I'm Back

Greetings patient and not so patient readers.

I realize that it has been a LONG time since my last post. I can only say that I have been very busy plotting the demise of the Biotech Mecca.

Anyway, I have a little bit of email regarding an article in a trade rag. It made me laugh, so I've been meaning to share. The email that is - not the trade rag. It would be quite a feat to make that funny.

The Sarcastic Brit:
validation of the Blockhead's method.
Fucking brilliant. I should make a paper aeroplane of it and throw it to the consultants in the next meeting.

The Blockhead:
You flatter me too much…

I wasn’t the one that come up with it in the first place. Papers about it had been published before I even knew what PCR was. My main contribution was realizing its value and choosing it over other approaches.

The Consultant has been involved in some other curve fitting approaches. He is pretty knowledgeable about all of this; his name is even on a patent.

The Other Consultant, on the other hand, seemed to be stubbornly stuck in the 90’s. At least until the ‘shootout’ a few months ago, when his method performed miserably. I must admit to a profound sense of satisfaction at the time. After all, he had gone out of his way to badmouth my approach before, without any evidence to back it up.

The Sarcastic Brit:
Oh yes, he of the fantastic optical design skills.
ah, a perfect fit for the Mecca. He is a consultant so he must be good!

The Blockhead:
Apparently, the most important aspect of being a successful consultant is a vastly inflated sense of self-worth.

Everything else falls into place…

The Sarcastic Brit:
So how come you are a consultant then?
:-)

The Blockhead:
Well, I have been agonizing over this very question for a long time…

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...