The first thing we do is fire the contractors

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.

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.

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.

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.