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.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
The beatings will continue until morale improves
First of all, I must apologize for my recent hiatus from posting. Things have been very busy at the Biotech Mecca, although (as usual) nothing really moves forward.
I would like to take a break from Captain Fantastic and spend a bit of time writing about morale. What precipitated this unanticipated change in topics, you may ask? It has come to my attention that the executive assistant is leaving. What makes this special is that it's only been a couple of weeks since the useless receptionist was sacked, and the executive assistant has only been employed with the Biotech Mecca for less than six weeks.
Originally, the Biotech Mecca had only the receptionist. At least, she usually sat at the front desk. That is when she wasn't napping in her car, participating in deep religious conversations with the accountant who is supposed to be doing the SEC filings (remember him?), staring with moon eyes at the Sarcastic Brit (who is apparently the sexiest man in the universe), or just generally staring out into space. Please note that this list did NOT include answering the telephone. Since there was no automated switchboard at that time, it made everybody at the Biotech Mecca somewhat difficult to get in touch with.
Anyway, the receptionist was responsible for greeting people at the door, issuing purchase orders (and God forbid actually ordering crap), as well as performing generally assistive tasks. The truth of the matter is that she was hired by a couple of people who thought that she was hot (I would hate to see their opinion of ugly). She also had about a 25% success rate with ordering things, and was nearly as bad about keeping track of the paperwork for this. Despite these things, she was sent to training so that she would be qualified to do the SEC filings. I should also mention that she managed to convince her boss (the unmarried accountant who thought that she was hot) that it should be no problem to stop working Fridays. After all, she wasn't being paid that well anyway.
Before too long, it was decided that the Biotech Mecca had grown enough that we needed a person to take care of accounts payable. Hence the Dragon Lady was hired. Being a cross between Tony Soprano and Rambo, the Dragon Lady didn't take kindly to lost paperwork and soon assumed the ordering part of things. Then, she started answering the phones. Then she started taking care of all of the shipping. After that, the Dragon Lady started taking care of things like making sure that the cleaners came in to do the floors, and eventually also picked up the task of being the personal assistant for the CEO and the COO.
Oddly enough, it was determined that another person was required. They hired the Amazon princess. As far as I can tell, the only thing important to this particular princess is her horse. As she sits in the cubicle across from me, I have gotten to hear all about the horse (and about how sweetly I talk to my wife on the telephone.) Anyway, the Horse Princess apparently has a long history of working for functional companies. It seems that in functional companies, executive assistants are not required to go and fetch lunch, run to the business store, and clean up the conference room before important meetings.
I do not need to tell you that the Horse Princess and the Dragon Lady don't get along. I have always been told that power struggles between women can get ugly. I now understand what that means.
After a week or two, the insightful management decided that all of this administrative assistance was too expensive, so they axed the receptionist. Of course, the Dragon Lady had managed to take over most of her duties anyway. The only problem was that they needed a warm body to man the front desk from 9:00-5:00. The Dragon Lady worked 7:00-3:00. It was decided that the Dragon Lady and the Horse Princess would take turns working late. Unfortunately, nobody ever told the Dragon Lady, who suddenly got pushed into a 7:00-5:00 schedule and has yet to see a dime of extra money. Needless to say, she's not happy to see the Horse Princess work from 9:00-4:30. Apparently, that is because the Horse Princess takes her lunch at 4:30 so she can leave early and go to see her horse. I don't want to know.
It didn't take long for the Dragon Lady to start breathing fire. When 7-5 turns into 7-6, and you feel like you are running the whole show (doing what two weeks before was supposed to be the work of three people), it tends to make you irritable. The next thing that happened was that the Dragon Lady was asked to manage the company morale. I believe that they were thinking specifically of the Sarcastic Brit and myself, as we tend to be unsubtley pessimistic about anything to do with the Biotech Mecca.
It seems that the Horse Princess has only two functions. The first is to talk to real estate agents about moving the company to somewhere that doesn't suck. I believe that the proper description would be somewhere that we could conduct business without the Occupational Health and Safety Administration throwing us all in jail. The second is to revise all of the forms that the Dragon Lady has been spending the last year creating. However, that answering the phone for the executives when they are away (which is pretty much all of the time) is not on that list.
I get the picture that the Dragon Lady has not been very interested in playing ball with the Horse Princess. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the Horse Princess has given her notice. Perhaps it is because the senior management has a long track record of lies and incompetence. In either case, she gave one week notice, and is leaving tomorrow. From what I hear, the CEO had no idea why she would want to leave such a wonderful company, and nobody has bothered informing the COO who got home from a three-week vacation in the Middle East (religious pilgrimage perhaps?) only to be shuffled onto a plane bound for New York to try to sooth irate investors. Perhaps the COO won't notice anyway though, who emailed me today to find out what is going on at here at the Biotech Mecca.
When the Horse Princess told me that she was leaving, I asked her why. She cited her commute, the horse, and the generally screwed up state of the company. She told me that at least we would be moving to a nice new facility. My response was "Great. Then we can be a crappy company in a good facility." She didn't argue. She did make a point of telling me how important I am to the company. She then asked me how I have made it almost two years. My response is that the company is much better than it used to be. But those stories are for future posts.
I would like to take a break from Captain Fantastic and spend a bit of time writing about morale. What precipitated this unanticipated change in topics, you may ask? It has come to my attention that the executive assistant is leaving. What makes this special is that it's only been a couple of weeks since the useless receptionist was sacked, and the executive assistant has only been employed with the Biotech Mecca for less than six weeks.
Originally, the Biotech Mecca had only the receptionist. At least, she usually sat at the front desk. That is when she wasn't napping in her car, participating in deep religious conversations with the accountant who is supposed to be doing the SEC filings (remember him?), staring with moon eyes at the Sarcastic Brit (who is apparently the sexiest man in the universe), or just generally staring out into space. Please note that this list did NOT include answering the telephone. Since there was no automated switchboard at that time, it made everybody at the Biotech Mecca somewhat difficult to get in touch with.
Anyway, the receptionist was responsible for greeting people at the door, issuing purchase orders (and God forbid actually ordering crap), as well as performing generally assistive tasks. The truth of the matter is that she was hired by a couple of people who thought that she was hot (I would hate to see their opinion of ugly). She also had about a 25% success rate with ordering things, and was nearly as bad about keeping track of the paperwork for this. Despite these things, she was sent to training so that she would be qualified to do the SEC filings. I should also mention that she managed to convince her boss (the unmarried accountant who thought that she was hot) that it should be no problem to stop working Fridays. After all, she wasn't being paid that well anyway.
Before too long, it was decided that the Biotech Mecca had grown enough that we needed a person to take care of accounts payable. Hence the Dragon Lady was hired. Being a cross between Tony Soprano and Rambo, the Dragon Lady didn't take kindly to lost paperwork and soon assumed the ordering part of things. Then, she started answering the phones. Then she started taking care of all of the shipping. After that, the Dragon Lady started taking care of things like making sure that the cleaners came in to do the floors, and eventually also picked up the task of being the personal assistant for the CEO and the COO.
Oddly enough, it was determined that another person was required. They hired the Amazon princess. As far as I can tell, the only thing important to this particular princess is her horse. As she sits in the cubicle across from me, I have gotten to hear all about the horse (and about how sweetly I talk to my wife on the telephone.) Anyway, the Horse Princess apparently has a long history of working for functional companies. It seems that in functional companies, executive assistants are not required to go and fetch lunch, run to the business store, and clean up the conference room before important meetings.
I do not need to tell you that the Horse Princess and the Dragon Lady don't get along. I have always been told that power struggles between women can get ugly. I now understand what that means.
After a week or two, the insightful management decided that all of this administrative assistance was too expensive, so they axed the receptionist. Of course, the Dragon Lady had managed to take over most of her duties anyway. The only problem was that they needed a warm body to man the front desk from 9:00-5:00. The Dragon Lady worked 7:00-3:00. It was decided that the Dragon Lady and the Horse Princess would take turns working late. Unfortunately, nobody ever told the Dragon Lady, who suddenly got pushed into a 7:00-5:00 schedule and has yet to see a dime of extra money. Needless to say, she's not happy to see the Horse Princess work from 9:00-4:30. Apparently, that is because the Horse Princess takes her lunch at 4:30 so she can leave early and go to see her horse. I don't want to know.
It didn't take long for the Dragon Lady to start breathing fire. When 7-5 turns into 7-6, and you feel like you are running the whole show (doing what two weeks before was supposed to be the work of three people), it tends to make you irritable. The next thing that happened was that the Dragon Lady was asked to manage the company morale. I believe that they were thinking specifically of the Sarcastic Brit and myself, as we tend to be unsubtley pessimistic about anything to do with the Biotech Mecca.
It seems that the Horse Princess has only two functions. The first is to talk to real estate agents about moving the company to somewhere that doesn't suck. I believe that the proper description would be somewhere that we could conduct business without the Occupational Health and Safety Administration throwing us all in jail. The second is to revise all of the forms that the Dragon Lady has been spending the last year creating. However, that answering the phone for the executives when they are away (which is pretty much all of the time) is not on that list.
I get the picture that the Dragon Lady has not been very interested in playing ball with the Horse Princess. Perhaps this is part of the reason that the Horse Princess has given her notice. Perhaps it is because the senior management has a long track record of lies and incompetence. In either case, she gave one week notice, and is leaving tomorrow. From what I hear, the CEO had no idea why she would want to leave such a wonderful company, and nobody has bothered informing the COO who got home from a three-week vacation in the Middle East (religious pilgrimage perhaps?) only to be shuffled onto a plane bound for New York to try to sooth irate investors. Perhaps the COO won't notice anyway though, who emailed me today to find out what is going on at here at the Biotech Mecca.
When the Horse Princess told me that she was leaving, I asked her why. She cited her commute, the horse, and the generally screwed up state of the company. She told me that at least we would be moving to a nice new facility. My response was "Great. Then we can be a crappy company in a good facility." She didn't argue. She did make a point of telling me how important I am to the company. She then asked me how I have made it almost two years. My response is that the company is much better than it used to be. But those stories are for future posts.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Captain Fantastic
I was cleaning out some boxes lying around my cubicle and I stumbled upon a couple of old business cards. They have forced me to come about to starting the story of one of the most interesting characters to have graced the halls of the Biotech Mecca.
I have not yet written about the "engineer" known as Captain Fantastic because I have been unsure regarding where to begin. On the surface the Captain was not only likable, but also capable and creative. Unfortunately, that outward appearance was merely the facade of one who was willing to use flattery, deceit and antagonism to cover up his inability to get the job done. I realize that this judgment seems a wee bit harsh, but alas, I was forced to draw this conclusion based on the observations of nearly a full year.
The story starts after I interviewed to go work at the Biotech Mecca, but before I actually started. (Remembering that the intervening period was nearly eight months.) The Mad Man (former VP of Engineering) had hired the Sarcastic Brit, who had decided that he was tired of trying to find the proverbial fifth leg of the cat.
The former CTO (remember the guy who can't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag with a chain saw?) informed the Mad Man that he had "a really good guy" coming over for an interview. This guy would be the Director of Engineering, and would be starting immediately. By the way, he would be arriving in about ten minutes and you don't need to see his resume. Really?
Needless to say, the job interview was somewhat pointless. Captain Fantastic was in the door. Now, we fast forward to my first week of work. I had just towed a trailer across the continent in my poor old Nissan. My child had screamed the whole way. I was living in a hotel and had the movers calling daily, threatening to drop my family's belongings on the street if I didn't have a place to live by the time the truck arrived in town with our stuff. Needless to say, I was not at my best. My first task was to help Captain Fantastic try to find various pieces of strange equipment: a miniature vacuum forming machine, a platen press... I forget the others. I had never used any of this crap before. I certainly had no idea of where to find it, or even what he wanted it for.
At the end of the first week, my boss (the Mad Man from down south) informed me that Captain Fantastic had approached him to let him know that I was slow. I think that the Mad Man was more upset about it than I was. He had carefully recruited me from Canada, where I had worked for him for three years. He was pretty sure that I had not suffered from massive brain damage in the intervening time, and hence was probably not slow. At least one person had given me a vote of confidence.
The Captain spoke constantly of "when I had my company", which was apparently a very successful automation company, which he claimed he sold because it was just too much work. I often wondered why a guy who had operated and sold a successful company was driving a Honda Civic of 10+ years vintage. Perhaps 1998 was a particularly good year for Civics. Perhaps he had other vices than cars. I discovered that it certainly wasn't clothing - between the hawaiian shirts and the mohair suit.
One thing the captain had in spades was ready consultants. There was the electronics guy (Miracle FET) with "25 years experience", which the Sarcastic Brit soon revised to "F**king it up for 25 years in Silicon Valley. Miracle FET is worth a couple of postings on his own though, so I will save that for later. There was the Captain's sidekick, Smee, who later got a job teaching statistics at a local university. (Made all the more scary because I tried to explain some simple stats to her - only to be told that I was pontificating). Of course, this consultant wasn't up to the job she was given, and had to hire her own consultant to help out. I believe that her consultant actually brought in a consultant of his own as well. Again, this project is worth it's own post, or perhaps even two or three of them.
But... I digress.
After a short period of time, the Mad Man decided to split the project team into two sub teams: one doing optics, and the other working on the mechanics. In the interest of expediency, he decided that I would work with him on the optics, leaving the Sarcastic Brit to work with Captain Fantastic. The Sarcastic Brit seemed a little bit embittered by this. I later found out it was because he had already caught Captain Fantastic passing the Sarcastic Brit's ideas off as his own.
One of my first tasks was design of filter wheels. I started out with a nice simple design that had a couple of screws with washers to hold in the filters. Captain Fantastic told me that it was very poor practice to do that. You had to minimize the number of parts in the BOM. Those bolts and screws are just extra items in the Bill of Materials. They need to be removed. The proper way to do it is to machine springs into the aluminum. Presto - the filters are held in place and you only have one part in the Bill of Materials. I was dubious. He offered to model it up in Solid Works for me to show me how it was done. Perhaps he had a low opinion of me, but at least he was willing to teach me from his great fount of knowledge.
Unfortunately, he was much too busy to help me right then, but I dutifully followed his advice (being a Director and all) and tried to come up with a design with those machined springs. That design (the concept - not the implementation) has been the source of much mocking from every mechanical design guy that has walked in the door since. Apparently, that was only the way it was done in his head.
Next, we move on to the limit switches. I had selected nice, inexpensive ($6) limit switches. They were of a type that I had used before in other projects without incident. Captain Fantastic informed me that they would not work. He would know, afterall, he routinely bolted the limit switches onto instruments as they were going onto the truck. He picked out better switches. I believe he meant easier to use. I looked a the price - yikes, they were $60 each. Then, I did a quick tally: 11 limit switches in the instrument. I decided that it was time the Captain learned to use the cheap switches. Fortunately, the Mad Man and the Sarcastic Brit saw things my way.
Next, we move on to the selection of the motor. We had a problem with "ringing" of the filter wheel on the motor. Oddly enough, the wheel, coupled with the electromagnetic forces of the stepper motor makes a very nice pendulum. The Captain told me that I didn't understand. I told him that if we increased the torque of the motor the spring constant would go up, making the frequency of the oscillations higher and the amplitude lower. I had calculations that modled things, and the numbers worked. He still insisted that I had no clue. I reminded him that I have a degree in physics and may have some clue about how pendulums work. He told me that he had a three year degree (where I come from real degrees take four years) in mathematics from Santa Clara University. That's sort of like Stanford, right? Apparently I knew nothing.
Even after I switched to a higher powered motor and completely solved the problem, he insisted that the filter wheel needed to be redesigned. It just didn't work. I'm not sure how. It moved the filters into position and held them there. I think that sums up the functional requirements for a filter wheel quite nicely.
Now that I have started, there is so much to write about. There is "the drawer", that delayed the instrument prototype for three months. There is the "inconceivable" failure of the pressure sensitive adhesive, begging the draftsman to alter drawing dates, the accusations of sabotage, the lies, the threats, the yelling, the screaming, the backstabbing. Sorry... got out of control there. Looks like I have plenty of material for the next posting or 20.
By the way, you may want to check out this Captain Fantastic video from Do Not Adjust Your Set.
I have not yet written about the "engineer" known as Captain Fantastic because I have been unsure regarding where to begin. On the surface the Captain was not only likable, but also capable and creative. Unfortunately, that outward appearance was merely the facade of one who was willing to use flattery, deceit and antagonism to cover up his inability to get the job done. I realize that this judgment seems a wee bit harsh, but alas, I was forced to draw this conclusion based on the observations of nearly a full year.
The story starts after I interviewed to go work at the Biotech Mecca, but before I actually started. (Remembering that the intervening period was nearly eight months.) The Mad Man (former VP of Engineering) had hired the Sarcastic Brit, who had decided that he was tired of trying to find the proverbial fifth leg of the cat.
The former CTO (remember the guy who can't engineer his way out of a wet paper bag with a chain saw?) informed the Mad Man that he had "a really good guy" coming over for an interview. This guy would be the Director of Engineering, and would be starting immediately. By the way, he would be arriving in about ten minutes and you don't need to see his resume. Really?
Needless to say, the job interview was somewhat pointless. Captain Fantastic was in the door. Now, we fast forward to my first week of work. I had just towed a trailer across the continent in my poor old Nissan. My child had screamed the whole way. I was living in a hotel and had the movers calling daily, threatening to drop my family's belongings on the street if I didn't have a place to live by the time the truck arrived in town with our stuff. Needless to say, I was not at my best. My first task was to help Captain Fantastic try to find various pieces of strange equipment: a miniature vacuum forming machine, a platen press... I forget the others. I had never used any of this crap before. I certainly had no idea of where to find it, or even what he wanted it for.
At the end of the first week, my boss (the Mad Man from down south) informed me that Captain Fantastic had approached him to let him know that I was slow. I think that the Mad Man was more upset about it than I was. He had carefully recruited me from Canada, where I had worked for him for three years. He was pretty sure that I had not suffered from massive brain damage in the intervening time, and hence was probably not slow. At least one person had given me a vote of confidence.
The Captain spoke constantly of "when I had my company", which was apparently a very successful automation company, which he claimed he sold because it was just too much work. I often wondered why a guy who had operated and sold a successful company was driving a Honda Civic of 10+ years vintage. Perhaps 1998 was a particularly good year for Civics. Perhaps he had other vices than cars. I discovered that it certainly wasn't clothing - between the hawaiian shirts and the mohair suit.
One thing the captain had in spades was ready consultants. There was the electronics guy (Miracle FET) with "25 years experience", which the Sarcastic Brit soon revised to "F**king it up for 25 years in Silicon Valley. Miracle FET is worth a couple of postings on his own though, so I will save that for later. There was the Captain's sidekick, Smee, who later got a job teaching statistics at a local university. (Made all the more scary because I tried to explain some simple stats to her - only to be told that I was pontificating). Of course, this consultant wasn't up to the job she was given, and had to hire her own consultant to help out. I believe that her consultant actually brought in a consultant of his own as well. Again, this project is worth it's own post, or perhaps even two or three of them.
But... I digress.
After a short period of time, the Mad Man decided to split the project team into two sub teams: one doing optics, and the other working on the mechanics. In the interest of expediency, he decided that I would work with him on the optics, leaving the Sarcastic Brit to work with Captain Fantastic. The Sarcastic Brit seemed a little bit embittered by this. I later found out it was because he had already caught Captain Fantastic passing the Sarcastic Brit's ideas off as his own.
One of my first tasks was design of filter wheels. I started out with a nice simple design that had a couple of screws with washers to hold in the filters. Captain Fantastic told me that it was very poor practice to do that. You had to minimize the number of parts in the BOM. Those bolts and screws are just extra items in the Bill of Materials. They need to be removed. The proper way to do it is to machine springs into the aluminum. Presto - the filters are held in place and you only have one part in the Bill of Materials. I was dubious. He offered to model it up in Solid Works for me to show me how it was done. Perhaps he had a low opinion of me, but at least he was willing to teach me from his great fount of knowledge.
Unfortunately, he was much too busy to help me right then, but I dutifully followed his advice (being a Director and all) and tried to come up with a design with those machined springs. That design (the concept - not the implementation) has been the source of much mocking from every mechanical design guy that has walked in the door since. Apparently, that was only the way it was done in his head.
Next, we move on to the limit switches. I had selected nice, inexpensive ($6) limit switches. They were of a type that I had used before in other projects without incident. Captain Fantastic informed me that they would not work. He would know, afterall, he routinely bolted the limit switches onto instruments as they were going onto the truck. He picked out better switches. I believe he meant easier to use. I looked a the price - yikes, they were $60 each. Then, I did a quick tally: 11 limit switches in the instrument. I decided that it was time the Captain learned to use the cheap switches. Fortunately, the Mad Man and the Sarcastic Brit saw things my way.
Next, we move on to the selection of the motor. We had a problem with "ringing" of the filter wheel on the motor. Oddly enough, the wheel, coupled with the electromagnetic forces of the stepper motor makes a very nice pendulum. The Captain told me that I didn't understand. I told him that if we increased the torque of the motor the spring constant would go up, making the frequency of the oscillations higher and the amplitude lower. I had calculations that modled things, and the numbers worked. He still insisted that I had no clue. I reminded him that I have a degree in physics and may have some clue about how pendulums work. He told me that he had a three year degree (where I come from real degrees take four years) in mathematics from Santa Clara University. That's sort of like Stanford, right? Apparently I knew nothing.
Even after I switched to a higher powered motor and completely solved the problem, he insisted that the filter wheel needed to be redesigned. It just didn't work. I'm not sure how. It moved the filters into position and held them there. I think that sums up the functional requirements for a filter wheel quite nicely.
Now that I have started, there is so much to write about. There is "the drawer", that delayed the instrument prototype for three months. There is the "inconceivable" failure of the pressure sensitive adhesive, begging the draftsman to alter drawing dates, the accusations of sabotage, the lies, the threats, the yelling, the screaming, the backstabbing. Sorry... got out of control there. Looks like I have plenty of material for the next posting or 20.
By the way, you may want to check out this Captain Fantastic video from Do Not Adjust Your Set.
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