Sleep Well Wesley

I did the unthinkable yesterday - I stood up to MNB. I told him that veiled threats were not useful, and that if he wanted to fire me, he should probably just do it. I told him that constant tantrums were definitely not the way to get the best out of his engineers, and that he should try a different tactic. We were all in this together after all.

I also made a point of asking him where I fit in the organization. He spent entirely too long thinking before giving me a line of crap which basically meant that he couldn't think of anything meaningful to say.

It's strange. You would think that my level of paranoia would increase, when every interaction with my boss contains thinly veiled threats. After my discussion with him yesterday, I am no longer worried. I know what is going to happen, and strangely enough MNB told me a whole bunch of things that I am sure he didn't realize.

1) He told me that he wasn't afraid to fire people. I take that to mean that he ENJOYS firing people. As I said in a previous post, he would like to deep six the Sarcastic Brit and Myself, but he doesn't figure he can get away with it.

2) He is the only member of his family without a graduate degree. But, he has brothers who have doctorates from Oxford. What that tells me is that he hates people with graduate degrees because his brother probably lords his academic achievements over his head. No wonder he hates the Sarcastic Brit so much. The Sarcastic Brit also has the Oxford pedigree.

3) He only wants people doing what they were "trained to do". Only mechanical engineers can use CAD, only electrical engineers can design circuits. That tells me that he has a hard time picking up new skills and can't believe that people (especially young people) can be good at more than one thing.

4) He is a very good manager. People follow him from when he changes companies. This tells me that he is incapable of hiring new people, probably because he isn't a good enough judge of talent, and he can't inherit a team because he is unable to trust the guys who were there before him and don't owe him their loyalty. In short, he is unable to earn the respect or loyalty of others. He would rather just move his old team. It's easier.

5) He keeps telling me how expendable I am. Oddly enough, I have never said that I am indispensable. I am neither that arrogant nor that stupid. He also told me that he doesn't lose sleep at night over whether I will quit or not. The fact that he keeps telling me that indicates to me that he has some issues over my employment being terminated. I am not sure if it's because he wants to fire me and can't or if he figures that he's screwed if the Sarcastic Brit and I leave.

6) He is a pathetic man, working for a pathetic company. He is a bully who can't lead an engineering team that was functioning fine before he arrived. His boss is a weasel who convinced the EWA that she would be his pawn if she were made COO, so he pulled some strings to make it happen. She then screwed EWA and showed her true allegiance (only to herself). Her boss, in turn, is a fictional character that steals things from little Mexican girls and their friends. Need I say more? (Sorry for recycling that one, but I just enjoy it too much). MNB's behavior has only convinced me that my leaving the Mecca is inevitable. The only thing that worries me is that I won't get the chance to quit before he fires me. Sleep well Wesley. You have done a fine job today. I shall most likely kill you in the morning.

Fantastic!

The Sarcastic Brit has been working diligently on the new sealing method for our sample holder. This brought on a visit from the host of projects past. Somehow, I never remember how brilliant people were. At least not at the Mecca. Perhaps that is because the inexplicably stupid seems to reign supreme. Perhaps it's just the brilliant engineering doesn't make for very good stories.

Back in the early days(before we realized how bad Captain Fantastic actually was), I remember having many discussions regarding the sealing film that had to go over the sample to prevent evaporation. Our sample is mostly water, which boils at 100C, last I checked. We are heating it to 95 degrees, which is pretty close to boiling. For those of you not keeping track, that means that the the water vapor is exerting nearly an atmosphere (15PSI) worth of pressure on the inside of the sample holder. In addition, there is a bunch of air dissolved in the sample, which is good for an additional 5PSI, or so - I don't remember the exact numbers. When you work it all out, you get a total of about 20 pounds per square inch pushing from the inside of the sample holder.

Captain Fantastic didn't see this as a problem. Apparently, the fact that each well in the sample holder was only 0.0001 square inches meant that the sealing film would definitely hold. After all, that means that each well only sees 0.0015 pounds (or about 0.7 g) of pressure meant that there was no way that the glue would fail to hold.

Strangely enough, every other instrument uses a great big plate to hold the film to the top of their sample holders, with hundreds of pounds of pressure. Apparently, Captain Fantastic forgot to count the wells. The design called for 33,000 of them in the sample holder. By my math, even at 0.0015 square inches per well, works out to 52 pounds of force pushing on a 3.5 by 5 inch piece of tape.

Not only that, but people use hot water vapor to remove adhesive. They rent things called wallpaper strippers. Hmmm... steam. How about removing stamps from envelopes? Hmmm... steam. I bet that hot steam would be pretty effective at removing the adhesive from the top of the sample holder too.

We mentioned this to Captain Fantastic, and he started going on about "peel" stress, and how the glue was really strong in tension, but not in "peel". As far as I have been able to determine, there is no such thing as "peel force". And, of course, the plastic blew off the sample holder the first time we tried it.

It was OK though, both the Captain and Slimy Indian Barbapapa were convinced that the glue would hold. The CTO was backing them up. We must have tried fifty glues of various types. It should have been no problem to find a glue that was transparent, chemically inert, non-fluorescent, and able to give a totally airtight bond capable of withstanding 20PSI of hot water vapor. Of course, we never found one. Every now and then, however, I am asked why the instrument is designed as it is. My response is always "because the glue will hold of course."

As an interim solution, I found a way to hold the seal on a sample holder 1/6 the size. That means that I only had to push down with about 50 pounds of force. No problem, right? And, it had to be designed to fit into the instrument without significant modifications, and it had to be finished in less than three weeks. No problem. Not impossible, but definitely improbable. I accomplished the improbable. Did I get a medal for fixing another one of Captain Fantastic's spectacular derailments? Nah - nobody even noticed that there was ever a problem.

Hard to kill

Greetings!

It has been quite some time since I have written, what with the impossible schedules at work, and the extra effort of trying (in vain) to find a job with a company that doesn't suck. At this point, I would settle for a company not run by a fictional character that steals things from little girls.

It seems that MNB may be finding that several members of his engineering team resemble Steven Seagal - that is they are hard to kill.

First, I would like to relate a discussion between myself and the Fearful COO.

COO: How are you doing.
Harbinger: Still here.
COO: Where else would you be? You NEED to be here!
Harbinger: The only reason why I am here is because there is too damned much snow in the mountains to drive back to Canada.
COO: Why ever would you say such a thing?
Harbinger: Perhaps my boss extolling the virtues of being fired has something to do with it.
COO: What do you mean? Surely you are taking it out of context.
Harbinger: Really? I don't think so.
COO: Tell me exactly what he said.

After I told her, she went white. That's pretty tricky for somebody who isn't Caucasian, but she managed.

Two days later, I was called into MNB's office.
MNB: Do you take everything I say seriously?
Harbinger: Shouldn't I?
MNB: You know I hear what you say. It gets back to me... I have sources.
Harbinger: Oh yeah. (Thinking - only what I want to get back to you).
MNB: Have you ever taken a project management course?
Harbinger: Not a real one.
MNB: You should find a course at UC Berkley or Stanford. The company will pay for it.

I would love to know what was said between the COO and MNB. Alas, I am sure that I never will know.

Next, MNB tried to get rid of the enlightened one. I have since been told that the Enlightened one is now my problem. Seems he too is somewhat hard to get rid of. Apparently, MNB didn't count on the fact that the Enlightened one has known the Fearful COO for over a decade, and that she was the person who brought him in to consult in the first place.

Finally, MNB told the Sarcastic Brit that he was being obstructionist, and that he was either with MNB or against him. And... if the Sarcastic Brit were against him he would be replaced very quickly. That sounds like a threat to me. I would advise the Sarcastic Brit to tell the COO about it, but alas, I wouldn't want MNB to think that he was powerless to fire any of his engineers. That would take all of the joy from his life.

Apparently, he didn't realize just how dysfunctional the Biotech Mecca really is. Maybe they are keeping his old job for him. I doubt it though, as he has already poached three staff members to come work at the Mecca. Replacements for people he isn't allowed to fire?