mecca for about four weeks, and is averaging about one word a week. I tried to engage him in a conversation once. It was a big mistake. I have had conversations with walls that were less one sided. Apparently, I do not rank high enough to even be acknowledged as mud on the bottom of his shoe.
The third new hire starts in January. Nobody has even interviewed this guy, who is supposed to be doing integration between the hardware and biology parts of the system. Why then, have none of the engineers (except for probably the Toad, or the Great Wall) met this guy? Why have none of the Biologists (including Jaba) met this guy? Apparently, he is another hanger on who follows MNB from company to company, like a vulture seeking out a new carcass.
Welcome to the new world order.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Where do they find these guys?
First of all, I want to apologize for not writing much lately. Things have been very busy at the mecca, what with all of the time that MNB has spent telling the Sarcastic Brit and I that we are useless.
Truths about the new world order
1) Engineering work that has been done previously does not count.
MNB: I am redesigning the sample holder to add reference holes
Harbinger: We did a holder like that a while ago, so that we could make a large holder that was injection molded together. We aren't using it, but we learned some things.
MNB: I don't care.
Harbinger: Isn't it foolish to discount the work that the engineering team has done to date.
MNB: I have been designing these things for eight years, and I know what I'm doing.
Harbinger: Here is the one that I designed a year ago.
MNB: But this is way too expensive. Why would you do it like this?
Harbinger: To solve a bunch of problems that no longer exist. But there is information to be learned from it. The machine tolerances won't change, since it was made by the same vendor.
MNB: I don't care. I have dimensioned the drawing differently. That will change the machine tolerances.
Harbinger: No, actually you haven't. This one is referenced to the holes, just like yours. Besides, you can write whatever you want, it doesn't change the way the machine works.
MNB: I know what I am doing. What you did before does not matter.
Harbinger: If you say so. Have a nice day.
MNB: Can I keep this sample?
Harbinger: Be my guest. (Of course you just told me that it is irrelevant, so why do you want it?)
2) You can only be good at one thing.
MNB: Sarcastic Brit, you need to step up to the plate and be a better electrical engineer.
Sarcastic Brit: I'm not an electrical engineer.
MNB: But you have a bachelor's in electrical engineering.
Sarcastic Brit: And a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. I haven't done electrical engineering since I finished my undergrad.
MNB: But you know how to lay out a board.
Sarcastic Brit: In theory yes, but I have never even worked as an electrical engineer.
MNB: So you are a jack of all trades. You don't want to be a jack of all trades.
Sarcastic Brit: Actually, I do.
3) Loyalty is not earned
Hyena: I always tell new bosses this: I am a contractor and I am here until you don't need me any more.
MNB: That's right. Your loyalty is to me, and NOT the Sarcastic Brit. You need to understand that.
Hyena: My contract expires in two weeks. Are you going to renew it or not?
MNB: I don't know yet. Maybe I will know next week. By the way... the Toad told me that you used the wrong kind of bolt on the prototype. You worked at BMW - surely they taught you better than that.
4) The best way to get rid of an engineering team is to hire a toady who spies on your other employees, and then tattles on them for everything you can think of.
I have not quit yet. I must admit that after everything that has gone on thus far, I probably should just do it. Just when I was starting to think that things couldn't get worse.
Truths about the new world order
1) Engineering work that has been done previously does not count.
MNB: I am redesigning the sample holder to add reference holes
Harbinger: We did a holder like that a while ago, so that we could make a large holder that was injection molded together. We aren't using it, but we learned some things.
MNB: I don't care.
Harbinger: Isn't it foolish to discount the work that the engineering team has done to date.
MNB: I have been designing these things for eight years, and I know what I'm doing.
Harbinger: Here is the one that I designed a year ago.
MNB: But this is way too expensive. Why would you do it like this?
Harbinger: To solve a bunch of problems that no longer exist. But there is information to be learned from it. The machine tolerances won't change, since it was made by the same vendor.
MNB: I don't care. I have dimensioned the drawing differently. That will change the machine tolerances.
Harbinger: No, actually you haven't. This one is referenced to the holes, just like yours. Besides, you can write whatever you want, it doesn't change the way the machine works.
MNB: I know what I am doing. What you did before does not matter.
Harbinger: If you say so. Have a nice day.
MNB: Can I keep this sample?
Harbinger: Be my guest. (Of course you just told me that it is irrelevant, so why do you want it?)
2) You can only be good at one thing.
MNB: Sarcastic Brit, you need to step up to the plate and be a better electrical engineer.
Sarcastic Brit: I'm not an electrical engineer.
MNB: But you have a bachelor's in electrical engineering.
Sarcastic Brit: And a PhD in Biomedical Engineering. I haven't done electrical engineering since I finished my undergrad.
MNB: But you know how to lay out a board.
Sarcastic Brit: In theory yes, but I have never even worked as an electrical engineer.
MNB: So you are a jack of all trades. You don't want to be a jack of all trades.
Sarcastic Brit: Actually, I do.
3) Loyalty is not earned
Hyena: I always tell new bosses this: I am a contractor and I am here until you don't need me any more.
MNB: That's right. Your loyalty is to me, and NOT the Sarcastic Brit. You need to understand that.
Hyena: My contract expires in two weeks. Are you going to renew it or not?
MNB: I don't know yet. Maybe I will know next week. By the way... the Toad told me that you used the wrong kind of bolt on the prototype. You worked at BMW - surely they taught you better than that.
4) The best way to get rid of an engineering team is to hire a toady who spies on your other employees, and then tattles on them for everything you can think of.
I have not quit yet. I must admit that after everything that has gone on thus far, I probably should just do it. Just when I was starting to think that things couldn't get worse.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
If it's too good to be true...
Ahh... back to Captain Fantastic. This one is by request. I'm sure that there are better Captain Fantastic stories, but this one is easy to tell, although I am sad to admit does not involve him threatening to punch anybody in the mouth for calling him a liar.
Imagine that you want to create a dish composed of several thousand smaller dishes. This is what we were trying to do at the mecca. The idea is to put one sample into each of these holes do a bunch of chemical reactions in each of the holes and then see which samples glow when you shine light on them. It sounds easy, right? However, when you have many thousands of holes, and each one is less than 1/2mm in diameter, it becomes somewhat trickier.
Captain Fantastic had the perfect solution. There is this process by which you fill a pan with goo that polymerizes when you shine light on it. If you put a very thin layer of goo into the pan, and then shine the light through a mask, you can make a very nice pattern of holes in a thin sheet of plastic. If you cover the top of that piece of plastic with a thin layer of goo and do it again, you get a thicker sheet of plastic with holes in it. If you do it thousands of times, and then glue a bottom on it, you get the sample holder. No problem. Right?
Captain Fantastic had EVERYBODY at the Mecca sold on this great technology. Of course, he hadn't actually tested it. Like many great ideas, it looked better on paper than it did in reality. Somehow, the Sarcastic Brit, the Mad Man from Down South, and I didn't believe that it would be that easy. In fact, we were so sure that it wouldn't be that we set up a horse race outside of the Brit's cubicle. On his wall we pinned up pictures of horses where each one represented one of the techniques for making the sample holder. We scribbled the names of each technique at the bottom of the picture and started them all out together. Every time we got promising results from a technique, that horse was moved to the front. Every time we reached a setback, that horse was moved back in the race.
Captain Fantastic put his horse out front. It would work. It was perfect. The first thing we noticed was that the material glowed more brightly than the sample. This isn't surprising... the material polymerizes when you shine light on it. Of course it's photo-reactive. Captain Fantastic had ways of dealing with it (although he never disclosed them to the rest of us, or even demonstrated that these ideas were more viable than "paying off the Pixies to prevent them from making the crap glow")
We moved his horse back a bit. He moved it back out front. After all, it was only a minor setback.
Next, imagine cutting a hole in a bunch of sheets of plastic, layering them up and then pouring water down the hole. You will quickly have a puddle on the table, as the water runs between the sheets. If the sheets are really thin... it gives you more places for them to leak.
Back with the horse. Of course, Captain Fantastic moved it forward again. This was also only a minor setback. We would coat the plastic with a thin layer of metal. That would seal the layers together and keep the material dark, so it wouldn't react to the light or the sample.
One problem: Most metals will also react with the sample.
No problem, we will just cover the metal with another layer of plastic. Really? This is starting to become pretty complicated. Did I mention that the material needs to be thermally conductive as well? Seems like we can't cover that problem up (either literally or figuratively).
Despite these setbacks, Captain Fantastic kept insisting that this stuff would work. Even after months of samples, and not a single successful experiment, he would not relent. We went so far as to turn his horse upside down and write R.I.P. on it. Undeterred, he would flip the horse over and put it at the finish line. It was finished alright... I believe that the correct expression is "beating a dead horse".
The strangest thing is that even six months after it was generally accepted that Captain Fantastic was delusional, and had been sacked for as much, Swiper was asking the Sarcastic Brit when we would be ready to start producing these wonderful photo-polymerized sample holders.
Perhaps he never got the memo.
Imagine that you want to create a dish composed of several thousand smaller dishes. This is what we were trying to do at the mecca. The idea is to put one sample into each of these holes do a bunch of chemical reactions in each of the holes and then see which samples glow when you shine light on them. It sounds easy, right? However, when you have many thousands of holes, and each one is less than 1/2mm in diameter, it becomes somewhat trickier.
Captain Fantastic had the perfect solution. There is this process by which you fill a pan with goo that polymerizes when you shine light on it. If you put a very thin layer of goo into the pan, and then shine the light through a mask, you can make a very nice pattern of holes in a thin sheet of plastic. If you cover the top of that piece of plastic with a thin layer of goo and do it again, you get a thicker sheet of plastic with holes in it. If you do it thousands of times, and then glue a bottom on it, you get the sample holder. No problem. Right?
Captain Fantastic had EVERYBODY at the Mecca sold on this great technology. Of course, he hadn't actually tested it. Like many great ideas, it looked better on paper than it did in reality. Somehow, the Sarcastic Brit, the Mad Man from Down South, and I didn't believe that it would be that easy. In fact, we were so sure that it wouldn't be that we set up a horse race outside of the Brit's cubicle. On his wall we pinned up pictures of horses where each one represented one of the techniques for making the sample holder. We scribbled the names of each technique at the bottom of the picture and started them all out together. Every time we got promising results from a technique, that horse was moved to the front. Every time we reached a setback, that horse was moved back in the race.
Captain Fantastic put his horse out front. It would work. It was perfect. The first thing we noticed was that the material glowed more brightly than the sample. This isn't surprising... the material polymerizes when you shine light on it. Of course it's photo-reactive. Captain Fantastic had ways of dealing with it (although he never disclosed them to the rest of us, or even demonstrated that these ideas were more viable than "paying off the Pixies to prevent them from making the crap glow")
We moved his horse back a bit. He moved it back out front. After all, it was only a minor setback.
Next, imagine cutting a hole in a bunch of sheets of plastic, layering them up and then pouring water down the hole. You will quickly have a puddle on the table, as the water runs between the sheets. If the sheets are really thin... it gives you more places for them to leak.
Back with the horse. Of course, Captain Fantastic moved it forward again. This was also only a minor setback. We would coat the plastic with a thin layer of metal. That would seal the layers together and keep the material dark, so it wouldn't react to the light or the sample.
One problem: Most metals will also react with the sample.
No problem, we will just cover the metal with another layer of plastic. Really? This is starting to become pretty complicated. Did I mention that the material needs to be thermally conductive as well? Seems like we can't cover that problem up (either literally or figuratively).
Despite these setbacks, Captain Fantastic kept insisting that this stuff would work. Even after months of samples, and not a single successful experiment, he would not relent. We went so far as to turn his horse upside down and write R.I.P. on it. Undeterred, he would flip the horse over and put it at the finish line. It was finished alright... I believe that the correct expression is "beating a dead horse".
The strangest thing is that even six months after it was generally accepted that Captain Fantastic was delusional, and had been sacked for as much, Swiper was asking the Sarcastic Brit when we would be ready to start producing these wonderful photo-polymerized sample holders.
Perhaps he never got the memo.
Friday, December 4, 2009
I wish that Scott Adams would stop spying on me!
I had my weekly one on one with MNB yesterday. It was revealing. I will admit that I haven't been discreet regarding my disgruntlement. The conversation went something like this:
MNB: You seem to be very high strung.
Harbinger: No, I'm just crazy after working in a mad house for two years.
MNB: How many jobs have you held?
Harbinger: It depends on how you count the mergers and acquisitions. Let's call it four or so companies.
MNB: So, you've been around. Have you ever been fired?
Harbinger: No. I have always left by my choice.
MNB: You know it's not so bad. The first time I was fired from a job, I had six months to stay home. I built a deck and had a great time with my kids.
Harbinger: I'm happy for you. (Thinking: PLEASE FIRE ME. JUST GIVE ME A PACKAGE!)
MNB: Any other complaints?
Harbinger: I make less money than I did when I started two years ago, and nobody has any appreciation for anything the engineering team has accomplished despite the horrible management.
MNB: Less money? Haven't you gotten a raise or bonus?
Harbinger: No.
MNB: What about yearly performance reviews?
Harbinger: What's a performance review?
MNB: Oh.
Of course, I sent the following email to EWA today. I'm not sure if he will appreciate it or not, but I figured that at least it be enjoyable to imagine his reaction.
EWA,
I didn't get a chance to say hello last time you were in. It seems like they are keeping you away from the engineers. That's probably a good thing...
Jaba asked me how I felt about Slimy Indian Barbapapa's leaving today. My response was "cheated". Looks like I won't be getting his dog tags... which is sad, as I also hear that he has been trying to get rid of me. Of course, I should probably be more worried about my new boss asking me if I have ever been fired before, and extolling the virtues of getting the axe.
That having been said... do you know anybody who's looking for somebody with my skill set? A quick census of the engineering team reveals that at least six members of the engineering team are talking about seeking new employment, if not actually doing it. So... if you know anybody who needs an entire engineering team, that could probably be accommodated too.
In any case, The Sarcastic Brit mentioned that you would probably stop by once we are in the new facility. I would love it if you dropped by to say hello, unless I'm reveling in the freedom of unemployment. The strange thing is that I am not upset about being fired (I think that I would count it as a favor). It's more the fact that I am outraged that they believe that The Sarcastic Brit and I can be replaced by a manufacturing technician.
Hope you're having a great weekend!
Cheers,
The Harbinger of Doom
Perhaps it was a bit over the top... but what can they do? Fire me?
In other news... Slimy Indian Barbapapa finished his last day at the Mecca today. His supporters went out for lunch with him. They had cake in the afternoon. I was conveniently absent. I showed up after the cake to check on a package that I was supposed to receive today. It hadn't arrived. I ran into the Sarcastic Brit. The conversation went like this:
Sarcastic Brit: What are you doing here? I thought you left on account of your wife's birthday.
Harbinger: Yeah, but I came back to say goodbye to Slimy Indian Barbapapa.
Sarcastic Brit: (raises eyebrow) Really?
Harbinger: Yeah, and to tell him of my hope that there is a special place in hell for lying, backstabbing ba$ta%@s like him.
Sarcastic Brit: I see. Have fun.
In all, it was pretty much a normal day at the Mecca.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
EWA: 0 - PT Barnum: 2
I will get back to the Marvelous CTO. Tonight, I want to tell you about the latest addition to the Mecca's illustrious management team.
I remember a conversation with EWA (Evil Wall Street Analyst) quite some time ago, in which he told me that the Mecca was going to hire a new VP of Engineering for the Mecca that was so good "he was going to make me cream". MNB (My New Boss aka the new VP of Engineering) started last week, and let me tell you, my dreams have been anything but wet, unless you count perspiration.
First, MNB told me that we should not be buying our sample holder from a vendor in the far east. It took the Mad Man from Down South (the former VP of engineering) nearly six months to find one vendor that could actually make the things and sell them to us for an acceptable price. Of course MNB knows better and claimed that he had a shop in Silicon Valley that could do it better - and for as cheap. Having already talked to some of my own local vendors about it, I figured that if we were willing to pay about 40 times as much money, we could get them made locally. MNB told me that he knew better. Funny, he refused to show me the samples from his guy. I heard one of the other engineers refer to them as "scrap". No wet dreams yet.
Next, he told us that he would put a stop to the foolishness that is the Mecca's product build projections. No more changing requirements. Of course, we are now ordering parts for two variants of the system, in a yet to be determined quantity somewhere between 2 and 10. No problems. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he told us that we had to comb a 300 part bill of materials and make sure that all of the parts were correct. We had a day. Of course we couldn't let anything else we were doing slip. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he brought in his sidekick for two interviews. I was forced to show him the guts of our stuff. I suspect that he didn't have a non-disclosure agreement. It's ok though, because the guy works for MNB's old company, which is one of our competitors. And, there are no open positions at the Mecca, so even the HR person doesn't know why this guy is being interviewed. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he sent his CSA/UL/CE compliance consultant in to talk to us about getting safety certifications on the instrument. The consultant was actually good. I was impressed. Not creaming, but impressed. The consulant came back for a second look a week later. I was surprised by his speedy return since nothing had changed, and mentioned this to the consultant. The consultant confessed that MNB had asked him to come back to make sure that I understood simple things like the table of vent hole sizes, and to make sure that all of the wires are UL listed. Apparently, MNB thinks that I am either a sabateur, or really stupid. I asked him which it was. He told me that it was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, I misunderstood that he is a billigerent bully who is afraid of half of his engineering team. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he took the Sarcastic Brit out back and beat him for a paying too much for a part that our former boss (Mr. Ineffectual) had approved because we were told that getting the part quickly was more important than getting it cheaply. Apparently he wants to punish people for things that happened before he showed up. No wet dreams yet.
I guess that it doesn't help that I had the guy pegged as a biligerent bully from the moment I met him. Unfortunately my intuition seems to be too correct for comfort. No wet dreams yet.
The Fearful COO told us that he has experience "cleaning up" engineering teams with problems. Apparently, they have told MNB that the engineering team is problematic. I asked her if he cleaned up these teams by firing everybody. She informed me that she had looked into this, and he had not fired anybody. I am beginning to understand now. He didn't have to fire them. At the rate he's going, at least half of the engineering team will be gone before the end of January. I think that EWA has been suckered again. Point for PT.
EWA: 0
PT Barnum: 2
I remember a conversation with EWA (Evil Wall Street Analyst) quite some time ago, in which he told me that the Mecca was going to hire a new VP of Engineering for the Mecca that was so good "he was going to make me cream". MNB (My New Boss aka the new VP of Engineering) started last week, and let me tell you, my dreams have been anything but wet, unless you count perspiration.
First, MNB told me that we should not be buying our sample holder from a vendor in the far east. It took the Mad Man from Down South (the former VP of engineering) nearly six months to find one vendor that could actually make the things and sell them to us for an acceptable price. Of course MNB knows better and claimed that he had a shop in Silicon Valley that could do it better - and for as cheap. Having already talked to some of my own local vendors about it, I figured that if we were willing to pay about 40 times as much money, we could get them made locally. MNB told me that he knew better. Funny, he refused to show me the samples from his guy. I heard one of the other engineers refer to them as "scrap". No wet dreams yet.
Next, he told us that he would put a stop to the foolishness that is the Mecca's product build projections. No more changing requirements. Of course, we are now ordering parts for two variants of the system, in a yet to be determined quantity somewhere between 2 and 10. No problems. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he told us that we had to comb a 300 part bill of materials and make sure that all of the parts were correct. We had a day. Of course we couldn't let anything else we were doing slip. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he brought in his sidekick for two interviews. I was forced to show him the guts of our stuff. I suspect that he didn't have a non-disclosure agreement. It's ok though, because the guy works for MNB's old company, which is one of our competitors. And, there are no open positions at the Mecca, so even the HR person doesn't know why this guy is being interviewed. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he sent his CSA/UL/CE compliance consultant in to talk to us about getting safety certifications on the instrument. The consultant was actually good. I was impressed. Not creaming, but impressed. The consulant came back for a second look a week later. I was surprised by his speedy return since nothing had changed, and mentioned this to the consultant. The consultant confessed that MNB had asked him to come back to make sure that I understood simple things like the table of vent hole sizes, and to make sure that all of the wires are UL listed. Apparently, MNB thinks that I am either a sabateur, or really stupid. I asked him which it was. He told me that it was all a misunderstanding. Apparently, I misunderstood that he is a billigerent bully who is afraid of half of his engineering team. No wet dreams yet.
Then, he took the Sarcastic Brit out back and beat him for a paying too much for a part that our former boss (Mr. Ineffectual) had approved because we were told that getting the part quickly was more important than getting it cheaply. Apparently he wants to punish people for things that happened before he showed up. No wet dreams yet.
I guess that it doesn't help that I had the guy pegged as a biligerent bully from the moment I met him. Unfortunately my intuition seems to be too correct for comfort. No wet dreams yet.
The Fearful COO told us that he has experience "cleaning up" engineering teams with problems. Apparently, they have told MNB that the engineering team is problematic. I asked her if he cleaned up these teams by firing everybody. She informed me that she had looked into this, and he had not fired anybody. I am beginning to understand now. He didn't have to fire them. At the rate he's going, at least half of the engineering team will be gone before the end of January. I think that EWA has been suckered again. Point for PT.
EWA: 0
PT Barnum: 2
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
The CTO
I have written briefly about the Chief Technical Officer. I have so much material on this guy that I don't know where to start. Of course, much like the CTO himself, most of my thoughts are completely random and chaotic.
In order to help me organize my thoughts, I present here a brief overview of the CTO's role in the development of the Mecca's core technology.
Imagine an elderly Indian gentleman (or not), shuffling around in his cork soled sandals. The true air of professionalism. One might be tempted to assume that he is one of those genius-type savants. One might even believe it when hearing some of the ideas this guy came up with. One would discover the folly of this assumption if one actually released the parking brake on one's brain.
Where to start?
Imagine that you want to build a machine that is basically the same as what everybody else is building. That is, your intellectual property isn't in the machine, but the stuff that goes in the machine. Suppose now that EVERYBODY was doing it the same way. Yeah, that way has patents, but if EVERYBODY else is doing it like that, either the patent holder is happy to grant a license, or they don't enforce their patents. Your engineers are also telling you that it is the most sensible way to do things. What would you do? You would come up with a way around the patent that multiplies the complexity of the device by a factor of ten. Not only does this increase the cost enormously, but gives the thing about two dozen additional (and unnecessary) new failure modes.
Your engineers grudgingly go along with you and design a device to do it your way. Just in case, you spend about $10,000 dollars for a "backup" that has a two month lead time, is four times the size, and is not really appropriate for the job. By the time it arrives, your engineers have devised a $1000 implementation for your stupid design concept and use your $10,000 toy as a door stop. They don't even take it out of the box. Bastards!
What to do? You don't want to waste that money, and you can't send it back, so you create some stupid side project and hire a company to turn this unused "insurance" into an even larger doorstop.
Back to the original design. Your engineers tell you that your design concept won't work, because it will require you to find a glue that will hold 20PSI of pressure, under relatively high temperatures, as well as being chemically inert, non-fluorescent and transparent. Your response is "the glue will hold". Your VP of engineering (the Mad Man from Down South) writes a long email to you, and CC's Swiper, telling you what a stupid design concept this is. He distributes hard copies of this email at virtually every meeting.
You need to take action. You come up with another stupid idea. Two wrongs make a right? One of your engineers turns this stupid idea into something viable. He says that it's a horrible solution. The performance is crap, it's not usable, and he's only done this to get the company out of the hole. That is, the alpha test site that has lost their bench to a stinking turd for over four months.
Your solution: You threaten to outsource your engineering team to a contract manufacturer in a third world country.
Your engineers seek a way to vent their frustrations, such as starting a blog called "The Silicon Valley Way."
But wait, there's more... Unfortunately, much more.
In order to help me organize my thoughts, I present here a brief overview of the CTO's role in the development of the Mecca's core technology.
Imagine an elderly Indian gentleman (or not), shuffling around in his cork soled sandals. The true air of professionalism. One might be tempted to assume that he is one of those genius-type savants. One might even believe it when hearing some of the ideas this guy came up with. One would discover the folly of this assumption if one actually released the parking brake on one's brain.
Where to start?
Imagine that you want to build a machine that is basically the same as what everybody else is building. That is, your intellectual property isn't in the machine, but the stuff that goes in the machine. Suppose now that EVERYBODY was doing it the same way. Yeah, that way has patents, but if EVERYBODY else is doing it like that, either the patent holder is happy to grant a license, or they don't enforce their patents. Your engineers are also telling you that it is the most sensible way to do things. What would you do? You would come up with a way around the patent that multiplies the complexity of the device by a factor of ten. Not only does this increase the cost enormously, but gives the thing about two dozen additional (and unnecessary) new failure modes.
Your engineers grudgingly go along with you and design a device to do it your way. Just in case, you spend about $10,000 dollars for a "backup" that has a two month lead time, is four times the size, and is not really appropriate for the job. By the time it arrives, your engineers have devised a $1000 implementation for your stupid design concept and use your $10,000 toy as a door stop. They don't even take it out of the box. Bastards!
What to do? You don't want to waste that money, and you can't send it back, so you create some stupid side project and hire a company to turn this unused "insurance" into an even larger doorstop.
Back to the original design. Your engineers tell you that your design concept won't work, because it will require you to find a glue that will hold 20PSI of pressure, under relatively high temperatures, as well as being chemically inert, non-fluorescent and transparent. Your response is "the glue will hold". Your VP of engineering (the Mad Man from Down South) writes a long email to you, and CC's Swiper, telling you what a stupid design concept this is. He distributes hard copies of this email at virtually every meeting.
You need to take action. You come up with another stupid idea. Two wrongs make a right? One of your engineers turns this stupid idea into something viable. He says that it's a horrible solution. The performance is crap, it's not usable, and he's only done this to get the company out of the hole. That is, the alpha test site that has lost their bench to a stinking turd for over four months.
Your solution: You threaten to outsource your engineering team to a contract manufacturer in a third world country.
Your engineers seek a way to vent their frustrations, such as starting a blog called "The Silicon Valley Way."
But wait, there's more... Unfortunately, much more.
Monday, November 2, 2009
New warning on CAD software: Contains chemicals known to cause psychopathic behavior in the state of California Part III
A couple of weeks passed. Things seemed to be settled into one of those funks that although it stinks, you can almost convince yourself that there is actually not a rotten pile of dung right outside your window.
It was decided that there was too much drafting work to do, so we would hire a mechanical designer (or senior drafter) to assist Buffalo Bill. Of course everybody (but Bill) was thinking about it being his replacement. I was still hopeful that it wouldn't come to that, but I wasn't holding my breath.
The next incident that added fuel to the fire was a faux pas that I committed. Mr. Ineffectual got a couple of resumes from a body shop (temp agency), and Buffalo Bill was offended that the Sarcastic Brit and I were sent the resumes while he was not. I figured it couldn't hurt to pass them along and forwarded the email. It never occurred to me that the email also contained the hourly rates for both candidates. To make matters worse, the body shop was charging more for either of these two guys than we were paying Buffalo Bill. Needless to say, this made Buffalo Bill unhappy.
I tried to smooth over the situation by taking Bill out for lunch and telling him that it really doesn't matter what anybody else makes, and that all he should be worried about was his own work and compensation. I added that I used to worry about things like that, but there was no point, and life was too short. I thought that maybe I had gotten through to him, and his attitude would improve.
We interviewed two candidates. One had lots of experience using our CAD package, and came from the body shop. The other candidate was a friend of a friend of one of the other engineers, but didn't seem to have ever used our CAD software (which is probably the most common package available.) Anyway, Buffalo Bill took over the interviews. Far from being a guy on the verge of being sacked for producing nothing but flaming piles of doo, he acted as though he were the head of engineering or something.
Needless to say, he didn't like the guy from the body shop. Apparently he was smarmy. Of course, I am sure that his hourly rate (that was about 50% higher than Bill's) didn't have anything to do with it. The other guy - the one that seemingly had NO experience whatever with our CAD software was the obvious winner.
Mr. Ineffectual, the Sarcast Brit and I sat down the next day to discuss the two candidates. We decided to go with the guy who would need the least amount of help. Mr. Ineffectual called the body shop to make the arrangements.
I was sitting in an open area of the office that day, eating lunch with Fly Boy when Bill came by and joined us. I was talking to Flyboy about the amount of work we to do, and commented that getting the new designer in would help immensely.
I saw Buffalo Bill grow tense as he asked which guy we picked. I told him. He started swearing about not being consulted and that his oppinion obviously didn't amount to sh!t. Unfortunately, that statement was pretty true. If his work had been adequate, or if he hadn't made an ass of himself in the interviews, or if I hadn't grown so tired of his griping for months, I might have cared more. He stormed off. I shrugged.
The next morning was a company wide meeting. Buffalo Bill decided that he was going to boycot. I heard him say this and left. At that point, he told the Dragon Lady that he knew how much money the new mechanical engineer was making, and he was very upset. When the Dragon Lady asked him where he got his information, he revealed that the informant was the account that does the SOX compliance. Since Bill and the accountant are not particularly chummy, I have to assume that the accountant was trying to make the worst of a bad situation. What did he have to gain? I have no clue. I should probably mention the fact that the new mechanical engineer has a Master's degree in mechanical engineering, and not an associate's degree in project management from DeVry. Of course those are more or less eqivalent qualifications for doing mechanical design work.
The Dragon Lady was livid about salary information being given out, and she was also sick and tired of Buffalo Bill. She spoke to Swiper. Then I spoke to Swiper, and had to explain why Bill was still hanging around like a plague over the company. I didn't have a good answer. It wasn't because of his awsome work.
I talked to Mr. Ineffectual, the Sarcastic Brit, and human resources, and we decided to pull the plug the next day. We would do it nice and early, before too many people show up. (Starting time at the Mecca is typically the crack of noon.) Everything was in place. We arranged for Bill's replacement (Mr. Smarmy) to show up after noon so there would be no confrontation.
That afternoon, Buffalo Bill tried to re-enact the highlights from a Sabres game and hip-checked Mr. Ineffectual into the wall. Perhaps that is what made Mr. ineffectual turn red. Perhaps it was the comment "that was for being an idiot". In either case, it's not a wise thing to do to the boss. Buffalo bill was given his severence that afternoon.
Since the Sarcastic Brit was nominally Bill's manager, he got the enviable job of delivering the pink slip. Apparently, Bill didn't think that the Brit would do it, as his parting words were akin to "Et tu, Brute". Later, Bill sent the Sarcastic Brit an email, stating there were no hard feelings, as he was obviously the sacrificial lamb for the project being late.
Of course, the the good feelings didn't end there. He called up one of our most important vendors and told them that the Mecca was laying people off because they had no money to pay employees or suppliers. Needless to say, the vendor was very happy that Bill had been sacked for being an incompetent dork with a bad attitude.
Will Mr. Smarmy fare any better than Buffalo Bill? We don't know. After we took the wheel barrow to Buffalo Bill's cubicle, and found litterally several thousand sheets with markups, and no way of knowing which had been added to the system, we decided to sort the little pieces of paper (ten man hours later) and deliver them to Mr Smarmy for vetting. We haven't seen him since.
I have learned this: The Mecca is not a safe place for mechanical designers.
It was decided that there was too much drafting work to do, so we would hire a mechanical designer (or senior drafter) to assist Buffalo Bill. Of course everybody (but Bill) was thinking about it being his replacement. I was still hopeful that it wouldn't come to that, but I wasn't holding my breath.
The next incident that added fuel to the fire was a faux pas that I committed. Mr. Ineffectual got a couple of resumes from a body shop (temp agency), and Buffalo Bill was offended that the Sarcastic Brit and I were sent the resumes while he was not. I figured it couldn't hurt to pass them along and forwarded the email. It never occurred to me that the email also contained the hourly rates for both candidates. To make matters worse, the body shop was charging more for either of these two guys than we were paying Buffalo Bill. Needless to say, this made Buffalo Bill unhappy.
I tried to smooth over the situation by taking Bill out for lunch and telling him that it really doesn't matter what anybody else makes, and that all he should be worried about was his own work and compensation. I added that I used to worry about things like that, but there was no point, and life was too short. I thought that maybe I had gotten through to him, and his attitude would improve.
We interviewed two candidates. One had lots of experience using our CAD package, and came from the body shop. The other candidate was a friend of a friend of one of the other engineers, but didn't seem to have ever used our CAD software (which is probably the most common package available.) Anyway, Buffalo Bill took over the interviews. Far from being a guy on the verge of being sacked for producing nothing but flaming piles of doo, he acted as though he were the head of engineering or something.
Needless to say, he didn't like the guy from the body shop. Apparently he was smarmy. Of course, I am sure that his hourly rate (that was about 50% higher than Bill's) didn't have anything to do with it. The other guy - the one that seemingly had NO experience whatever with our CAD software was the obvious winner.
Mr. Ineffectual, the Sarcast Brit and I sat down the next day to discuss the two candidates. We decided to go with the guy who would need the least amount of help. Mr. Ineffectual called the body shop to make the arrangements.
I was sitting in an open area of the office that day, eating lunch with Fly Boy when Bill came by and joined us. I was talking to Flyboy about the amount of work we to do, and commented that getting the new designer in would help immensely.
I saw Buffalo Bill grow tense as he asked which guy we picked. I told him. He started swearing about not being consulted and that his oppinion obviously didn't amount to sh!t. Unfortunately, that statement was pretty true. If his work had been adequate, or if he hadn't made an ass of himself in the interviews, or if I hadn't grown so tired of his griping for months, I might have cared more. He stormed off. I shrugged.
The next morning was a company wide meeting. Buffalo Bill decided that he was going to boycot. I heard him say this and left. At that point, he told the Dragon Lady that he knew how much money the new mechanical engineer was making, and he was very upset. When the Dragon Lady asked him where he got his information, he revealed that the informant was the account that does the SOX compliance. Since Bill and the accountant are not particularly chummy, I have to assume that the accountant was trying to make the worst of a bad situation. What did he have to gain? I have no clue. I should probably mention the fact that the new mechanical engineer has a Master's degree in mechanical engineering, and not an associate's degree in project management from DeVry. Of course those are more or less eqivalent qualifications for doing mechanical design work.
The Dragon Lady was livid about salary information being given out, and she was also sick and tired of Buffalo Bill. She spoke to Swiper. Then I spoke to Swiper, and had to explain why Bill was still hanging around like a plague over the company. I didn't have a good answer. It wasn't because of his awsome work.
I talked to Mr. Ineffectual, the Sarcastic Brit, and human resources, and we decided to pull the plug the next day. We would do it nice and early, before too many people show up. (Starting time at the Mecca is typically the crack of noon.) Everything was in place. We arranged for Bill's replacement (Mr. Smarmy) to show up after noon so there would be no confrontation.
That afternoon, Buffalo Bill tried to re-enact the highlights from a Sabres game and hip-checked Mr. Ineffectual into the wall. Perhaps that is what made Mr. ineffectual turn red. Perhaps it was the comment "that was for being an idiot". In either case, it's not a wise thing to do to the boss. Buffalo bill was given his severence that afternoon.
Since the Sarcastic Brit was nominally Bill's manager, he got the enviable job of delivering the pink slip. Apparently, Bill didn't think that the Brit would do it, as his parting words were akin to "Et tu, Brute". Later, Bill sent the Sarcastic Brit an email, stating there were no hard feelings, as he was obviously the sacrificial lamb for the project being late.
Of course, the the good feelings didn't end there. He called up one of our most important vendors and told them that the Mecca was laying people off because they had no money to pay employees or suppliers. Needless to say, the vendor was very happy that Bill had been sacked for being an incompetent dork with a bad attitude.
Will Mr. Smarmy fare any better than Buffalo Bill? We don't know. After we took the wheel barrow to Buffalo Bill's cubicle, and found litterally several thousand sheets with markups, and no way of knowing which had been added to the system, we decided to sort the little pieces of paper (ten man hours later) and deliver them to Mr Smarmy for vetting. We haven't seen him since.
I have learned this: The Mecca is not a safe place for mechanical designers.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
New warning on CAD software: Contains chemicals known to cause psychopathic behavior in the state of California Part II
For several several weeks Buffalo Bill kept asking me if the Sarcastic Brit was still angry with him. Of course, he repeated the same (bus throwing) comments at every opportunity, which probably didn't help with the Brit's anger levels.
In order to speed up the project, the Sarcastic Brit and I decided to take over all actual design tasks. I am roughly as good as a six year old with one of those big, fat pencils, which puts me light years ahead of Buffalo Bill with his crayon. This prompted a post-it note on Bill's monitor. It said "You are a nobody. Just shut up and do the drawings."
Unfortunately, Bill had been ordering the parts he was drafting as well. It was chaos. We had five times too many of some parts, and were missing other parts entirely. Fly Boy was hired to sort out the bill of materials and do the purchasing. This further upset Bill, as he considered documentation and purchasing to be two things that he could do very well. His record spoke for itself. We hired a replacement.
After several months of worsening attitude and performance, the Sarcastic Brit found a letter on his desk. I have only changed the names. My comments are in blue.
How I have been ripped off by the Mecca
6 months of not paying the appropriate taxes. apparently he lacked the discipline to withold his own taxes
Loss of 3 holidays and a weeks vacation pay isn't that the 5% you refused to take in pay cut?
When I was claimed overtime pay I was paid straighty time not time and a half. no tears from me. I am salaried and routinely work unpaid overtime
When I go direct (permanent) how I will be ripped off. News flash: your work and attitude have been so crappy that it won't happen now
Time of service will start when ever the management get around to it. or when hell freezes over
At some point there will be a proclamation that will benefit those people who were direct employees as a date prior to my official start date but after I was here date. It appears that you have been drinking Swiper's Cool-Aid.
FYI I started March 10, 2009
When everyone else is brought back to their previous levels, I will not be recognized in that group because I came in afterwards. I will be told that I should have negotiated for a higher wage when I was hired. What can I say? You're delusional.
Stock price on March 10, 2009 was around $1.20 a share.... it has gone up Talk to EWA
Either the Sarcastic Brit and Harbinger will be fired and I will be left to complete the project; Or I will be fired as the sacrifical lamb. Either way, I will be screwed. OK...
Why do I stay? Because you are a loser.
The short Commute and flexibility. and incredible levels of insanity
Working with the Sarcastic Brit and Harbinger Don't forget Jar Jar!
The opportunity to work in a company that has potential if management allows it too. Management is definitely anti-potential.
The Sarcastic Brit had heard enough. He passed the paper on to Human Resources, and we had a meeting in which we decided that Buffalo Bill had to go.
In order to speed up the project, the Sarcastic Brit and I decided to take over all actual design tasks. I am roughly as good as a six year old with one of those big, fat pencils, which puts me light years ahead of Buffalo Bill with his crayon. This prompted a post-it note on Bill's monitor. It said "You are a nobody. Just shut up and do the drawings."
Unfortunately, Bill had been ordering the parts he was drafting as well. It was chaos. We had five times too many of some parts, and were missing other parts entirely. Fly Boy was hired to sort out the bill of materials and do the purchasing. This further upset Bill, as he considered documentation and purchasing to be two things that he could do very well. His record spoke for itself. We hired a replacement.
After several months of worsening attitude and performance, the Sarcastic Brit found a letter on his desk. I have only changed the names. My comments are in blue.
How I have been ripped off by the Mecca
6 months of not paying the appropriate taxes. apparently he lacked the discipline to withold his own taxes
Loss of 3 holidays and a weeks vacation pay isn't that the 5% you refused to take in pay cut?
When I was claimed overtime pay I was paid straighty time not time and a half. no tears from me. I am salaried and routinely work unpaid overtime
When I go direct (permanent) how I will be ripped off. News flash: your work and attitude have been so crappy that it won't happen now
Time of service will start when ever the management get around to it. or when hell freezes over
At some point there will be a proclamation that will benefit those people who were direct employees as a date prior to my official start date but after I was here date. It appears that you have been drinking Swiper's Cool-Aid.
FYI I started March 10, 2009
When everyone else is brought back to their previous levels, I will not be recognized in that group because I came in afterwards. I will be told that I should have negotiated for a higher wage when I was hired. What can I say? You're delusional.
Stock price on March 10, 2009 was around $1.20 a share.... it has gone up Talk to EWA
Either the Sarcastic Brit and Harbinger will be fired and I will be left to complete the project; Or I will be fired as the sacrifical lamb. Either way, I will be screwed. OK...
Why do I stay? Because you are a loser.
The short Commute and flexibility. and incredible levels of insanity
Working with the Sarcastic Brit and Harbinger Don't forget Jar Jar!
The opportunity to work in a company that has potential if management allows it too. Management is definitely anti-potential.
The Sarcastic Brit had heard enough. He passed the paper on to Human Resources, and we had a meeting in which we decided that Buffalo Bill had to go.
Friday, October 30, 2009
New warning on CAD software: Contains chemicals known to cause psychopathic behavior in the state of California Part I
I am starting to think that all mechanical designers have a tendency to become delusional, crazy @ssholes. Buffalo Bill has been on a steady decline since starting at the Mecca last March.
When Buffalo Bill contacted the Sarcastic Brit, looking for a job, it looked like a fortuitous turn of events. Bill had worked for the Mecca for a couple of months as a temp, before landing a full time job elsewhere. Bill had not really caused any troubles and seemed like a quiet, hard working guy. We all liked him well enough and he wasn't a trouble maker.
When Bill left, we hired the CAD Jockey. He admitted to being a wee bit paranoid and delusional, and claimed to be much worse when his allergies were acting up and he was on his antihistamines. When his term ended (with my ineffectual boss firing him, and earning himself the moniker "punk @ss m*therf#cker") we were in need of mechanical design support. Since we deemed Bill unlikely to use such colourful phrases, we figured that he would be a perfect fit. He was hired on a contract basis (due to the fact that the Mecca was basically out of money and couldn't afford the extra burden of an additional salaried employee), but was promised a full time position once the funding came in.
Since Bill nominally reported to the Sarcastic Brit, the Sarcastic Brit was responsible for the negotiations that would make Bill full time. At that point, the Sarcastic Brit had reservations. Buffalo Bill had turned what he had originally scoped out to be a four week project into a six month project (and counting). His time lines had been wildly wrong, and a three year old with a crayon could have come up with more elegant designs. He kept telling us that he was "much more than a draftsman". We should have been worried! Indeed, he has a BSc in project managment (what the hell kind of major is that?), yet was unable to differentiate between a four week project and one that would last for eight months.
The fact that his designs were bad wasn't so awful. After all, we had only used him as a drafter before, and not as a mechanical designer. The larger problem was his chronic underestimation of when he would be finished. I was starting to look like a dork every time I had to report them to Swiper.
The Sarcastic Brit entered negotiations with a salary figure budgeted. It would require a pay cut of a few bucks an hour to cover the medical insurance, vacation pay, and other overhead that comes with being full time. Buffalo Bill didn't like it, but he agreed to it. However, he never signed it.
The next day, he went to my ineffectual boss to try his hand at negotiation once again. Apparently, he felt that the Sarcastic Brit was being cheap because he wasn't authorized to offer more. Perhaps he just thought that the Sarcastic Brit knew his work too well. Mr. Ineffectual offered him a five percent pay cut from his contract pay. When you figure the 4% in vacation time and stat holidays, this seemed pretty generous to me. Buffalo Bill however, decided that he could do better if he just held out.
Unfortunately for Buffalo Bill, his ability to assess advantage is about as good as his ability to figure out how long it will take him to complete a project. He was still working at the Mecca, so why bother pushing through a contract that would cost the company more money? Mr. Ineffectual's refusal to cave on the salary issue didn't help Buffalo Bill's attitude. Of course, his running around behind the Sarcastic Brit's back didn't help that relationship any either.
Next came the questions regarding why the project was so far behind schedule. There were many excuses. Some of them were real, such as scope creep in the project. Some of them were politically unwise, like claiming that things were not finished because the Brit was slow to review the drawings. Needless to say, you should not throw the guy who is (at least in title) your boss under the bus.
When Buffalo Bill contacted the Sarcastic Brit, looking for a job, it looked like a fortuitous turn of events. Bill had worked for the Mecca for a couple of months as a temp, before landing a full time job elsewhere. Bill had not really caused any troubles and seemed like a quiet, hard working guy. We all liked him well enough and he wasn't a trouble maker.
When Bill left, we hired the CAD Jockey. He admitted to being a wee bit paranoid and delusional, and claimed to be much worse when his allergies were acting up and he was on his antihistamines. When his term ended (with my ineffectual boss firing him, and earning himself the moniker "punk @ss m*therf#cker") we were in need of mechanical design support. Since we deemed Bill unlikely to use such colourful phrases, we figured that he would be a perfect fit. He was hired on a contract basis (due to the fact that the Mecca was basically out of money and couldn't afford the extra burden of an additional salaried employee), but was promised a full time position once the funding came in.
Since Bill nominally reported to the Sarcastic Brit, the Sarcastic Brit was responsible for the negotiations that would make Bill full time. At that point, the Sarcastic Brit had reservations. Buffalo Bill had turned what he had originally scoped out to be a four week project into a six month project (and counting). His time lines had been wildly wrong, and a three year old with a crayon could have come up with more elegant designs. He kept telling us that he was "much more than a draftsman". We should have been worried! Indeed, he has a BSc in project managment (what the hell kind of major is that?), yet was unable to differentiate between a four week project and one that would last for eight months.
The fact that his designs were bad wasn't so awful. After all, we had only used him as a drafter before, and not as a mechanical designer. The larger problem was his chronic underestimation of when he would be finished. I was starting to look like a dork every time I had to report them to Swiper.
The Sarcastic Brit entered negotiations with a salary figure budgeted. It would require a pay cut of a few bucks an hour to cover the medical insurance, vacation pay, and other overhead that comes with being full time. Buffalo Bill didn't like it, but he agreed to it. However, he never signed it.
The next day, he went to my ineffectual boss to try his hand at negotiation once again. Apparently, he felt that the Sarcastic Brit was being cheap because he wasn't authorized to offer more. Perhaps he just thought that the Sarcastic Brit knew his work too well. Mr. Ineffectual offered him a five percent pay cut from his contract pay. When you figure the 4% in vacation time and stat holidays, this seemed pretty generous to me. Buffalo Bill however, decided that he could do better if he just held out.
Unfortunately for Buffalo Bill, his ability to assess advantage is about as good as his ability to figure out how long it will take him to complete a project. He was still working at the Mecca, so why bother pushing through a contract that would cost the company more money? Mr. Ineffectual's refusal to cave on the salary issue didn't help Buffalo Bill's attitude. Of course, his running around behind the Sarcastic Brit's back didn't help that relationship any either.
Next came the questions regarding why the project was so far behind schedule. There were many excuses. Some of them were real, such as scope creep in the project. Some of them were politically unwise, like claiming that things were not finished because the Brit was slow to review the drawings. Needless to say, you should not throw the guy who is (at least in title) your boss under the bus.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Like Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship
The Sarcastic Brit and I had an interesting conversation with the Enlightened One on Thursday. He had been off for a week due to a bout of Bronchitis. Since he is technically retired, and not coming in for the money, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that he would not stress coming in when he was ill.
Unfortunately for the Mecca, he had time to think while he was gone. It seemed that the Enlightened One had become somewhat desensitized to the mayhem and foolishness that is working at the Mecca. Apparently, the Enlightened one had an epiphany: with only one notable exception, the entire senior management team is completely clueless. (Not to mention lying weasels.) They are unable to make a decision, and despite the fact that they are planning on selling instruments very soon, can't even figure out the basic market specifications.
This, coupled with the fact that the Enlightened One (who has done some pretty ground-breaking work in the field) is left managing a couple of clueless, arrogant, and conniving punks (that he refers to as "the children"), has left him questioning if this is really the way he wants to spend his golden years. Although the work is interesting, we are never allowed to finish anything, and are forced to cut so many corners that even good ideas are reduced to stinking turds. The Enlightened One has decided that he can find less frustrating pursuits to occupy his free time. Hence, he decided that he would finish out the week (that just passed) and call it quits.
As of last Friday, he hadn't broken the news to the Fearful COO, who is apparently an old friend of his from way back. I have not yet figured out if he is going to just stop showing up, or if his old friend will convince him that it's worth it to keep showing up.
Jaba (also an old friend of the Enlightened One) was not having a good week. About a month ago, he hired a team lead (to lead his team of duds) who was actually good. She made it about four weeks before deciding that risking her life on the highway for the Mecca was not a good thing to do. She took a rather large demotion (and pay cut) to get out and gave her one week's notice. Although she cited the commute, and the fact that she can walk to her new job as the reason for leaving, it was less than a 20 mile drive, and quite manageable by local standards. I suspect that she was feeling much the same way as the Enlightened One.
Personally, I didn't think things had been any worse lately than they were before. It's amazing how easy it is to get used to the pain.
I believe that this marks the beginning of the end for the Mecca. When the good people start leaving...
And the band played on.
Unfortunately for the Mecca, he had time to think while he was gone. It seemed that the Enlightened One had become somewhat desensitized to the mayhem and foolishness that is working at the Mecca. Apparently, the Enlightened one had an epiphany: with only one notable exception, the entire senior management team is completely clueless. (Not to mention lying weasels.) They are unable to make a decision, and despite the fact that they are planning on selling instruments very soon, can't even figure out the basic market specifications.
This, coupled with the fact that the Enlightened One (who has done some pretty ground-breaking work in the field) is left managing a couple of clueless, arrogant, and conniving punks (that he refers to as "the children"), has left him questioning if this is really the way he wants to spend his golden years. Although the work is interesting, we are never allowed to finish anything, and are forced to cut so many corners that even good ideas are reduced to stinking turds. The Enlightened One has decided that he can find less frustrating pursuits to occupy his free time. Hence, he decided that he would finish out the week (that just passed) and call it quits.
As of last Friday, he hadn't broken the news to the Fearful COO, who is apparently an old friend of his from way back. I have not yet figured out if he is going to just stop showing up, or if his old friend will convince him that it's worth it to keep showing up.
Jaba (also an old friend of the Enlightened One) was not having a good week. About a month ago, he hired a team lead (to lead his team of duds) who was actually good. She made it about four weeks before deciding that risking her life on the highway for the Mecca was not a good thing to do. She took a rather large demotion (and pay cut) to get out and gave her one week's notice. Although she cited the commute, and the fact that she can walk to her new job as the reason for leaving, it was less than a 20 mile drive, and quite manageable by local standards. I suspect that she was feeling much the same way as the Enlightened One.
Personally, I didn't think things had been any worse lately than they were before. It's amazing how easy it is to get used to the pain.
I believe that this marks the beginning of the end for the Mecca. When the good people start leaving...
And the band played on.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
What did you say this thing had to do?
The drawer assembly in the prototype instrument was designed by Captain Fantastic. Needless to say, it was - you guessed it - fantastic. Among its problems, it required alignment of the drawer position with respect to the stuff that was under the drawer. This should not have been a problem, as the alignment was in the direction of the drawer movement. The alignment can be done by moving the position of the switch that tells the machine when the drawer is closed. There was only one problem - you couldn't get to the limit switch while the thing was assembled, so alignment required testing the position, ripping the thing apart, adjusting the switch, putting it back together and doing it all over again (and again... and again...)
We asked Buffalo Bill to take a look at it. He spent several days, and complained mightily about how hard of a problem it was. Of course I was busy with another "urgent, critical, do-or-die" project and didn't figure that I would have much to offer the "mechanical designer" in the way of assistance. The Sarcastic Brit didn't figure that the problem was worthy of his attention either, as he was also very busy with another "urgent, critical, do-or-die" project. The result was that we told Buffalo Bill to "just sort it out and make it work". Bill was very proud of the resulting design. It had cute little brackets, and he had moved everything around. But, it was completely adjustable.
We got the parts in last week to test them out. The switches were in the wrong place. No matter, it was only a couple of milimeters and we could worry about it later. The next thing I noticed was that I couldn't get to the switches when the thing was assembled. Of course I only had one of the two switches in place. It's too late to mess with it though... so we will have to live with it. I decided to just install the other switch. So... I took the thing apart and installed the other switch. I quickly noticed however, that it was impossible to assemble the thing when both of the switches were in place. At this point, the "Fantastic" solution was looking pretty good.
Thankfully, we have a big scrap metal bin with all of the old parts in it. Flyboy keeps offering to take it to the scap metal dealer for us, and I keep resisting. I was reminded of the old Hercules cartoons where the Centaur is rooting through the dead tree to find Herc's bow and arrows or other crap. There were pieces of metal all over the lab floor, but at last, I found the pieces!
I started looking at the design... I knew how to do it... all I had to do was cut a hole through the top of the drawer for the limit switches. Feeling very proud of myself, I went to find Buffalo Bill to tell him about the problem, and the solution.
Buffalo Bill took the news pretty well. He had kind of figured (so he said anyway) that it would require three wrists to adjust the swtich position. He assured me again that it was very difficult to figure out how to do it, and that his design was the only way to fit everything in. I suggested that we would have to move the switches to the other side. He responded that there was no room there. But... that's where they were before he moved them.
Finally, I was forced to walk away. It was Friday afternoon, and I wasn't going to worry about the fact that our mechanical designer (with about 25 years of experience) couldn't figure out how to design the pieces, even after I told him how to do so. It looks like Monday will be mechanical design day for me.
We asked Buffalo Bill to take a look at it. He spent several days, and complained mightily about how hard of a problem it was. Of course I was busy with another "urgent, critical, do-or-die" project and didn't figure that I would have much to offer the "mechanical designer" in the way of assistance. The Sarcastic Brit didn't figure that the problem was worthy of his attention either, as he was also very busy with another "urgent, critical, do-or-die" project. The result was that we told Buffalo Bill to "just sort it out and make it work". Bill was very proud of the resulting design. It had cute little brackets, and he had moved everything around. But, it was completely adjustable.
We got the parts in last week to test them out. The switches were in the wrong place. No matter, it was only a couple of milimeters and we could worry about it later. The next thing I noticed was that I couldn't get to the switches when the thing was assembled. Of course I only had one of the two switches in place. It's too late to mess with it though... so we will have to live with it. I decided to just install the other switch. So... I took the thing apart and installed the other switch. I quickly noticed however, that it was impossible to assemble the thing when both of the switches were in place. At this point, the "Fantastic" solution was looking pretty good.
Thankfully, we have a big scrap metal bin with all of the old parts in it. Flyboy keeps offering to take it to the scap metal dealer for us, and I keep resisting. I was reminded of the old Hercules cartoons where the Centaur is rooting through the dead tree to find Herc's bow and arrows or other crap. There were pieces of metal all over the lab floor, but at last, I found the pieces!
I started looking at the design... I knew how to do it... all I had to do was cut a hole through the top of the drawer for the limit switches. Feeling very proud of myself, I went to find Buffalo Bill to tell him about the problem, and the solution.
Buffalo Bill took the news pretty well. He had kind of figured (so he said anyway) that it would require three wrists to adjust the swtich position. He assured me again that it was very difficult to figure out how to do it, and that his design was the only way to fit everything in. I suggested that we would have to move the switches to the other side. He responded that there was no room there. But... that's where they were before he moved them.
Finally, I was forced to walk away. It was Friday afternoon, and I wasn't going to worry about the fact that our mechanical designer (with about 25 years of experience) couldn't figure out how to design the pieces, even after I told him how to do so. It looks like Monday will be mechanical design day for me.
Friday, October 23, 2009
OSHA 11
I took a tour of the lab with the Sarcastic Brit the other day. It was scary.
Jar Jar has been using the ionizing air gun that the Sarcastic Brit "sent him to the Home Depot" for. Although the gun was rated for 40 PSI, it wasn't blowing hard enough, so Jar Jar took it upon himself to connect the gun to a nitrogen cylinder at 150PSI. Don't worry about the crazing in the plastic canister that holds the filter. It's alright. Really.
The Sarcastic Brit sent an email out to the company advising that people should read the safety precautions on things and not do dumb stuff like connecting the ionizer at 3+ times the rated pressure.
The response was classic Biotech Mecca. Our boss (Mr. Ineffectual) took the Sarcastic Brit into his office and chewed him out for broadcasting such a stupid thing as a health and safety issue to the entire company.
Hence, our lab walk through. Let us start at the back door. Less than four feet from the door (in the traffic pattern), resting on a plastic garbage can (with a lid that isn't flat) are two gallon bottles of a concentrated mixture of phosphoric, nitric and acetic acid. Not to worry, it's on a level surface... or not. It's out of the way... or not. It's safe... or not.
Next, we will move on to the four additional gallons sitting in the crate in the middle of the floor. Then, there are the (still) uncorked carboys containing the concentrated nitric acid/hexane mixture. Of course all of this stuff is within five feet of the door, and very much in the traffic pattern. It's alright, we only have to dodge landmines of concentrated acid to get to work. No problem. Perhaps somebody should reintroduce Jar Jar to the acid cabinet.
Next, there is the sink. This particular sink is a laundry tub (of the cheap Walmart variety.) It is not plumbed in, as the landlord doesn't want his tenants to actually use the building. But... we really need a sink there. No problem. We will just place this five gallon pail (open of course) under the sink to catch the waste. And guess what - two more gallon bottles of concentrated acid are sitting in the sink.
Now, we haven't even got to the heinous stuff yet. Remember that Email? Either Jar Jar or Princes Amidala decided to provide a bit of insurance against the ionizing air gun blowing up, so they carved a couple of holes in a plastic tool box to create secondary blast mitigation. I wonder what the blast rating is on a $5 plastic tool box.
Closer inspection revealed something even more interesting. Apparently, Jar Jar ran out of nitrogen. No problem, the plasma asher is right there, and it has a gas bottle. All gas bottles are the same, right? The regulator doesn't fit. That's ok, we will just swap over the gun to the new regulator. The bottles are both green. They are the same thing right?
What do you get when you run oxygen through an ionizer. Only ozone. Carry on. Nothing to see here. We're just filling the lab up with ozone. It's ok to breath. No strong oxidizers here.
We reported the issues to Mr. Ineffectual (who is supposedly Princess Amidala's boss, who is now supposedly Jar Jar's boss). He said that he will look into it.
I suggested that the Sarcastic Brit's next health and safety email be sent to a different organization. Perhaps OSHA.
It's strange. EWA once referred to Jar Jar as "a douche bag with the cranial capacity of a walnut." Everybody thought that he was out of line. There were several complaints. My only complaint was that he wasn't harsh enough. Eventially Princess Amidala and Mr. Ineffectual will be unable to defend him. My only fear is what the event will be. Will burning down the building and killing the majority of the Mecca's employees be sufficient. Probably not -Swiper probably wouldn't notice if the company were gone anyway.
Jar Jar has been using the ionizing air gun that the Sarcastic Brit "sent him to the Home Depot" for. Although the gun was rated for 40 PSI, it wasn't blowing hard enough, so Jar Jar took it upon himself to connect the gun to a nitrogen cylinder at 150PSI. Don't worry about the crazing in the plastic canister that holds the filter. It's alright. Really.
The Sarcastic Brit sent an email out to the company advising that people should read the safety precautions on things and not do dumb stuff like connecting the ionizer at 3+ times the rated pressure.
The response was classic Biotech Mecca. Our boss (Mr. Ineffectual) took the Sarcastic Brit into his office and chewed him out for broadcasting such a stupid thing as a health and safety issue to the entire company.
Hence, our lab walk through. Let us start at the back door. Less than four feet from the door (in the traffic pattern), resting on a plastic garbage can (with a lid that isn't flat) are two gallon bottles of a concentrated mixture of phosphoric, nitric and acetic acid. Not to worry, it's on a level surface... or not. It's out of the way... or not. It's safe... or not.
Next, we will move on to the four additional gallons sitting in the crate in the middle of the floor. Then, there are the (still) uncorked carboys containing the concentrated nitric acid/hexane mixture. Of course all of this stuff is within five feet of the door, and very much in the traffic pattern. It's alright, we only have to dodge landmines of concentrated acid to get to work. No problem. Perhaps somebody should reintroduce Jar Jar to the acid cabinet.
Next, there is the sink. This particular sink is a laundry tub (of the cheap Walmart variety.) It is not plumbed in, as the landlord doesn't want his tenants to actually use the building. But... we really need a sink there. No problem. We will just place this five gallon pail (open of course) under the sink to catch the waste. And guess what - two more gallon bottles of concentrated acid are sitting in the sink.
Now, we haven't even got to the heinous stuff yet. Remember that Email? Either Jar Jar or Princes Amidala decided to provide a bit of insurance against the ionizing air gun blowing up, so they carved a couple of holes in a plastic tool box to create secondary blast mitigation. I wonder what the blast rating is on a $5 plastic tool box.
Closer inspection revealed something even more interesting. Apparently, Jar Jar ran out of nitrogen. No problem, the plasma asher is right there, and it has a gas bottle. All gas bottles are the same, right? The regulator doesn't fit. That's ok, we will just swap over the gun to the new regulator. The bottles are both green. They are the same thing right?
What do you get when you run oxygen through an ionizer. Only ozone. Carry on. Nothing to see here. We're just filling the lab up with ozone. It's ok to breath. No strong oxidizers here.
We reported the issues to Mr. Ineffectual (who is supposedly Princess Amidala's boss, who is now supposedly Jar Jar's boss). He said that he will look into it.
I suggested that the Sarcastic Brit's next health and safety email be sent to a different organization. Perhaps OSHA.
It's strange. EWA once referred to Jar Jar as "a douche bag with the cranial capacity of a walnut." Everybody thought that he was out of line. There were several complaints. My only complaint was that he wasn't harsh enough. Eventially Princess Amidala and Mr. Ineffectual will be unable to defend him. My only fear is what the event will be. Will burning down the building and killing the majority of the Mecca's employees be sufficient. Probably not -Swiper probably wouldn't notice if the company were gone anyway.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
PT Barnum VS EWA
There is a sucker born every minute. Perhaps every sucker has a minute when they realize that they're it. Apparently, EWA had that moment recently. Last time I talked to him, he confessed that he and his wife were talking (and apparently drinking) a while back and he burst out laughing. It finally dawned on him that when you enter the room as the big, bad Wall Street money man, and then Engineers start to mock you for ponying up the dough based on false press releases, you should run.
Perhaps it wouldn't have been as painful for him had he come to the Mecca and looked at what we had. Perhaps it wouldn't have been as painful had he done some homework before throwing in the money. Perhaps he is just willing to pay for a good story. I'm quite often happy to give a couple of bucks to people begging in front of the grocery store. If they tell me a good hard luck story, I feel better for giving them my loose change. Perhaps it makes investment bankers feel good to give down and out companies a couple of million for a good story. The net effect is the same. The money won't go to improving the recipients lot - it will only be spent on cheap booze and hookers.
The moral of the story - if the engineers mock you - Run. Run fast, run far, and don't forget to take your money with you. I doubt that EWA will forget that lesson any time soon.
For now, the count stands as follows:
EWA: 0
PT Barnum: 1
Swiper: 26 million duped and counting.
Perhaps it wouldn't have been as painful for him had he come to the Mecca and looked at what we had. Perhaps it wouldn't have been as painful had he done some homework before throwing in the money. Perhaps he is just willing to pay for a good story. I'm quite often happy to give a couple of bucks to people begging in front of the grocery store. If they tell me a good hard luck story, I feel better for giving them my loose change. Perhaps it makes investment bankers feel good to give down and out companies a couple of million for a good story. The net effect is the same. The money won't go to improving the recipients lot - it will only be spent on cheap booze and hookers.
The moral of the story - if the engineers mock you - Run. Run fast, run far, and don't forget to take your money with you. I doubt that EWA will forget that lesson any time soon.
For now, the count stands as follows:
EWA: 0
PT Barnum: 1
Swiper: 26 million duped and counting.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Are all Wall Street Analysts loudmouthed braggarts? (Part 2)
So... the Evil Wall Street Analyst has come and kicked some butt. After much butt kicking, the following events happened:
1) Slimy Indian Barbapapa has been removed as head of Biology. He hasn't been fired though... he's too slimy for that.
2) The CTO (who couldn't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag) with a chainsaw has been sacked. Perhaps it was because he was useless. Or perhaps he was a crazy a**hole who was fond of screaming "chicken sh*t" during meetings.
3) The petty thief CFO (who couldn't balance a check book) was fired.
4) Jaba was hired.
I was invited out for beer with EWA, Jaba, my Boss, and the scared COO.
It always amazes me how deep the bullsh!t gets piled when people consume even a couple of beers. Apparently, the acts listed above were all that were needed to solve the company's problems. It didn't matter that the CEO was still a liar, that the COO was scared of the CEO, or that the senior management is still unable to make a decision and stick to it. (Even ordering lunch appears to be a problem.) Perhaps, if the specifications stopped changing, we could build an instrument... but I digress.
It seems also that the CTO and CFO were fired on my say so. WOW, I wield a lot of power. Why do I constantly feel that I am speaking to the wall? Why did I have to lobby for a month to fire a consultant who feels that it's fine to come in to work between the hours of three and six in the morning, and also vehemently believes that pneumatic actuators provide more force when held upright than they do if you flip them upside down? Of course, this guy also believes that a proper vacuum seal should use a nice soft, rubber gasket. Really? Apparently, the perveyors of O-rings are conducting the largest engineering scam in the history of mankind. And to think that they almost took me in. Yet more digression.
Of course, I told EWA that I wanted to see Indian Barbapapa's head on a pike. (So that I can wave at him... like this.) Instead, it seems that Indian Barbapapa gets to keep his salary... his office... his influence... in fact, all he loses is his workload and responsibility. Some pike! It's not like he lied chronically to the CEO and board regarding the state the biology. It's not like he didn't bother to check the IP on anything. It's not like he didn't try to have everybody who was competent and question his lies unceremoniously sacked. It's not like he's key to the fact that every member of the biology team (people he hired personally) is an incompetent liar, trained by him personally. It's not like he is still trying to subvert his replacement (Jaba). Again, I digress. Needless to say, the pike has yet to be forthcoming. But, I am a patient man. EWA promised, after all. As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.
1) Slimy Indian Barbapapa has been removed as head of Biology. He hasn't been fired though... he's too slimy for that.
2) The CTO (who couldn't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag) with a chainsaw has been sacked. Perhaps it was because he was useless. Or perhaps he was a crazy a**hole who was fond of screaming "chicken sh*t" during meetings.
3) The petty thief CFO (who couldn't balance a check book) was fired.
4) Jaba was hired.
I was invited out for beer with EWA, Jaba, my Boss, and the scared COO.
It always amazes me how deep the bullsh!t gets piled when people consume even a couple of beers. Apparently, the acts listed above were all that were needed to solve the company's problems. It didn't matter that the CEO was still a liar, that the COO was scared of the CEO, or that the senior management is still unable to make a decision and stick to it. (Even ordering lunch appears to be a problem.) Perhaps, if the specifications stopped changing, we could build an instrument... but I digress.
It seems also that the CTO and CFO were fired on my say so. WOW, I wield a lot of power. Why do I constantly feel that I am speaking to the wall? Why did I have to lobby for a month to fire a consultant who feels that it's fine to come in to work between the hours of three and six in the morning, and also vehemently believes that pneumatic actuators provide more force when held upright than they do if you flip them upside down? Of course, this guy also believes that a proper vacuum seal should use a nice soft, rubber gasket. Really? Apparently, the perveyors of O-rings are conducting the largest engineering scam in the history of mankind. And to think that they almost took me in. Yet more digression.
Of course, I told EWA that I wanted to see Indian Barbapapa's head on a pike. (So that I can wave at him... like this.) Instead, it seems that Indian Barbapapa gets to keep his salary... his office... his influence... in fact, all he loses is his workload and responsibility. Some pike! It's not like he lied chronically to the CEO and board regarding the state the biology. It's not like he didn't bother to check the IP on anything. It's not like he didn't try to have everybody who was competent and question his lies unceremoniously sacked. It's not like he's key to the fact that every member of the biology team (people he hired personally) is an incompetent liar, trained by him personally. It's not like he is still trying to subvert his replacement (Jaba). Again, I digress. Needless to say, the pike has yet to be forthcoming. But, I am a patient man. EWA promised, after all. As they say, revenge is a dish best served cold.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Screen Fairy Has Arrived
First off, for my regular readers, I must apologize yet again for taking a brief hiatus from writing. The impotent situation at the Mecca has forced me to seek an outlet. I have been conquering the world, playing a very old version of Sid Meyer's Civilization - possibly one of the best computer games ever conceived. Perhaps I should start referring to Swiper as "Oh most untrustworthy leader of the infidels." I guess that could be taken a less than a compliment.
Anyway, on to today's fun and games.
The conference room at the Mecca has the usual crap - the polycon conference phone that hisses madly (even when not in use) whenever it is in the presence of a cell phone. (Please turn your phones off before entering the meeting room.) A projector that isn't bright enough to be seen except at night, during a lunar eclipse that occurs during a complete failure of all street lights, and of course - the screen from hell.
When the contractors installed the screen two years ago, they made two mistakes. First, they did not mount it in centre of the wall (directly across from the middle of the conference table), and they mounted it upside down. The end result of this quality work was that the screen wouldn't stay down and the projector gave a very nice trapezoidal image when it was placed in the middle of the conference table.
At the time the thing was mounted, the Sarcastic Brit mentioned to the CFO that perhaps he should call the contractors back in to fix it. He did not, and we have lived with it for two years. Why fix the problem? Trapezoids are interesting and will add spice to any presentation. As for the screen not staying down - we are the Biotech Mecca. Anything is possible for us. Hey... that router plugged in directly below the screen - if we just tie this Ethernet cable in a knot, we can loop it around the router plug, and the screen will stay down. Except of course, when it unplugs the router. Ce n'est pas un problème!
Today, the Dragon Lady approached me and practically begged me to fix the screen. Apparently the quality installation caught the eye of several of the board members. They pointed out that our screen installation gave the suggestion that we were either incapable of fixing the problem, or didn't care about fixing the problem. Of course, they probably should have been more focused on the fact that the company is going down the crapper, but it would seem that the correct mounting of the screen is critical to the success of the company. Of course they probably wouldn't have noticed it, had the account who does our SOX compliance not rushed into the conference room and put the screen up (in front of half of the board members) in order to prevent them from seeing how badly the thing was mounted. Then again, they have all seen that screen many times, so I'm not sure why he was so worried about it this time.
Not wanting to upset the Dragon Lady, I headed into the conference room this afternoon to fix it. The accountant who does our SOX compliance was right there. You need help - I will tell Jar Jar to do this tomorrow. First of all, why would HE tell Jar Jar to do it, seeing as Jar Jar supposedly reports to me. (Of course I told my boss that I refused to manage such a collosal waste of space...) Second of all, I am sure that there are laws against people like Jar Jar hanging heavy objects above head height.
So, I went into the lab to find mounting hardware. We used to have a bunch of screws and stuff, but alas it was small enough to fit in somebody's pocket, so all of the useful hardware grew feet and walked away. I did find some quarter inch butterfly style wall anchors though, but the heads of the bolts were collosal and didn't fit. I took my treasures back to the conference room and set to work.
I managed to get the hangers over the bolt heads (barely) when the Sarcastic Brit came in and suggested that agressive pulling on the screen would likely result in sombody getting a projector on the head. Certainly that would be expected of Jar Jar, but I should probably do better myself. Then again, perhaps the thing would fall and take out two or three lying weasels. Maybe it would even take out Swiper. Too good to be true. I considered the use of Duct Tape, and decided that although my inner Candian approved, it wasn't the way things were done in Silicon Valley. Instead, I fastened the screen in place with cable ties. They are rated for 50 pounds. I figure that anybody who pulls on the screen with more than 100 pounds of force is BEGGING to have a screen split their skull. I wonder if there is a way to get Swiper to test it.
The long and short of the situation: My time is better spent fixing the projector screen than solving the issues with the company's technology. After all, how can you get any work done with those damn distracting Ethernet cables spoiling your presentations? And yes... I did mount the centre of the screen directly across from the centre of the table.
Anyway, on to today's fun and games.
The conference room at the Mecca has the usual crap - the polycon conference phone that hisses madly (even when not in use) whenever it is in the presence of a cell phone. (Please turn your phones off before entering the meeting room.) A projector that isn't bright enough to be seen except at night, during a lunar eclipse that occurs during a complete failure of all street lights, and of course - the screen from hell.
When the contractors installed the screen two years ago, they made two mistakes. First, they did not mount it in centre of the wall (directly across from the middle of the conference table), and they mounted it upside down. The end result of this quality work was that the screen wouldn't stay down and the projector gave a very nice trapezoidal image when it was placed in the middle of the conference table.
At the time the thing was mounted, the Sarcastic Brit mentioned to the CFO that perhaps he should call the contractors back in to fix it. He did not, and we have lived with it for two years. Why fix the problem? Trapezoids are interesting and will add spice to any presentation. As for the screen not staying down - we are the Biotech Mecca. Anything is possible for us. Hey... that router plugged in directly below the screen - if we just tie this Ethernet cable in a knot, we can loop it around the router plug, and the screen will stay down. Except of course, when it unplugs the router. Ce n'est pas un problème!
Today, the Dragon Lady approached me and practically begged me to fix the screen. Apparently the quality installation caught the eye of several of the board members. They pointed out that our screen installation gave the suggestion that we were either incapable of fixing the problem, or didn't care about fixing the problem. Of course, they probably should have been more focused on the fact that the company is going down the crapper, but it would seem that the correct mounting of the screen is critical to the success of the company. Of course they probably wouldn't have noticed it, had the account who does our SOX compliance not rushed into the conference room and put the screen up (in front of half of the board members) in order to prevent them from seeing how badly the thing was mounted. Then again, they have all seen that screen many times, so I'm not sure why he was so worried about it this time.
Not wanting to upset the Dragon Lady, I headed into the conference room this afternoon to fix it. The accountant who does our SOX compliance was right there. You need help - I will tell Jar Jar to do this tomorrow. First of all, why would HE tell Jar Jar to do it, seeing as Jar Jar supposedly reports to me. (Of course I told my boss that I refused to manage such a collosal waste of space...) Second of all, I am sure that there are laws against people like Jar Jar hanging heavy objects above head height.
So, I went into the lab to find mounting hardware. We used to have a bunch of screws and stuff, but alas it was small enough to fit in somebody's pocket, so all of the useful hardware grew feet and walked away. I did find some quarter inch butterfly style wall anchors though, but the heads of the bolts were collosal and didn't fit. I took my treasures back to the conference room and set to work.
I managed to get the hangers over the bolt heads (barely) when the Sarcastic Brit came in and suggested that agressive pulling on the screen would likely result in sombody getting a projector on the head. Certainly that would be expected of Jar Jar, but I should probably do better myself. Then again, perhaps the thing would fall and take out two or three lying weasels. Maybe it would even take out Swiper. Too good to be true. I considered the use of Duct Tape, and decided that although my inner Candian approved, it wasn't the way things were done in Silicon Valley. Instead, I fastened the screen in place with cable ties. They are rated for 50 pounds. I figure that anybody who pulls on the screen with more than 100 pounds of force is BEGGING to have a screen split their skull. I wonder if there is a way to get Swiper to test it.
The long and short of the situation: My time is better spent fixing the projector screen than solving the issues with the company's technology. After all, how can you get any work done with those damn distracting Ethernet cables spoiling your presentations? And yes... I did mount the centre of the screen directly across from the centre of the table.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Are all Wall Street Analysts loudmouthed braggarts?
I had an interesting conversation last week with the Mecca's single largest investor. The Evil Wall Street Analyst (EWA). My first encounter with EWA was about six months ago. He had been working for an investment firm in New York as their biotech analyst, and had somehow gotten in touch with one of the Mecca's other investors (who is an anti-biotech analyst) and was convinced that the Mecca's product was the next best thing since sliced bread.
Swiper had placed a press release saying that we had just shipped our alpha prototype right before trying to raise more capital. Of course, I remember the Chief Scientific Officer giving the Mad Man from Down South a big hug in congratulations. Perhaps this was his attempt at sarcasm, since we still had most of the pieces of said alpha prototype on the bench. That is not to mention the ones that hadn't been fabricated yet.
Anyway, EWA told his boss to put all of his chips in. EWA also threw in a million or two of his own money. He's rich, but he's not Warren Buffet. It's still a significant amount of money. Imagine his level of mirth when he discovered that we hadn't shipped Jack. Actually, we decided to name alpha prototype 1 Luke, not Jack.
He called up Swiper and said that he was coming for a friendly visit. Worried that the Mad Man from Down South would spill the beans, (and provided with a convenient excuse) Swiper sacked the Mad Man from Down South. (That, my friends... is another story.) The Mad Man met with the investors and spilled the beans anyway. The next day, EWA came in and met with almost every employee of the company. The engineering meeting went like this:
EWA: Those f*ckers gamed me!
(Note: He used this exact phrase)
EWA: The Biologists: Are they useful?
Sarcastic Brit: Nope: I'd fire every last one of them.
EWA: None of the are worth keeping?
Sarcastic Brit: Nope.
EWA: How do you think the company is doing?
Sarcastic Brit: Is it possible to close the place down and start over?
EWA: Does anybody here own stock in the company?
Everybody shakes head no.
Harbinger: I have some options that are at least a buck underwater - and those are the cheap options I have. Perhaps I should exercise them and lose a crap load of money.
EWA: Just imagine if you had actually put money in.
Sarcastic Brit: Sucks to be you.
At this point EWA handed out his business card and invited us to call him and discuss anything we wanted - off the record of course.
After the "official meeting" EWA took the Sarcastic Brit and myself aside and told us that he would fix the company. After all, he had done this before, and had a lot riding on it. All we had to do was hold on until he had fixed everything. This was last May. He promised us riches beyond our wildest dreams. Well, at least they hadn't missed payroll yet.
Swiper had placed a press release saying that we had just shipped our alpha prototype right before trying to raise more capital. Of course, I remember the Chief Scientific Officer giving the Mad Man from Down South a big hug in congratulations. Perhaps this was his attempt at sarcasm, since we still had most of the pieces of said alpha prototype on the bench. That is not to mention the ones that hadn't been fabricated yet.
Anyway, EWA told his boss to put all of his chips in. EWA also threw in a million or two of his own money. He's rich, but he's not Warren Buffet. It's still a significant amount of money. Imagine his level of mirth when he discovered that we hadn't shipped Jack. Actually, we decided to name alpha prototype 1 Luke, not Jack.
He called up Swiper and said that he was coming for a friendly visit. Worried that the Mad Man from Down South would spill the beans, (and provided with a convenient excuse) Swiper sacked the Mad Man from Down South. (That, my friends... is another story.) The Mad Man met with the investors and spilled the beans anyway. The next day, EWA came in and met with almost every employee of the company. The engineering meeting went like this:
EWA: Those f*ckers gamed me!
(Note: He used this exact phrase)
EWA: The Biologists: Are they useful?
Sarcastic Brit: Nope: I'd fire every last one of them.
EWA: None of the are worth keeping?
Sarcastic Brit: Nope.
EWA: How do you think the company is doing?
Sarcastic Brit: Is it possible to close the place down and start over?
EWA: Does anybody here own stock in the company?
Everybody shakes head no.
Harbinger: I have some options that are at least a buck underwater - and those are the cheap options I have. Perhaps I should exercise them and lose a crap load of money.
EWA: Just imagine if you had actually put money in.
Sarcastic Brit: Sucks to be you.
At this point EWA handed out his business card and invited us to call him and discuss anything we wanted - off the record of course.
After the "official meeting" EWA took the Sarcastic Brit and myself aside and told us that he would fix the company. After all, he had done this before, and had a lot riding on it. All we had to do was hold on until he had fixed everything. This was last May. He promised us riches beyond our wildest dreams. Well, at least they hadn't missed payroll yet.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Team Building Exercises
I have many things that I could write about tonight. I want to tell the story of the Mad Man from Down South, but I'm not sure where to begin. Perhaps I will save that story for later and tell you about the inspirational company meeting we had today.
First, I want to tell you about the core values of the Biotech Mecca. These values were discussed in a company wide waste of time - er... I mean meeting. In addition, each of us were given a laminated wallet card, and posters were hung up around the Mecca.
Core Values
Strong mutual trust in each other
Open communications
Be very goal/results oriented
Value and respect people
Work hard and have fun
To summarize: Be excellent to each other. And, party on... DUDE!
Of course, Swiper missed the critical sixth core value: Just ship it.
Notice also, that honesty and integrity are not among the core values. Perhaps this is because we are expected to be sheep. It is certainly not because Swiper would never dream of being dishonest himself.
This morning we had a "mandatory company wide meeting". Swiper started to drone on about how this was his fifth company that he has built up, and at all of his other companies, there had been a sense of excitement. The employees at his previous companies were good little workers and worked lots of extra hours. They were really excited about their work, and there was a pervasive sense of ownership. The "inspirational talk" didn't threaten us with certain doom should we fail, nor did it promise us riches beyond our wildest dreams should we succeed. Like our flagship product, it did nothing particularly useful. He told us that we should be excited to be among the first employees of what was most certainly going to be a company with several hundred people. To what end? After such a weak pep talk, could things have gotten worse? You bet! Let's open up the floor to questions. Imagine the worst type of political town hall meeting, where you know that all of the questions are staged.
The Slimy Indian Barbapapa told us how we were on the cusp of being bought out (and presumably all being made rich). I have some swampland in Florida too.
Jaba told us that we had such great collaborators that all we had to do was give them a product. Which we can't get to work...
The scared COO told us how well placed we are in the marketplace... that people were seeking us out to use our technology. Which we can't get to work...
Too bad nearly every employee in the company fits one of three categories
- Pissed off beyond redemption
- Lazy, lying, trouble making backstabbers
- Simply clueless.
It's no wonder there is no sense of excitement and ownership. Group A spends their time avoiding group B for fear of being stabbed in the back, and group C because they are unpredictable, hence probably even more dangerous.
If one were to poll the engineering team at the Mecca, one would find that well over half of the group would answer the question "Why do you work here?" with "I haven't found a better (ANY other) job yet.
Swiper could have used the opportunity to single out people who had just worked very hard to deliver on a recent project for which the schedule was very tight. He could not do that, however, as I was leading that project, and my enemies are too powerful.
How was I thanked for delivering an alpha prototype of something that I was told meant the life or death of the company? I got promoted the position of glorified assembly technician. Am I surprised? No. My boss didn't want my management duties to take away from my concentration on turning three screws and passing the set.
All in all, it was an inspiration day at the Mecca.
Tomorrow should be even better. Myself, the Sarcastic Brit, the fearful COO, and Human Resources are getting together to discuss the degeneration of Buffalo Bill's attitude. He left a paper on the Sarcastic Brit's desk entitled "How I am getting screwed by the Biotech Mecca". Enough said? Buffalo Bill is perhaps the only person at the Mecca that openly makes my attitude look good.
I'll keep you posted.
First, I want to tell you about the core values of the Biotech Mecca. These values were discussed in a company wide waste of time - er... I mean meeting. In addition, each of us were given a laminated wallet card, and posters were hung up around the Mecca.
Core Values
Strong mutual trust in each other
Open communications
Be very goal/results oriented
Value and respect people
Work hard and have fun
To summarize: Be excellent to each other. And, party on... DUDE!
Of course, Swiper missed the critical sixth core value: Just ship it.
Notice also, that honesty and integrity are not among the core values. Perhaps this is because we are expected to be sheep. It is certainly not because Swiper would never dream of being dishonest himself.
This morning we had a "mandatory company wide meeting". Swiper started to drone on about how this was his fifth company that he has built up, and at all of his other companies, there had been a sense of excitement. The employees at his previous companies were good little workers and worked lots of extra hours. They were really excited about their work, and there was a pervasive sense of ownership. The "inspirational talk" didn't threaten us with certain doom should we fail, nor did it promise us riches beyond our wildest dreams should we succeed. Like our flagship product, it did nothing particularly useful. He told us that we should be excited to be among the first employees of what was most certainly going to be a company with several hundred people. To what end? After such a weak pep talk, could things have gotten worse? You bet! Let's open up the floor to questions. Imagine the worst type of political town hall meeting, where you know that all of the questions are staged.
The Slimy Indian Barbapapa told us how we were on the cusp of being bought out (and presumably all being made rich). I have some swampland in Florida too.
Jaba told us that we had such great collaborators that all we had to do was give them a product. Which we can't get to work...
The scared COO told us how well placed we are in the marketplace... that people were seeking us out to use our technology. Which we can't get to work...
Too bad nearly every employee in the company fits one of three categories
- Pissed off beyond redemption
- Lazy, lying, trouble making backstabbers
- Simply clueless.
It's no wonder there is no sense of excitement and ownership. Group A spends their time avoiding group B for fear of being stabbed in the back, and group C because they are unpredictable, hence probably even more dangerous.
If one were to poll the engineering team at the Mecca, one would find that well over half of the group would answer the question "Why do you work here?" with "I haven't found a better (ANY other) job yet.
Swiper could have used the opportunity to single out people who had just worked very hard to deliver on a recent project for which the schedule was very tight. He could not do that, however, as I was leading that project, and my enemies are too powerful.
How was I thanked for delivering an alpha prototype of something that I was told meant the life or death of the company? I got promoted the position of glorified assembly technician. Am I surprised? No. My boss didn't want my management duties to take away from my concentration on turning three screws and passing the set.
All in all, it was an inspiration day at the Mecca.
Tomorrow should be even better. Myself, the Sarcastic Brit, the fearful COO, and Human Resources are getting together to discuss the degeneration of Buffalo Bill's attitude. He left a paper on the Sarcastic Brit's desk entitled "How I am getting screwed by the Biotech Mecca". Enough said? Buffalo Bill is perhaps the only person at the Mecca that openly makes my attitude look good.
I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Captain Fantastic and the Amazing Dew Point Controller
I don't have any extra special new material tonight, except for my unofficial promotion to instrument assembly tech - watch out Jar Jar! I thought that I would go back to my tales of Captain Fantastic. Tonight, I will explore the tale of the dew point control system.
Early in my time at the Biotech Mecca, the Captain had chosen a dispenser to put the samples into the sample holders. Given the fact that the sample is a very small amount of liquid, and the holder has a whole lot of tiny holes, this is not a trivial feat. The Captain knew what he wanted and bought two of them with confidence. That's a quarter of a million dollars spent without any real qualification to see if it would work. In fact, after two or three man years of effort, we determined that the technology was not suitable, and it was a dumb idea that should have never gotten off of the ground. The crappy design of the dispenser itself isn't what I want to talk about though.
The Captain was charged with finding a way to deal with the fact that it took so long to dispense the whopping 1/2ml of liquid (in 5 million individual drops) that the first wells were completely dried out before the last wells were even dispensed. There is a technique for dealing with this that is well known. If you balance the sample temperature and humidity, you can keep the water from evaporating. Most companies include a dew point controller. The people who made this device thought that keeping the sample hydrated was a dumb idea and did neither. We would have to add that capability to the dispenser. Captain Fantastic, however didn't want to void the warranty by adding water. Apparently, adding a thermoelectric cooler and control electronics, a PLC, some wiring, and a new sample stage would have no effect on the warranty.
The first step was to find a PLC. The only requirements were that it had to be able to interpret the data from the humidity sensor and, if possible, fit in the already full dispenser chassis. Never one to miss the critical requirements, Captain Fantastic found a PLC that fit into the chassis. Apparently, the fact that the sensor response was logarithmic, and the PLC had no log function did not matter.
The Captain contracted his favorite consultant to write the code. Unfortunately, Smee had no idea how to program the PLC. So, she hired a consultant to do the programming for her. Unfortunately, the consultant couldn't figure out how to get the communications to the thermoelectric controller to work, so he hired another consultant to do that work for him. So... the Captain hired a consultant, who hired a consultant, who hired a consultant. This seemed a bit odd to me, but he assured me that it was "the Silicon Valley Way."
And then, there was the hardware. For several weeks the Captain had the mechanical designer (Buffalo Bill's predecessor - and successor) design parts and have them made overnight, only to find that they still didn't fit the next day, and repeat the cycle. Our best machine shops will occasionally do us a favor and turn parts around in a couple of days. I wouldn't dream of asking a shop to turn multiple pieces around over night. I would be even less inclined to go back to them the next day and admit that I screwed up and asked for something that was just wrong. And, can you please forsake your family again tonight to make even more parts that will just be scrapped tomorrow morning anyway. Not so for the Captain. The customer is always right, even when he is a stupid jackass.
Eventually, the modified dispenser was due to ship. This was after I suggested to the electrical engineer that the reason why he kept blowing up thermoelectric coolers was because he was running a 12V part at 24V. Apparently, the Captain didn't read the package before handing the specs to the electrical engineer. Who would have figured.
We shipped out the dispenser (to a test sight on the other side of the continent), and the Mad Man from Down South was sent to install it. I guess he drew the short straw. He took some very lovely pictures of the device with things sticking up at funny angles. He commented on how the thing was put together and was stunned that it had worked at all. The Captain was very quick to site "tampering". Really? The VP of engineering went to our first alpha site and screwed with the device? What had he to gain? I don't know, but Captain Fantastic stuck to his guns.
When the Mad Man from Down South came back armed with pictures and props, the story changed. Then, it was blamed on "high frequency vibrations during shipping that vibrated all of the pieces apart". Really? I don't think that I will ever fly again. What keeps all of the bolts from falling out of the plane? Apparently, it's very common. I must admit that I have never hear of such a thing, and I coordinated service for what was possibly the world's most (strike that... second most) ill conceived device. Those things failed in may ways, but they never once failed because the bolts fell out during air travel. I have heard however, that the change in pressure during the flight can screw up pressure sensors. I find that one only slightly more plausible.
After several weeks of the Captain ordering more parts overnight and visiting the customer site himself (on a one-way ticket), the dew point control system kind of worked. Not that it mattered, the dispenser was unable to successfully put the liquid in the holes anyway.
The Mad Man called Captain fantastic a liar. This hurt the Captain's feelings. Nothing hurts like the truth... so they say.
Early in my time at the Biotech Mecca, the Captain had chosen a dispenser to put the samples into the sample holders. Given the fact that the sample is a very small amount of liquid, and the holder has a whole lot of tiny holes, this is not a trivial feat. The Captain knew what he wanted and bought two of them with confidence. That's a quarter of a million dollars spent without any real qualification to see if it would work. In fact, after two or three man years of effort, we determined that the technology was not suitable, and it was a dumb idea that should have never gotten off of the ground. The crappy design of the dispenser itself isn't what I want to talk about though.
The Captain was charged with finding a way to deal with the fact that it took so long to dispense the whopping 1/2ml of liquid (in 5 million individual drops) that the first wells were completely dried out before the last wells were even dispensed. There is a technique for dealing with this that is well known. If you balance the sample temperature and humidity, you can keep the water from evaporating. Most companies include a dew point controller. The people who made this device thought that keeping the sample hydrated was a dumb idea and did neither. We would have to add that capability to the dispenser. Captain Fantastic, however didn't want to void the warranty by adding water. Apparently, adding a thermoelectric cooler and control electronics, a PLC, some wiring, and a new sample stage would have no effect on the warranty.
The first step was to find a PLC. The only requirements were that it had to be able to interpret the data from the humidity sensor and, if possible, fit in the already full dispenser chassis. Never one to miss the critical requirements, Captain Fantastic found a PLC that fit into the chassis. Apparently, the fact that the sensor response was logarithmic, and the PLC had no log function did not matter.
The Captain contracted his favorite consultant to write the code. Unfortunately, Smee had no idea how to program the PLC. So, she hired a consultant to do the programming for her. Unfortunately, the consultant couldn't figure out how to get the communications to the thermoelectric controller to work, so he hired another consultant to do that work for him. So... the Captain hired a consultant, who hired a consultant, who hired a consultant. This seemed a bit odd to me, but he assured me that it was "the Silicon Valley Way."
And then, there was the hardware. For several weeks the Captain had the mechanical designer (Buffalo Bill's predecessor - and successor) design parts and have them made overnight, only to find that they still didn't fit the next day, and repeat the cycle. Our best machine shops will occasionally do us a favor and turn parts around in a couple of days. I wouldn't dream of asking a shop to turn multiple pieces around over night. I would be even less inclined to go back to them the next day and admit that I screwed up and asked for something that was just wrong. And, can you please forsake your family again tonight to make even more parts that will just be scrapped tomorrow morning anyway. Not so for the Captain. The customer is always right, even when he is a stupid jackass.
Eventually, the modified dispenser was due to ship. This was after I suggested to the electrical engineer that the reason why he kept blowing up thermoelectric coolers was because he was running a 12V part at 24V. Apparently, the Captain didn't read the package before handing the specs to the electrical engineer. Who would have figured.
We shipped out the dispenser (to a test sight on the other side of the continent), and the Mad Man from Down South was sent to install it. I guess he drew the short straw. He took some very lovely pictures of the device with things sticking up at funny angles. He commented on how the thing was put together and was stunned that it had worked at all. The Captain was very quick to site "tampering". Really? The VP of engineering went to our first alpha site and screwed with the device? What had he to gain? I don't know, but Captain Fantastic stuck to his guns.
When the Mad Man from Down South came back armed with pictures and props, the story changed. Then, it was blamed on "high frequency vibrations during shipping that vibrated all of the pieces apart". Really? I don't think that I will ever fly again. What keeps all of the bolts from falling out of the plane? Apparently, it's very common. I must admit that I have never hear of such a thing, and I coordinated service for what was possibly the world's most (strike that... second most) ill conceived device. Those things failed in may ways, but they never once failed because the bolts fell out during air travel. I have heard however, that the change in pressure during the flight can screw up pressure sensors. I find that one only slightly more plausible.
After several weeks of the Captain ordering more parts overnight and visiting the customer site himself (on a one-way ticket), the dew point control system kind of worked. Not that it mattered, the dispenser was unable to successfully put the liquid in the holes anyway.
The Mad Man called Captain fantastic a liar. This hurt the Captain's feelings. Nothing hurts like the truth... so they say.
Monday, September 28, 2009
The EPA loves you
I think that I have mentioned that Jar Jar originally worked for me. He is however about as useful as ice skates in Arizona, and about as bright as a grub, so I basically told my boss that I wasn't going to bother with him. He was hired a new boss - the sample holder processing consultant. Much like Princess Amidala, she is constantly sticking up for Jar Jar.
Princess Amidala came to me today, and the following exchange took place:
PA: When you were doing the chip processing, how did you get rid of stuff.
Me: Don't tell the EPA, or we will probably all go to jail. The former head of biology told me to set the hexane in a beaker and let it evaporate. The phosphoric acid went down the drain with copious amounts of water, and I saved the chromate, as I don't want to go to jail for dumping it.
PA: You dumped the acid down the drain?
Me: Yep. It was only a few ounces, and phosphoric acid neutralizes to phosphate. It makes the plants grow. As for the chromate, the bottle disappeared. I guess that somebody thought it was OK to dump it.
PA: NO... so you didn't call the waste disposal guys?
Me: No, I was saving it up until we had enough to bother.
PA: Oh. Well it seems that Jar Jar has dumped about two gallons of hexane with about two gallons of concentrated acid.
Me: [loudly groans]
PA: It hasn't exploded yet.
Me: [More groans.] Yet?
Sarcastic Brit: I hear Harbinger making bad sounds. What's up?
Me: Seems that Jar Jar has been mixing the hexane and the acid.
Sarcastic Brit: OK then. That about sums it up. I guess that he didn't figure out that I bought two containers: One for acid and one for solvents.
Me: Apparently not.
PA: It seems that he has been wiping the tables down with hexane as well.
Me: Really? Hasn't anybody told him that hexane fumes are bad.
PA: He's an engineer. Engineers don't know anything about chemicals.
Me: Really? What do chemical engineers do? Besides, he's not an engineer. [Thinking - He's a dust bunny.]
PA: I guess that we will have to call the waste disposal guys to get the acid.
Me: Are you going to tell them about the hexane? You could forget to mention it, but that might make them a bit angry.
PA: I guess that I had better tell them about the hexane.
Princess Amidala came to me today, and the following exchange took place:
PA: When you were doing the chip processing, how did you get rid of stuff.
Me: Don't tell the EPA, or we will probably all go to jail. The former head of biology told me to set the hexane in a beaker and let it evaporate. The phosphoric acid went down the drain with copious amounts of water, and I saved the chromate, as I don't want to go to jail for dumping it.
PA: You dumped the acid down the drain?
Me: Yep. It was only a few ounces, and phosphoric acid neutralizes to phosphate. It makes the plants grow. As for the chromate, the bottle disappeared. I guess that somebody thought it was OK to dump it.
PA: NO... so you didn't call the waste disposal guys?
Me: No, I was saving it up until we had enough to bother.
PA: Oh. Well it seems that Jar Jar has dumped about two gallons of hexane with about two gallons of concentrated acid.
Me: [loudly groans]
PA: It hasn't exploded yet.
Me: [More groans.] Yet?
Sarcastic Brit: I hear Harbinger making bad sounds. What's up?
Me: Seems that Jar Jar has been mixing the hexane and the acid.
Sarcastic Brit: OK then. That about sums it up. I guess that he didn't figure out that I bought two containers: One for acid and one for solvents.
Me: Apparently not.
PA: It seems that he has been wiping the tables down with hexane as well.
Me: Really? Hasn't anybody told him that hexane fumes are bad.
PA: He's an engineer. Engineers don't know anything about chemicals.
Me: Really? What do chemical engineers do? Besides, he's not an engineer. [Thinking - He's a dust bunny.]
PA: I guess that we will have to call the waste disposal guys to get the acid.
Me: Are you going to tell them about the hexane? You could forget to mention it, but that might make them a bit angry.
PA: I guess that I had better tell them about the hexane.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Looking for a few good men
First, I must admit to having a we bit of a narcissistic moment, when I noticed that my hit counter had broken the 200 mark. I don't know who is reading this thing. It may be my wife, trying to boost my ego. Perhaps there are actually that many people who find flaming train wrecks amusing. Perhaps I should get a more sophisticated counter so that I can see who is actually reading. There are not many comments, so it seems that my readers are not overly talkative. Of course, it could be that Swiper has found this blog and all of the hits are the lawyers getting ready to sue me. Don't laugh... If I had something worth taking the jackals would be right there. But enough of that - it has been far too long since I posted anything.
As I have previously lamented, the Biotech Mecca is somewhat heavy with electrical engineers, and bereft of mechanical people. We have had several employees who have either fancied themselves mechanical designers (but have not been), or have been capable but ornery.
At the Mecca, we have been chronically searching for a good mechanical engineer. Mr. Mom pompously said that it needed to be a requirement that we hire somebody who had worked on a successful instrumentation project. This was said when I was sitting in the senior management meeting on account of my boss being absent. My response to that lunacy was "no - the only requirements are that the person be able to design mechanical stuff and that they can get along with the rest of the engineers." I was told that it would be good for the culture. What the hell does that mean? So, I asked that question. "You know, having somebody who knows how to design a product." I will admit that I rose to the bait. "I have worked with many people who were on successful product teams, and you couldn't pay me enough to work with any of them." Thankfully, I didn't have to relate the stories of the amazing Costco and Dr. Fubar from a previous company. I have some material from there too... but that's another story. (Cue the Xylophone and the rodents.)
We all know that a pedigree does not make somebody good, and lack of a pedigree does not make them stink. On the other hand, I would like to think that my 6+ years of university education are worth something. I have also come to recognize that years of experience are also somewhat meaningless. If one is observant and able to learn from their mistakes, experience is a fabulous teacher. Other people... Needless to say, we start with the resumes.
We got five candidates from the head hunter. They seemed alright. We interviewed the first guy - perhaps too much manager and not enough design engineer. Since the last thing the engineering group needs is another manager, we decided to put that guy on the back burner.
The next four candidates had solid resumes - degrees in mechanical engineering, work experience (one had ten years of experience), and a couple even had graduate degrees.
Candidate #2: He asked to be excused from the interview before even talking to me. Probably, he didn't really want the job.
Candidate #3: Somebody Lee. Bruce Lee's long lost Cousin? Perhaps the hand written thank-you card with the Taco Bell coupon was supposed to make up for the fact that he couldn't answer any of our questions. We didn't bother running him through the CAD test. He couldn't answer what we thought were easy questions about mechanical engineering. That's pretty sad, considering the interview was conducted by an electrical engineer, and physicist and a mechanical designer. (Actually, Buffalo Bill is really only competent as a draftsman, but suggesting that to his face would probably make him cry.)
Candidate #4: Cindy Lou Who. She got a couple of our kindergarten questions. We let her do the CAD test. After two hours, she gave us a blank screen.
Candidate #5: Another Lee. Bruce seems to have been busy. This guy was young, but he had a graduate degree, so he's probably smart... right? Why did a series of easy mechanical engineering questions feel like I was giving a first year engineering lecture? Perhaps he was nervous... On to the CAD test. We actually got something from him. It was perhaps the most improbable way one could have done it given the bits that he had to work with. Image giving somebody four wheels, some gears and a car body, and telling them to build a mode of transportation. Then, imagine returning to find that they tried to build a Piano.
OK, so we may not be the most desirable company ever. So maybe we didn't get the headhunter's best candidates. However, I had hoped that we wouldn't get the who's who of Silicon Valley engineering rejects. Wait... We didn't interview Captain Fantastic. I guess that we didn't get ALL of the rejects. I couldn't find the clip that I wanted to describe this set of interviews, but this one is still pretty much dead on..
By the way... the first guy we interviewed - got a job before we offered him one. Apparently, he wasn't holding out to work for the Mecca either.
The Sarcastic Brit did run into a guy in the parking lot that does mechanical engineering on a contract basis. Of course the last guy we pulled in from the parking lot was Jar Jar. This guy can't be worse. When my boss interviewed him, he told the following metaphor: In the engineering world, there are Hyenas and there are Cheetahs. Cheetahs are very specialized. While they are excellent hunters, they often go hungry between meals. Hyenas will eat anything. They never go hungry. The metaphor finished with "I am a Hyena." I hope the Hyena is good, he starts on Monday. He did an excellent interview. He doesn't mind working contract because he intends to quit when it looks like we are running out of work for him. Hmmm... it seems like a match made in heaven. He's willing to eat carrion (of course he may have to fight off the vultures we routinely see circling the Mecca's office), and he realizes that there is no point in sticking around once the work (and/or money) are gone.
Of course, if this guy is good, and doesn't call anybody a Punkass M*otherF^c&er it will be a new experience.
As I have previously lamented, the Biotech Mecca is somewhat heavy with electrical engineers, and bereft of mechanical people. We have had several employees who have either fancied themselves mechanical designers (but have not been), or have been capable but ornery.
At the Mecca, we have been chronically searching for a good mechanical engineer. Mr. Mom pompously said that it needed to be a requirement that we hire somebody who had worked on a successful instrumentation project. This was said when I was sitting in the senior management meeting on account of my boss being absent. My response to that lunacy was "no - the only requirements are that the person be able to design mechanical stuff and that they can get along with the rest of the engineers." I was told that it would be good for the culture. What the hell does that mean? So, I asked that question. "You know, having somebody who knows how to design a product." I will admit that I rose to the bait. "I have worked with many people who were on successful product teams, and you couldn't pay me enough to work with any of them." Thankfully, I didn't have to relate the stories of the amazing Costco and Dr. Fubar from a previous company. I have some material from there too... but that's another story. (Cue the Xylophone and the rodents.)
We all know that a pedigree does not make somebody good, and lack of a pedigree does not make them stink. On the other hand, I would like to think that my 6+ years of university education are worth something. I have also come to recognize that years of experience are also somewhat meaningless. If one is observant and able to learn from their mistakes, experience is a fabulous teacher. Other people... Needless to say, we start with the resumes.
We got five candidates from the head hunter. They seemed alright. We interviewed the first guy - perhaps too much manager and not enough design engineer. Since the last thing the engineering group needs is another manager, we decided to put that guy on the back burner.
The next four candidates had solid resumes - degrees in mechanical engineering, work experience (one had ten years of experience), and a couple even had graduate degrees.
Candidate #2: He asked to be excused from the interview before even talking to me. Probably, he didn't really want the job.
Candidate #3: Somebody Lee. Bruce Lee's long lost Cousin? Perhaps the hand written thank-you card with the Taco Bell coupon was supposed to make up for the fact that he couldn't answer any of our questions. We didn't bother running him through the CAD test. He couldn't answer what we thought were easy questions about mechanical engineering. That's pretty sad, considering the interview was conducted by an electrical engineer, and physicist and a mechanical designer. (Actually, Buffalo Bill is really only competent as a draftsman, but suggesting that to his face would probably make him cry.)
Candidate #4: Cindy Lou Who. She got a couple of our kindergarten questions. We let her do the CAD test. After two hours, she gave us a blank screen.
Candidate #5: Another Lee. Bruce seems to have been busy. This guy was young, but he had a graduate degree, so he's probably smart... right? Why did a series of easy mechanical engineering questions feel like I was giving a first year engineering lecture? Perhaps he was nervous... On to the CAD test. We actually got something from him. It was perhaps the most improbable way one could have done it given the bits that he had to work with. Image giving somebody four wheels, some gears and a car body, and telling them to build a mode of transportation. Then, imagine returning to find that they tried to build a Piano.
OK, so we may not be the most desirable company ever. So maybe we didn't get the headhunter's best candidates. However, I had hoped that we wouldn't get the who's who of Silicon Valley engineering rejects. Wait... We didn't interview Captain Fantastic. I guess that we didn't get ALL of the rejects. I couldn't find the clip that I wanted to describe this set of interviews, but this one is still pretty much dead on..
By the way... the first guy we interviewed - got a job before we offered him one. Apparently, he wasn't holding out to work for the Mecca either.
The Sarcastic Brit did run into a guy in the parking lot that does mechanical engineering on a contract basis. Of course the last guy we pulled in from the parking lot was Jar Jar. This guy can't be worse. When my boss interviewed him, he told the following metaphor: In the engineering world, there are Hyenas and there are Cheetahs. Cheetahs are very specialized. While they are excellent hunters, they often go hungry between meals. Hyenas will eat anything. They never go hungry. The metaphor finished with "I am a Hyena." I hope the Hyena is good, he starts on Monday. He did an excellent interview. He doesn't mind working contract because he intends to quit when it looks like we are running out of work for him. Hmmm... it seems like a match made in heaven. He's willing to eat carrion (of course he may have to fight off the vultures we routinely see circling the Mecca's office), and he realizes that there is no point in sticking around once the work (and/or money) are gone.
Of course, if this guy is good, and doesn't call anybody a Punkass M*otherF^c&er it will be a new experience.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Mr. Mom
The Biotech Mecca is lousy with consultants. Some of these consultants are actually good, but almost universally they are given next to no direction and are allowed to run off in any direction they wish. In even more extreme cases, the consultants tell the senior management how to run the company. Unfortunately, running a company this way tends to provide the worst in seagull management.
One of the most feared (for being annoying) consultants at the Biotech Mecca is Mr Mom. Mr. Mom is a friend of the fearful COO, but is such a sociopath, he immediately became the most trusted confidant of the CEO (Swiper the fox).
The strange thing about Mr. Mom is that he was supposedly super successful, and then decided to stay at home to raise the kids while his wife works. Is he married to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Something doesn't add up, but in any case, Mr. Mom is on the senior management team, and like those big, ugly cockroaches, he's here to stay.
The Sarcastic Brit received the following email from a friend of his that works for the competition. This message was in response to the announcement on the Mecca's web site that Mr. Mom had been named to the senior management team.
Hi there,
he's a psychopath. I absolutely cannot stand him. Hopefully he's not
going to manage anyone directly-he's an arrogant bully.
He'll undoubtedly tell everyone how many times he saved his former employer's
arse (most of which I have found out are not true) and he'll claim he
invented the industry standard (which he didn't).
That said, he's really smart, and definitely knows his stuff on the
chemistry front (for instrument/product specifications/opportunities). In
an advisory role, I could see how he might be useful. Maybe.
Perhaps. If you're desperate.
My advice would be to tread very carefully, and avoid him as much as
you can. I'll keep my ears open about jobs in the area-there are
definitely some opptys out there, they're just a bit more scarce
than they have been...
Hope you are well otherwise,
Cheers,
The Sarcastic Brit's Friend
In another email, the Sarcastic Brit's friend offered this analysis:
just saw the news that The Biotech Mecca has recruited Mr. Mom to help advise them... You really are screwed now...
(to be fair, in his rare moments of sanity/sobriety-he does have the occasional lucid thought about how to get products to market)
You may think that the Sarcastic Brit's friend has a personal vendetta against this guy. That may be, but I do not think without reason. I will elaborate in a later post.
Where's that man-eating vacuum when you need it?
One of the most feared (for being annoying) consultants at the Biotech Mecca is Mr Mom. Mr. Mom is a friend of the fearful COO, but is such a sociopath, he immediately became the most trusted confidant of the CEO (Swiper the fox).
The strange thing about Mr. Mom is that he was supposedly super successful, and then decided to stay at home to raise the kids while his wife works. Is he married to Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? Something doesn't add up, but in any case, Mr. Mom is on the senior management team, and like those big, ugly cockroaches, he's here to stay.
The Sarcastic Brit received the following email from a friend of his that works for the competition. This message was in response to the announcement on the Mecca's web site that Mr. Mom had been named to the senior management team.
Hi there,
he's a psychopath. I absolutely cannot stand him. Hopefully he's not
going to manage anyone directly-he's an arrogant bully.
He'll undoubtedly tell everyone how many times he saved his former employer's
arse (most of which I have found out are not true) and he'll claim he
invented the industry standard (which he didn't).
That said, he's really smart, and definitely knows his stuff on the
chemistry front (for instrument/product specifications/opportunities). In
an advisory role, I could see how he might be useful. Maybe.
Perhaps. If you're desperate.
My advice would be to tread very carefully, and avoid him as much as
you can. I'll keep my ears open about jobs in the area-there are
definitely some opptys out there, they're just a bit more scarce
than they have been...
Hope you are well otherwise,
Cheers,
The Sarcastic Brit's Friend
In another email, the Sarcastic Brit's friend offered this analysis:
just saw the news that The Biotech Mecca has recruited Mr. Mom to help advise them... You really are screwed now...
(to be fair, in his rare moments of sanity/sobriety-he does have the occasional lucid thought about how to get products to market)
You may think that the Sarcastic Brit's friend has a personal vendetta against this guy. That may be, but I do not think without reason. I will elaborate in a later post.
Where's that man-eating vacuum when you need it?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Attitudes are Contageous
The Biotech Mecca seems to be hard on mechanical designers. Our current designer is Buffalo Bill. (His real name is not Bill, but he does hale from Buffalo.) Incidentally, Buffalo is an "All American City". I know this because it is announced in proud white letters when you enter the city on I-90. "Welcome to Buffalo - an All American City." But, I digress.
Buffalo Bill came to us from a temp agency. (Body shop in the local parlance). After a couple of months, Buffalo Bill was offered a full time gig at another company and left. He was an adequate mechanical designer (at least he was a good draftsman, which was all we really used him for.) We replaced him with another body shop hire who was very quick to come up with designs with minimal input. Unfortunately, he had the annoying property of being a first class A**hole. I think the final straw was when he referred to my boss as a "Punkass Motherf***er". Funny, that kind of thing doesn't tend to make you popular, and he was let go. This particular character will require almost as many posts as Captain Fantastic, so I will let it go for now.
It turned out that Buffalo Bill was available again, so we hired him back on an hourly basis. The Mecca was somewhat broke, so they didn't want the overhead of actually hiring him as a permanent employee. A promise was made however, that he would be offered a full time position as soon as more suckers... I mean investors were found.
To make a long story short, we got the money (the one advantage of having Swiper the Fox as your CEO), and Buffalo Bill was offered a contract. One of the terms of the contract was that he take a 5% pay cut in exchange for medical, dental and vision benefits, as well as 2 weeks paid vacation. By my calculations, the vacation and paid statutory holidays makes up almost 5%, so the other benefits were free. Seemed fair to me. It seemed fair to the Sarcastic Brit, who is nominally his manager. It did not apparently, seem fair to Buffalo Bill, as he tried to do an end run around the Sarcastic Brit and negotiate with our boss. This has been going on for roughly four months now, and Buffalo Bill becomes more belligerent by the day.
The original idea was that Buffalo Bill would clean up the drawings from his predicessor (and also successor), fix a few problems with the design and get things ready for manufacturing. He also offered to order stuff for the instrument builds.
The first sign that there was trouble was when he had no idea what he had ordered. The next sign was when he didn't know how many of each part was used in the system. He ordered single pieces of parts when two were needed and ordered sets of five when one part was needed. This may not seem so bad, until you recall that he had spent the previous two months checking every part of the CAD model, had changed many of the parts, and was supposed to be in charge of the bill of materials.
Buffalo Bill asked if we could assign Jar Jar to help with the bill of materials. That should have been a clue that he was in REAL trouble. In general, getting Jar Jar to do anything right is much more difficult than just doing it yourself. I should have clued in at that point and asked to hire him some real help. I was too busy to think about it.
Next, we hired a friend of my boss. Although I have no idea what my boss does all day, and I wouldn't want to ask him to design anything, he is pretty good at judging competence. His friend is fantastic. Flyboy is a member of the Airforce Reserves, and approaches his job with true military discipline. His work has not escaped the notice of the management at the Biotech Mecca. He is actually competent. I'm sure that it will be career limiting in the long run.
We figured that Flyboy would be welcomed with open arms. He was cleaning up a mess that Buffalo Bill would no longer have to deal with. In fact, Buffalo Bill has shown Flyboy nothing but poorly veiled hostility.
The next discovery was that there were many mistakes in the model. The "minor tweaks" had resulted in several key assemblies not fitting together when we had them fabricated. The last set of parts fit together, so the errors were new. In fact, when we tally up the errors, I suspect that we are running at about a 30% error rate. Not good for a product that is supposed to be going into manufacturing.
The Sarcastic Brit decided that it was time to act. He consulted Jaba (who is actually a pretty good manager) and asked him how to approach the problem. The advice was sound: focus on the fact that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Offer to help. The Sarcastic Brit suggested that he and I take up all of the remaining design tasks, leaving Buffalo Bill to integrate the stuff into the overall CAD model and produce blueprints. This was on Friday. Buffalo Bill seemed happy enough.
On Monday morning, I got into work to find a post-it note on Buffalo Bill's monitor. It read something like "you are a nobody. Just shut up and do the drawings". Apparently he had a chance to think about his discussion with the Sarcastic Brit and come to the conclusion that we were getting ready to fire him. Of course, up until that point, the thought had never crossed my mind. In fact, I thought that he was doing a good job, and he was just stretched way too thin.
Over the course of the week, Buffalo Bill's attitude has gotten progressively worse, despite the fact that the Sarcastic Brit and myself have both tried to assure him that he is not in line for the firing squad.
After a week of Buffalo Bill's surly comments and generally antagonistic attitude to several members of the staff, the Sarcastic Brit and myself were summoned to a meeting with our boss. His question was simple, "Are we hiring another mechanical designer?" I changed the subject. I had just finished an interview with a mechanical engineering candidate - Cindy Lou Who - who when asked to disign a simple mechanism and record her assumputions, recorded the assumption that the device had to be designed. She left us with a blank screeen and a couple of scribbles on the pad. Unfortunately, she was better than the guy we interviewed last week. When compared to that, I'm not so quick to get rid of Buffalo Bill. Being called a Punkass Bitch seems like a viable alternative.
Needless to say, we have a problem. We have a mechanical designer who can't cope with the fact that he makes mistakes and is jealous of our new technician because he is cool, and is able to banter with the Sarcastic Brit and myself. Unfortunately, Flyboy is about ready to throttle him (and could probably do it blindfolded with both hands behind his back.) This could get ugly. Of course, the Sarcast Brit will probably try to say a few words to smooth out the situation, but he has earned his title, and will most likely only succeed in turning up the heat. Perhaps I should book some vacation. Things could be ugly next week.
Buffalo Bill came to us from a temp agency. (Body shop in the local parlance). After a couple of months, Buffalo Bill was offered a full time gig at another company and left. He was an adequate mechanical designer (at least he was a good draftsman, which was all we really used him for.) We replaced him with another body shop hire who was very quick to come up with designs with minimal input. Unfortunately, he had the annoying property of being a first class A**hole. I think the final straw was when he referred to my boss as a "Punkass Motherf***er". Funny, that kind of thing doesn't tend to make you popular, and he was let go. This particular character will require almost as many posts as Captain Fantastic, so I will let it go for now.
It turned out that Buffalo Bill was available again, so we hired him back on an hourly basis. The Mecca was somewhat broke, so they didn't want the overhead of actually hiring him as a permanent employee. A promise was made however, that he would be offered a full time position as soon as more suckers... I mean investors were found.
To make a long story short, we got the money (the one advantage of having Swiper the Fox as your CEO), and Buffalo Bill was offered a contract. One of the terms of the contract was that he take a 5% pay cut in exchange for medical, dental and vision benefits, as well as 2 weeks paid vacation. By my calculations, the vacation and paid statutory holidays makes up almost 5%, so the other benefits were free. Seemed fair to me. It seemed fair to the Sarcastic Brit, who is nominally his manager. It did not apparently, seem fair to Buffalo Bill, as he tried to do an end run around the Sarcastic Brit and negotiate with our boss. This has been going on for roughly four months now, and Buffalo Bill becomes more belligerent by the day.
The original idea was that Buffalo Bill would clean up the drawings from his predicessor (and also successor), fix a few problems with the design and get things ready for manufacturing. He also offered to order stuff for the instrument builds.
The first sign that there was trouble was when he had no idea what he had ordered. The next sign was when he didn't know how many of each part was used in the system. He ordered single pieces of parts when two were needed and ordered sets of five when one part was needed. This may not seem so bad, until you recall that he had spent the previous two months checking every part of the CAD model, had changed many of the parts, and was supposed to be in charge of the bill of materials.
Buffalo Bill asked if we could assign Jar Jar to help with the bill of materials. That should have been a clue that he was in REAL trouble. In general, getting Jar Jar to do anything right is much more difficult than just doing it yourself. I should have clued in at that point and asked to hire him some real help. I was too busy to think about it.
Next, we hired a friend of my boss. Although I have no idea what my boss does all day, and I wouldn't want to ask him to design anything, he is pretty good at judging competence. His friend is fantastic. Flyboy is a member of the Airforce Reserves, and approaches his job with true military discipline. His work has not escaped the notice of the management at the Biotech Mecca. He is actually competent. I'm sure that it will be career limiting in the long run.
We figured that Flyboy would be welcomed with open arms. He was cleaning up a mess that Buffalo Bill would no longer have to deal with. In fact, Buffalo Bill has shown Flyboy nothing but poorly veiled hostility.
The next discovery was that there were many mistakes in the model. The "minor tweaks" had resulted in several key assemblies not fitting together when we had them fabricated. The last set of parts fit together, so the errors were new. In fact, when we tally up the errors, I suspect that we are running at about a 30% error rate. Not good for a product that is supposed to be going into manufacturing.
The Sarcastic Brit decided that it was time to act. He consulted Jaba (who is actually a pretty good manager) and asked him how to approach the problem. The advice was sound: focus on the fact that there is a problem that needs to be fixed. Offer to help. The Sarcastic Brit suggested that he and I take up all of the remaining design tasks, leaving Buffalo Bill to integrate the stuff into the overall CAD model and produce blueprints. This was on Friday. Buffalo Bill seemed happy enough.
On Monday morning, I got into work to find a post-it note on Buffalo Bill's monitor. It read something like "you are a nobody. Just shut up and do the drawings". Apparently he had a chance to think about his discussion with the Sarcastic Brit and come to the conclusion that we were getting ready to fire him. Of course, up until that point, the thought had never crossed my mind. In fact, I thought that he was doing a good job, and he was just stretched way too thin.
Over the course of the week, Buffalo Bill's attitude has gotten progressively worse, despite the fact that the Sarcastic Brit and myself have both tried to assure him that he is not in line for the firing squad.
After a week of Buffalo Bill's surly comments and generally antagonistic attitude to several members of the staff, the Sarcastic Brit and myself were summoned to a meeting with our boss. His question was simple, "Are we hiring another mechanical designer?" I changed the subject. I had just finished an interview with a mechanical engineering candidate - Cindy Lou Who - who when asked to disign a simple mechanism and record her assumputions, recorded the assumption that the device had to be designed. She left us with a blank screeen and a couple of scribbles on the pad. Unfortunately, she was better than the guy we interviewed last week. When compared to that, I'm not so quick to get rid of Buffalo Bill. Being called a Punkass Bitch seems like a viable alternative.
Needless to say, we have a problem. We have a mechanical designer who can't cope with the fact that he makes mistakes and is jealous of our new technician because he is cool, and is able to banter with the Sarcastic Brit and myself. Unfortunately, Flyboy is about ready to throttle him (and could probably do it blindfolded with both hands behind his back.) This could get ugly. Of course, the Sarcast Brit will probably try to say a few words to smooth out the situation, but he has earned his title, and will most likely only succeed in turning up the heat. Perhaps I should book some vacation. Things could be ugly next week.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Random Thoughts
The sad thing about the amount of time it has taken me to start recording this story is I will probably forget a lot of the really funny stuff!
When I originally came out for the job interview the CTO and CFO took myself and a bunch of distributors out for lunch. This town isn't that big, and the office is on the same street as the restaurant, yet somehow they managed to get lost. I was riding with the CFO, and the CTO called on his cell phone to find out where we were. I only heard one half of the conversation, but it went like this:
I'm on the highway... I'm not sure which direction I'm going... I must be going the right way because I'm headed toward the mountains.
But we were at the end of the valley. It is essentially surrounded by mountains.
This was 2/3 of the most effective management team ever assembled. The other third didn't show up. Of course he doesn't show up most days... He's only the CEO. Nobody important. Go about your business. And can't you just do it faster? Why can't I trust your delivery dates?
Shouldn't the CEO come to work and pay attention to what's happening there?
When I originally came out for the job interview the CTO and CFO took myself and a bunch of distributors out for lunch. This town isn't that big, and the office is on the same street as the restaurant, yet somehow they managed to get lost. I was riding with the CFO, and the CTO called on his cell phone to find out where we were. I only heard one half of the conversation, but it went like this:
I'm on the highway... I'm not sure which direction I'm going... I must be going the right way because I'm headed toward the mountains.
But we were at the end of the valley. It is essentially surrounded by mountains.
This was 2/3 of the most effective management team ever assembled. The other third didn't show up. Of course he doesn't show up most days... He's only the CEO. Nobody important. Go about your business. And can't you just do it faster? Why can't I trust your delivery dates?
Shouldn't the CEO come to work and pay attention to what's happening there?
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Miracle FET
First of all, for those of you who have watched too many Star Wars movies, and/or are not familiar with electronics, this has nothing to do with Boba Fett, The Force, or the Death Star. Although Darth Vader could teach the senior management at the Biotech Mecca a thing or two about motivational techniques. Do not fail me Admiral.
Captain Fantastic brought in his electronics wizard as a consultant. He constantly reminded us that his man had twenty five years experience (f**king it up) in Silicon Valley. In fact, the man had some skill. He managed to take the Mecca for $50,000 and only delivered a board cut at a 15° angle.
Anyhow, the instrument has a heater that draws in the neighbourhood of 20A of current. We wished to switch the heater with a Field Effect Transistor (FET). Unfortunately, the circuit that this Silicon Valley Veteran had conceived kept blowing the FET. It seems that even a small junction resistance turns into a lot of power when you have a high current. The Sarcastic Brit mentioned that this may be what was causing the FETs to burn up. There's nothing like the smell of burned plastic in the morning. The consultant insisted that the FETs didn't dissipate any power. I'm reminded of the Simpsons "In this house, young lady, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics."
Captain Fantastic stepped in at this point. His addition to the discussion was that nobody at the Mecca was an electrical engineer, so we should all just trust his man, who had been doing things right in Silicon Valley for over 25 years.
That's right, Captain Fantastic's consultant had managed to defy the laws of physics and produce Miracle FETs.
A couple of days later, the Sarcastic Brit got a voice mail from the consultant. It went something like this:
I was... um... looking at the data sheet for that FET... and... um... It looks like it does have a pretty high junction resistance... um... It looks like... um... it would probably... um... dissipate quite a bit of power at 20A. I don't think... um... that it will handle that much current.
For weeks after that, the Sarcastic Brit would play that message on his speaker phone and just grin. He would also occasionally forward a copy of it to Captain Fantastic. I think that it was the saddest day of his life when he learned that the phone system deletes old messages after two months.
Shortly after the phone message we had an engineering team meeting to discuss what everybody was working on. It turns out that of the six members of the engineering team at that time, exactly half of the team was composed of electrical engineers. In addition we discovered that the Sarcastic Brit was just waiting until the appropriate time to inform Captain Fantastic that he was one of those three electrical engineers.
Inconceivable.
Captain Fantastic brought in his electronics wizard as a consultant. He constantly reminded us that his man had twenty five years experience (f**king it up) in Silicon Valley. In fact, the man had some skill. He managed to take the Mecca for $50,000 and only delivered a board cut at a 15° angle.
Anyhow, the instrument has a heater that draws in the neighbourhood of 20A of current. We wished to switch the heater with a Field Effect Transistor (FET). Unfortunately, the circuit that this Silicon Valley Veteran had conceived kept blowing the FET. It seems that even a small junction resistance turns into a lot of power when you have a high current. The Sarcastic Brit mentioned that this may be what was causing the FETs to burn up. There's nothing like the smell of burned plastic in the morning. The consultant insisted that the FETs didn't dissipate any power. I'm reminded of the Simpsons "In this house, young lady, we OBEY the laws of thermodynamics."
Captain Fantastic stepped in at this point. His addition to the discussion was that nobody at the Mecca was an electrical engineer, so we should all just trust his man, who had been doing things right in Silicon Valley for over 25 years.
That's right, Captain Fantastic's consultant had managed to defy the laws of physics and produce Miracle FETs.
A couple of days later, the Sarcastic Brit got a voice mail from the consultant. It went something like this:
I was... um... looking at the data sheet for that FET... and... um... It looks like it does have a pretty high junction resistance... um... It looks like... um... it would probably... um... dissipate quite a bit of power at 20A. I don't think... um... that it will handle that much current.
For weeks after that, the Sarcastic Brit would play that message on his speaker phone and just grin. He would also occasionally forward a copy of it to Captain Fantastic. I think that it was the saddest day of his life when he learned that the phone system deletes old messages after two months.
Shortly after the phone message we had an engineering team meeting to discuss what everybody was working on. It turns out that of the six members of the engineering team at that time, exactly half of the team was composed of electrical engineers. In addition we discovered that the Sarcastic Brit was just waiting until the appropriate time to inform Captain Fantastic that he was one of those three electrical engineers.
Inconceivable.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
We do our drop tests from 30,000 feet
Back to Captain Fantastic. His name comes up routinely at the Biotech Mecca, despite the fact that it's been almost a year since his demise.
Captain Fantastic recommended an industrial designer that he had "worked with" at a previous company. The industrial designer was actually very good (as opposed to all of the Captain's other top notch consultants). The industrial designer defended himself with a statement much like Bruce Campbell's statement regarding Henry the Red in Army of Darkness. "Look man, you gotta realize - I've never seen these assholes before." The industrial designer had worked with the Captain, but in a different group. He was sure to point out that they had never worked "together", and they certainly were not what you would call "friends".
The Captain would stop by the designer's desk to look at what he was up to (and waste his time - something that the Captain excelled at). Since the industrial designer never called Captain Fantastic a lying weasel to his face, the Captain felt that they had a good rapport.
As we were getting ready to ship the Alpha prototype, the topic of shipping crates came up, as well as the necessary testing to ensure that the unit would survive the perils of being shipped by courier.
Captain Fantastic: At my last company, we used to drop things 20 meters to make sure they would survive shipping.
Harbinger of Doom: I have never heard of anybody dropping a crate more than six feet as a shipping test.
Captain Fantastic: I tell you that at my last company, the drop test was 20 meters.
Industrial Designer: That was a special test to ensure that hazardous material would not be released in the event of a catastrophe. It was such a big deal that the whole company came out to watch.
Captain Fantastic: No, I tell you that was the standard drop test.
Industrial Designer: If you say so.
'Nough said?
Captain Fantastic recommended an industrial designer that he had "worked with" at a previous company. The industrial designer was actually very good (as opposed to all of the Captain's other top notch consultants). The industrial designer defended himself with a statement much like Bruce Campbell's statement regarding Henry the Red in Army of Darkness. "Look man, you gotta realize - I've never seen these assholes before." The industrial designer had worked with the Captain, but in a different group. He was sure to point out that they had never worked "together", and they certainly were not what you would call "friends".
The Captain would stop by the designer's desk to look at what he was up to (and waste his time - something that the Captain excelled at). Since the industrial designer never called Captain Fantastic a lying weasel to his face, the Captain felt that they had a good rapport.
As we were getting ready to ship the Alpha prototype, the topic of shipping crates came up, as well as the necessary testing to ensure that the unit would survive the perils of being shipped by courier.
Captain Fantastic: At my last company, we used to drop things 20 meters to make sure they would survive shipping.
Harbinger of Doom: I have never heard of anybody dropping a crate more than six feet as a shipping test.
Captain Fantastic: I tell you that at my last company, the drop test was 20 meters.
Industrial Designer: That was a special test to ensure that hazardous material would not be released in the event of a catastrophe. It was such a big deal that the whole company came out to watch.
Captain Fantastic: No, I tell you that was the standard drop test.
Industrial Designer: If you say so.
'Nough said?
Friday, September 11, 2009
It's impossible to find that part
Despite my protestations, people tend to come to me when they have a problem. Apparently, the Sarcastic Brit has reduced too many people to tears over being stupid. The other day, Jar Jar came to me with his world of trouble.
1) The stage controller on the microscope wasn't working right. Apparently, he noticed it two weeks earlier, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.
2) The seal on the vacuum oven was worn out.
It seems that even with two weeks to think about it, Jar Jar couldn't come up with the idea to call the manufacturer, give them the information about the unit and ask them for an RMA. Instead, he sat on it for two weeks and then asked me to do something about it. I guess that it took him two weeks to get up the ambition to decide to be lazy. Perhaps he doesn't know how to use the telephone. Maybe he's scared of the telephone, and had some sort of horrible experience with telephones in his youth. I don't know. What I do know is that I was the person who ended up getting the RMA and telling Jar Jar how to pack the unit up for shipment back to the manufacturer. I didn't inspect the packing job or verify the address. I wonder if we will ever see our microscope again. At least I know that we got an RMA from the right company, and if they ever get it, they will know why we sent it to them.
The vacuum oven was more difficult. It came out of a catalog, which means that they must have made tens of thousands of them. How hard could it be to find a seal? I told Jar Jar to check with the catalog company and see if they had them. I also suggested that he copy down the model and serial number information off of the oven in order to have it for reference when talking to the catalog company.
Several days later Jar Jar came back to interrupt the cluttered peacefulness of my cubicle with his thick Indian accent. "You know the vacuum oven seal? It's very hard to find, you know. I checked on the catalog company's web page, you know, and they didn't have them, you know. I also found the manufacturer and they didn't have them either, you know."
Really? I guess that this was going to be difficult. I told Jar Jar that I would take care of it, and proceeded back to the lab to get the info off of the equipment myself. On the side of the oven, I found a plate that had the model, serial number, catalog company name, manufacturer's name, and a number to call for warranty or service. Strange, I must be imagining things. I copied down the info and started back to my desk. On the way, I ran into Jar Jar. It couldn't hurt to ask, so I asked him if he had talked to anybody on the phone. "You know, I just checked the web page, you know. I didn't know who to call, you know."
I asked him, "Did you call the number printed on the side of the oven, beneath the model and serial number?" He had not, but at least he had the grace to offer to. I told him not to bother.
Within five minutes, I had called the manufacturer, gotten the part number, and had been informed that we would save 10% if we ordered off of their web page. Cool. But I thought that the manufacturer's web page didn't have anything. This was an impossible part to find.
It just goes to show that you can screw up even the most simple tasks if you try hard enough: At least if you are Jar Jar.
1) The stage controller on the microscope wasn't working right. Apparently, he noticed it two weeks earlier, but couldn't be bothered to do anything about it.
2) The seal on the vacuum oven was worn out.
It seems that even with two weeks to think about it, Jar Jar couldn't come up with the idea to call the manufacturer, give them the information about the unit and ask them for an RMA. Instead, he sat on it for two weeks and then asked me to do something about it. I guess that it took him two weeks to get up the ambition to decide to be lazy. Perhaps he doesn't know how to use the telephone. Maybe he's scared of the telephone, and had some sort of horrible experience with telephones in his youth. I don't know. What I do know is that I was the person who ended up getting the RMA and telling Jar Jar how to pack the unit up for shipment back to the manufacturer. I didn't inspect the packing job or verify the address. I wonder if we will ever see our microscope again. At least I know that we got an RMA from the right company, and if they ever get it, they will know why we sent it to them.
The vacuum oven was more difficult. It came out of a catalog, which means that they must have made tens of thousands of them. How hard could it be to find a seal? I told Jar Jar to check with the catalog company and see if they had them. I also suggested that he copy down the model and serial number information off of the oven in order to have it for reference when talking to the catalog company.
Several days later Jar Jar came back to interrupt the cluttered peacefulness of my cubicle with his thick Indian accent. "You know the vacuum oven seal? It's very hard to find, you know. I checked on the catalog company's web page, you know, and they didn't have them, you know. I also found the manufacturer and they didn't have them either, you know."
Really? I guess that this was going to be difficult. I told Jar Jar that I would take care of it, and proceeded back to the lab to get the info off of the equipment myself. On the side of the oven, I found a plate that had the model, serial number, catalog company name, manufacturer's name, and a number to call for warranty or service. Strange, I must be imagining things. I copied down the info and started back to my desk. On the way, I ran into Jar Jar. It couldn't hurt to ask, so I asked him if he had talked to anybody on the phone. "You know, I just checked the web page, you know. I didn't know who to call, you know."
I asked him, "Did you call the number printed on the side of the oven, beneath the model and serial number?" He had not, but at least he had the grace to offer to. I told him not to bother.
Within five minutes, I had called the manufacturer, gotten the part number, and had been informed that we would save 10% if we ordered off of their web page. Cool. But I thought that the manufacturer's web page didn't have anything. This was an impossible part to find.
It just goes to show that you can screw up even the most simple tasks if you try hard enough: At least if you are Jar Jar.
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