The Dog Ate My Homework - Part 2

So I was discussing the glorious ray tracing results with the Sarcastic Brit, who took one look and said "Why the hell are the mirrors so big?"

I looked at it, and said "I don't know. But the Big Boy did it, so they can't be wrong."

Then, I went back to my desk and used some of my vast knowledge of grade 12 physics to come up with a new set of numbers. They were vastly different than what the consultant had produced with the $1000 + software package (that he's apparently running on a Trash 80). So, I went to the lab and I set the distances in the prototype. It turns out that grade 12 physics (and a supposedly incompetent engineer), give more realistic results than the $100/hour consultant and his $1000 software.

I mentioned this to MNNB. I don't think he believed me. I showed him the prototype. He had to admit that I was right.

He was right: I learned a lot from working with the consultant. Mostly, that if a consultant doesn't want the work, paying him won't make him do it.

The dog ate my homework - part 1

So... classic Mecca management:

You don't like one of your engineers. You want to insult him. So, you hire a consultant at $100/hour to do his job.

You tell your engineer that the consultant is brilliant. You tell him that he could absorb vast amounts of knowledge just by being in the proximity of this consultant.

You call the consultant "the big boy" in front of half of the company and tell your engineer that he can't do anything useful. Just let the consultant do it all.

You tell your engineer that you might agree to let him set up the consultant's model on the bread board, just so that he can bask in the greatness of the consultant's overpowering intellect.

Then... the line went dead. The consultant disappeared.

He said that he was very busy. Too busy, in fact to reply to email.

Apparently, the consultant does not own a cell phone.

Apparently, the consultant has more important clients.

Finally, MNNB emailed the consultant to find out why we hadn't received the ray tracing. The line remained dead. MNNB tried calling the consultant's house. He didn't answer.

After one week, I emailed the consultant and asked him how he was doing. His response went something like this:

I have been working on the ray tracing, but it runs very slowly on my computer, and that's why I haven't been able to provide you guys with anything.

Two hours later, I have 1/2 of the ray trace. Fantastic... The assignment was half done, and over a week past due. If we were back in school, I'm pretty sure that would amount to an F. Of course the consultant is brilliant, so his invoices will be paid in full and on time.


now I can prototype the thing and bask in the consultant's brilliance...

The Blockhead

Greetings, patient readers. My apologies for going so long between posts again, but I have been plotting the demise of the Mecca.

In other news.... I want to write about an often overlooked character at the Mecca.

It turns out that ALL of the software for the flagship instrument platform was written by one guy. That's right... hardware control, UI, algorithms, all written by one lonely guy. The best part about this guy is that he's not even an actually employee at the Mecca - he's a contractor.

So... you might ask why a "world leading" biotechnology company would entrust their entire platform to a consultant. Then, of course you remember that it's the Mecca, and such foolishness is their forte.

I have actually known the Blockhead for a long time. He worked with the Mad Man and I back in the Northland. Unfortunately, due to some strangeness with citizenship and visas and sheer blockheadedness, the Blockhead was unable (perhaps too wise) to get sucked out to Silicon Valley. So, the Blockhead sat is his cave and developed the software without even an instrument to work with. It's truly impressive.

You may be thinking by now that the Blockhead is brilliant. Perhaps he's brilliant when it comes to computer programming, but as the Sarcastic Brit is fond of reminding him "stick to the ones and zeros!"

You see... most people would realize that they are the key to the whole thing and take advantage of the situation. Not the Blockhead. When he had to face down the CFO for contract negotiations, it went something like this:

CFO: Blockhead, you've done some fantastic work, but times are tough, so we can't pay you for as many hours per month.

Blockhead: That's ok, I guess. I am already working twice as many hours as you are paying me for, so I won't really notice working a few more free hours. After all, the decreased value of the US dollar has eroded my wages as well, so I shouldn't even notice that you are paying me less money.

CFO: That's a fantastic way to look at it. I'll give you some underwater stock options as well.

Blockhead: That sounds totally fair.

Harbinger: I have a present for you Blockhead. Here is a bag that says "Mecca Magic Beans". If you plant them in your back yard, maybe a beanstalk will grow that will lead you to the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Blockhead: Cool. I'll have to try it.


Does anybody know: Will white beans grow to give you a beanstalk or a bush??? I guess that it's as likely of a thing as those stock options.

Launch the Torpedos

Greetings avid readers. Please don't faint - it's two posts in a week. What can I say? The Mecca is a happening place.

So... you run a company, and you have been trying to bolster the share price so that you can find more little girls willing to let you steal their stuff. What do you do? You could always resort to the "product launch". Who cares that you've been trying to sell your product for six months already? Who cares that it really doesn't work? Who cares that you have no defined way to determine if a customer installation was successful? Who cares that the engineering team is coming up with band-aids daily? It doesn't matter. The fact is that nothing jazzes investors like a good product launch. Of course nothing sinks a ship like a good torpedo launch either.

Swiper and the Fearful COO have disappeared from sight in order to concoct a way to get the most mileage from a momentous event that they will be unable to recycle for at least six months. Of course, the hiding phase is followed by the now familiar flurry of activity. Change the company logo. Change the company colours. How about those press releases that really say nothing? Perhaps that is a result of the fact that the Mecca is currently in litigation with the company that does their media relations. Something about unpaid invoices. Or maybe there's nothing to say that wouldn't result in an SEC investigation. But, I digress.

Anyway, all of the pieces are in place. Recycle the same "customers" that we have been "shipping product to" since the very beginning. These guys have seen lots of instruments. Some day, they might actually pay for one. The only missing element is the company bling. It's a product launch, so they need to do something nice. They need to make sure that we feel that our dedication and team work are deeply appreciated. So, they gave out very nice polo shirts with the company logo.

I know what you are thinking right now... "what's wrong with that?" I forgot to mention that directors, VP's, and important people got that. The Proles got tacky plastic lunch boxes, defective coffee cups that hold approximately 1.5 ounces of coffee (trust me... that may be a favour though), and slightly different shirt. Rather than the nice polo shirt, the peons got $2 T's with the following slogan. "$mart A$$ays, not Half A$$ays". Great. My employer gave me a shirt that's too vulgar to wear to work. That's class.

Note that my security team has insisted that I replace the S's with $'s. Although, after a quick web search, it seems that even the marketing geniuses at the Mecca are not dumb enough to use that slogan in their literature.

Harbinger of Doom Versus the Stupid Acronym

This post will henceforth be known as HODVSTSA, in order to keep competing blogs (or Scott Adams) from stealing my material.

I must apologize for not having blogged for a while, but all of my mental energy is consumed by learning the names of all of the new employees at the Mecca. We now have five applications scientists. Four of them are in United states. Strange, since our US install base consists of two instruments presently. The new characters in this post are:

My Next New Boss
This is one of MNB's cronies that he brought in from his former (tanking employer). His cronies now compose over 2/3 of the engineering team. He has also been parachuting them into manufacturing, product management, and any other function he can drive a wedge into.

The Product Mismanager
This is another of MNB's cronies, although he was not billed as such, the Product Mismanager admitted it to me. Apparently, he thought that it would impress me. The Sarcastic Brit's first comment on this particularly character: Wow – just think of the material that you will get from him!

The Borg (only 5 so far but the mothership is coming)
Yep, they have hired five apps guys to support effectively two instruments (although it may be up to a whopping 10 instruments by the end of the year. ) That's two instruments per guy. Oh right, our service engineer is still doing all of the installations and real work. What are these guys doing? They are home based... so my guess is – sucking at the corporate teet.

This except is from a real email thread that started with some remote troubleshooting of a customer unit by one of the new applications chemists that we hired and threw out into the field with two day's training.


Borg – 1 of 5

MNNB
Could you do me a favor and translate that into English?
Seriously, what is a cylinder. My guess is that it extends and retracts the platform?
Thanks.
Borg – 1 of 5


MNNB

Borg – 1 of 5,
The [brand 1] cylinder is the rotary and up-down air cylinder that moves the sample holder in and out of the instrument.
Pardon the vernacular. When I got here I also wondered what “snoots” and “choils” were here till someone told me.
MNNB


Borg – 1 of 5

MNNB,
You are just torturing me. You mean to tell me that you aren’t going to include the definitions of “snoots” and “choils”? I have no idea of what they are either!

Thanks!
Borg – 1 of 5


Product Mismanager

Hi,
As a side note, I would really, really encourage us to not reference any outside component vendors in our discussions – internally and externally.

I’ve heard: [brand 1] and [brand 2]. Please refrain from using these references in the future. It will be a vernacular change.

These should be the [our stupid product part 1] and [our stupid product part 2], respectfully.

I realize these are a mouthful…

Snoots and choils are OK for now since no one seemed to know what they are…

I’ll be implementing a piggy bank approach and getting people to pay $1/reference.

Thanks for your support and I’m really pretty laid back…


Harbinger

Not to cause trouble, but doesn’t it make it hard to procure parts if we are not allowed to discuss vendor identities? I tried your idea of vague descriptions on a couple of the POs that I had to file today, and finance was unappreciative.

When I told them that this was your suggestion, the Used Car Salesman asked me to email you for clarification.

Cheers,
Harbinger.



And for those of you wondering if I actually submitted PO requests with the company names removed... Do you really need to ask. Of course I did, and then ran as fast as I could from the Dragon Lady :D

Dear John Letters

Greetings loyal readers. It has been quite some time since I last posted, and I have heard that some of you have been wondering if I have finally departed from the tender loving environs of the Biotech Mecca.

Unfortunately, I still turn up every day for my generous helping of chaos, foolishness and abuse. The story for today however, is not about the Sarcastic Brit or myself... it's about Flyboy.

If you will recall, Flyboy was originally hired as a general "go to guy" for the engineering department. Alas, he had the misfortune of appearing beneath my name on the org chart. Needless to say, that put him in the sights to be picked off by MNB.

MNB doesn't see any value in having a general engineering tech that can deal with vendors, sort stuff out in the lab, work on documentation control, and do mundane, crappy tasks like dealing with packaging vendors. After all, that is why he has the Harbinger of doom, and the Sarcastic Brit.

Anyway, seeing that his position was somewhat precarious, Flyboy ingratiated himself to the Used Car Salesman. After all, he had already been drawn into being the purchasing agent for the engineering team, as well as the person responsible for pretty much all logistics. It only made sense that he should report to the head of finance. (I had to try very hard not to laugh when I wrote that last sentence. What kind of idiots would put a used car salesman in charge of the checkbook?)

But back to Flyboy. It seems that Flyboy inserted himself into the middle of a minor war between the Dragon Lady and the used car salesman. It's a pity... as I feel that he was more or less a victim of the infamous management style that is so pervasive at the Mecca.

First of all, Flyboy's contract had expired. He was not under contract, not full time, not under any agreement. He would show up (after an hour and a quarter on the road), work for the day, trying to avoid drive-by abuse by the likes of MNB, and hope like hell every payday that they would provide him with payment. I can't think of a better way "Sleep Well Wesley... for I shall most likely kill you in the morning."

Second of all, the Dragon Lady has a very simple set of rules. Do your job. Don't screw up. That means primarily not losing track of trivial things like purchase orders and packing slips. After all, how can she pay the bills if she doesn't have the purchase order (so that you know what you've ordered), and the packing slip (so that you have a record or receiving the goods?) Unfortunately, she wasn't getting these things. The larger problem was that her boss (The Used Car Salesman) is chronically trying to avoid paying the bills, so wasn't all that worried about the missing paperwork. The best way to keep cash in the bank is to not pay the bills. If you don't see the bills, you don't have to worry about not paying them.

At the core of the problem (in my humble opionion) was that the Used Car Salesman has no idea about running a finance department. He has no idea that for a company producing product (as such) purchasing is a full time job. You can't add facilities management, shipper, and any number of other duties to that. Flyboy however, saw the precariousness of his situation, and didn't say anything.

Unfortunately, Flyboy isn't really a crack administrator, and was always looking for ways to streamline the process. Usually that involved doing things in a way that would entail the least amount of work for him. So... the paperwork was pretty much always the victim. I think that he knew better... but was trying so hard to please that he lost track of the need to dot the Is and cross the Ts.

Now the Dragon Lady was in a bind. She was missing all of the paper trail that she needed to do her job. As a result, even with whatever temporary help they brought in for her, she was working an extra three or four hours each day, and her mountain of papers kept getting larger. Needless to say, when she started having days starting at 7:00 am and ending at 10:00 pm, she had to do something. The final straw was when six months of purchase orders and packing slips were found in Flyboy's desk. The obvious conclusion was that Flyboy was setting her up.

Although I will admit that it certainly looked like that, I believe that the real issue was that Flyboy was not an administrator, and hence chose to throw the paperwork out of the sinking ship that was his workload. He probably meant to get back to it... but the funny thing about paperwork is that the longer it sits, the harder it is to go back and sort it out.

The upshot was that the Used Car Salesman decided that Flyboy had to go.

Did he speak to him before hand and try to find out what was going on? Not that I heard. He just decided to turn on his "employee" (much like a rabid dog), and attack. The only problem was that Flyboy was not at the office. He was taking a couple of days off.

Eager to take action, the Used Car Salesman called Flyboy on his cell phone. He didn't answer. I will admit that I don't take calls from the Mecca either. They are never good, and I have heard about the sky falling too many times for it to trigger any emotional reaction apart from disgust.

Flyboy didn't return the call, and the Used Car salesman is a man of action. Actually, I think that he was probably intimidated by the thought of having to fire him in person. So, he left him a voicemail. I can imagine that it went something like this. "Flyboy, I'm afraid that we are going to have to let you go. We will send you your last check and your things in the mail."

Thanks. They say that getting dumped on your answering machine is hard. Perhaps the people who say that have never been fired via answering machine. Just another example of the professionalism and class that are so pervasive in the senior management at the Mecca.

Have you heard anything?

Greetings readers.

Morale at the Mecca is at an all time low.

Nearly every morning, the Sarcastic Brit and I greet each other with the mutual inquiry of "have you heard anything?" Of course "heard anything" refers to the job hunt that both the Sarcastic Brit and I have been conducting over the last few months.

Apparently, we are not the only ones looking to get out. The Maytag repair man (our service engineer) is also actively looking for a job. Of course, he's no dummy, and has been asking for cash advances before he leaves for long distance service calls. He recounted the following discussion with MNB:

Maytag: I need to take the week of the 16th off.
MNB: Sorry, you need to give me at least three weeks notice for that.
Maytag: I'm not asking you. I'm telling you.
MNB: Of course you've been traveling a lot lately. Go ahead.

Today, we had our weekly engineering meeting. It wasn't pretty. Over the course of 90 minutes MNB managed to exclaim "I don't give a crap what the Sarcastic Brit says", ask my new new boss (this is Cronie #3 that MNB has brought in. Not to be confused with Cronies 4, 5 or 6. Or Cronies 7 or 8 for that matter) for a status report on my work, while I was sitting there. He also pronounced that the Sarcastic Brit and I can't be trusted with safety related tasks, and questioned the items on our task lists as being irrelevant. In all it was pretty much a standard meeting.

Strangely enough, It would seem that they gather in my office. I don't remember hanging the sign inviting people to drop in and kill an hour or two when they're too pissed to work. It's really bad for my productivity. Oh right... Maybe I should actually hang the sign and see who else shows up.

In the meantime, I am expecting an offer from a company down the street tomorrow or Monday. The Sarcastic Brit was one of my references. Apparently his conversation with the HR person went like this:

HR: Why is Harbinger leaving the Biotech Mecca?
Sarcastic Brit: Because he has a new boss who wants to replace him. Come to think of it, you don't have any other positions opening up, do you?
HR: We just may. Send me your resume.

Will this be the end of my tenure at the Mecca? I don't know. If they offer me a job sweeping the floor, it will be better than what I have now.
Will this be the end of the Silicon Valley Way? We shall see. There are still stories to tell. Hard to believe isn't it?

Will this be the end of the Silicon Valley Way? I don't know.