My employer's normal response to any situation is inversely proportional to the complexity of the stimulus.
If the situation is perfectly simple and everybody involved is already perfectly clear about everything, he will speak at length and in detail. If the situation is a huge rat's nest of intricate odds and ends, his response is likely to be a bland smile as he hands over some accumulated notes: "Here, deal with this." -- After the fact, and with no briefing on the history of the whole thing.
Remember:
WHEN IN DOUBT, BE VAGUE.
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work. Show all posts
7/17/2014
Wiki Wander 17 July 2014
It was work related! Honest!
Started with the label of a purple gasket replacement gel containing the descriptor THIXOTROPIC.
By the time I gave up, I had visited
RHEOPECTY
DILATANT fluid
BINGHAM PLASTIC
NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID
and FLOCCULATION.
Special guest appearances by science and math!
Started with the label of a purple gasket replacement gel containing the descriptor THIXOTROPIC.
By the time I gave up, I had visited
RHEOPECTY
DILATANT fluid
BINGHAM PLASTIC
NON-NEWTONIAN FLUID
and FLOCCULATION.
Special guest appearances by science and math!
"Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all."
-- Dr. Seuss
5/31/2014
Not going gentle into the 21st Century
Some companies I do business with are only lately being dragged kicking and screaming into the information age.
On a vendor web site, I'm trying to figure out this product matches what we need at the shop. Don't bother trying to telephone the vendor -- all you'll get is, at best, a very courteous and sincere young person who has access to exactly the same web page that I have.
But look! They have a helpful explanatory video!
Only not:
"This video does not exist."
It was a trap. And I walked right into it with both feet, and my hands in my pockets.
Disappointed cat is disappointed.
On a vendor web site, I'm trying to figure out this product matches what we need at the shop. Don't bother trying to telephone the vendor -- all you'll get is, at best, a very courteous and sincere young person who has access to exactly the same web page that I have.
But look! They have a helpful explanatory video!
Only not:
"This video does not exist."
It was a trap. And I walked right into it with both feet, and my hands in my pockets.
Disappointed cat is disappointed.
5/29/2014
Small (and Large) Change
The tasks that are to be faced each day at work always require more time than one day provides. Therefore a type of triage needs to be performed to move some tasks off the back burner and others to the front of the front burner. Otherwise nothing gets done. Or nothing seems to get done, because the only things that get addressed are the new tasks the day brings, and which always arrive like Neville's grandmother's howlers dropped by owl during breakfast.
I have seen a kind of automated coin sorter that uses rotating discs with coin sized holes to separate each different diameter of currency into a separate pile. Most days my task triage works the same way, picking out the biggest items and feeling good about getting them into the stack marked DONE.
But if I do this every day, then there would be a constantly-growing number of small tasks that fall through the sorting process every day.
So every once in a while -- once a week or twice a month? -- the sorting algorithm gets turned on its head and I try to see how many of the nagging little nits I can pick out and crush. Good intentions being what they are and all that, it always seems like THOSE are the days when a big muddy sluice comes flooding into my department and over my desk with a fresh alluvial deposit of Big Diameter Problems, all in bright red envelopes. Cover your ears and run for your life!
And the ha'pennies keep silting up the crannies of my work spaces ...
I have seen a kind of automated coin sorter that uses rotating discs with coin sized holes to separate each different diameter of currency into a separate pile. Most days my task triage works the same way, picking out the biggest items and feeling good about getting them into the stack marked DONE.
But if I do this every day, then there would be a constantly-growing number of small tasks that fall through the sorting process every day.
So every once in a while -- once a week or twice a month? -- the sorting algorithm gets turned on its head and I try to see how many of the nagging little nits I can pick out and crush. Good intentions being what they are and all that, it always seems like THOSE are the days when a big muddy sluice comes flooding into my department and over my desk with a fresh alluvial deposit of Big Diameter Problems, all in bright red envelopes. Cover your ears and run for your life!
And the ha'pennies keep silting up the crannies of my work spaces ...
5/02/2014
Be vague. Be very vague.
People respond to stressful situations at their level of basic training.
They do not rise to the occasion. What appears to be "rising to the occasion" is how the untrained view the well-trained when the poop hits the air circulator and it turns out that Mr. Well-Trained has been operating at a power-conservation level all this time.
This goes for emergency situations. Firearms training. It also goes for basic moral fiber, as revealed in the everyday work world.
I work with people whose response to stress (which turns out to be anything that they did not initiate knowing they could control it) is to become vague.
As a purchasing agent, I know what this look like: department heads give me the least meaningful information and make the most egregious assumptions.
I don't work in your department. I don't work with your equipment. I don't know the operating parameters. I did not engineer this project for the last eight months. So when you bring me a little slip of paper (oh yes -- the paper size is in direct proportion to the quantity of hard information and in reciprocal relation to the degree of requester's stress) that says,
'Price on CBN stones & holder DBL length (2x4") 5.709" ID'
I have no idea (as I am pretty sure you haven't either, dear reader) what you are talking about.
So I basically have to both psychoanalyze the requester, and re-engineer the whole thing, and come up with a recommendation for something that's way out of my area of expertise.
See? If anything goes wrong, blame Purchasing!
Being bad at coming up with information is balanced by being really good at casting blame in the after-action reports.
Time to wave the flag. (Not the flag of surrender.)
They do not rise to the occasion. What appears to be "rising to the occasion" is how the untrained view the well-trained when the poop hits the air circulator and it turns out that Mr. Well-Trained has been operating at a power-conservation level all this time.
This goes for emergency situations. Firearms training. It also goes for basic moral fiber, as revealed in the everyday work world.
I work with people whose response to stress (which turns out to be anything that they did not initiate knowing they could control it) is to become vague.
As a purchasing agent, I know what this look like: department heads give me the least meaningful information and make the most egregious assumptions.
I don't work in your department. I don't work with your equipment. I don't know the operating parameters. I did not engineer this project for the last eight months. So when you bring me a little slip of paper (oh yes -- the paper size is in direct proportion to the quantity of hard information and in reciprocal relation to the degree of requester's stress) that says,
'Price on CBN stones & holder DBL length (2x4") 5.709" ID'
I have no idea (as I am pretty sure you haven't either, dear reader) what you are talking about.
So I basically have to both psychoanalyze the requester, and re-engineer the whole thing, and come up with a recommendation for something that's way out of my area of expertise.
See? If anything goes wrong, blame Purchasing!
Being bad at coming up with information is balanced by being really good at casting blame in the after-action reports.
Time to wave the flag. (Not the flag of surrender.)
4/30/2014
WTF??? The Flag of WTFness
I saw this logo on a dump truck in the shop today. It stands for "Western Truck Fabrication" which is much older than the internet. But that's still their logo. Seriously, Western Truck Fab graphic design decider, WTF?
So I made a kind of flag out of their little WTF logo, because: WTF.
This is now and forever to be the official flag of WTFness or if not, WTF?
So I made a kind of flag out of their little WTF logo, because: WTF.
This is now and forever to be the official flag of WTFness or if not, WTF?
6/22/2013
Art Criticism
[a repost from June 2011 when crowndot.com was a Posterous (R.I.P.) blog]
So this little communication-challenged man comes up to the parts counter at work, and I am totally not understanding what he is trying to ask me. Subject? Verb? Object? -- He hasn't filled in any of the blanks for me.
"Eesss a, eess, uh . . . khow you say? Uh, you have pepper?," he asked.
"I'm sorry? Pardon me?," I attempted to ask for clarification.
"Uh, you khave uh pen a pepper?"
I handed him a ball point pen and a clipboard loaded with copy paper. This is his illustration:
That is an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper. And that is his drawing. Really. This is what I deal with day after day. For their own safety, people with this tenuous a grasp on reality should not be allowed to roam about unsupervised. Let alone be allowed to work on large equipment. He was trying to draw one of these:
Aha! I see your are cleverly and playfully deconstructing the construction industry! However I find this work menacing as well, in that the aura of tension created by the minisculization of the scribbled signifier seems very disturbing in light of the accessibility of the work. With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive transmutation of quasi-biomorphic forms threatens to disintegrate the inherent overspecificity. In sum, the work verges on codifying our own participation in the critical dialogue of the last decade. Or something.
So this little communication-challenged man comes up to the parts counter at work, and I am totally not understanding what he is trying to ask me. Subject? Verb? Object? -- He hasn't filled in any of the blanks for me.
"Eesss a, eess, uh . . . khow you say? Uh, you have pepper?," he asked.
"I'm sorry? Pardon me?," I attempted to ask for clarification.
"Uh, you khave uh pen a pepper?"
I handed him a ball point pen and a clipboard loaded with copy paper. This is his illustration:
Aha! I see your are cleverly and playfully deconstructing the construction industry! However I find this work menacing as well, in that the aura of tension created by the minisculization of the scribbled signifier seems very disturbing in light of the accessibility of the work. With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive transmutation of quasi-biomorphic forms threatens to disintegrate the inherent overspecificity. In sum, the work verges on codifying our own participation in the critical dialogue of the last decade. Or something.
1/26/2013
Things happen at work...
Buying stainless steel rod oversize, then turning and grinding, is cheaper (even with the labor) than buying the rod already Turned Ground and Polished (TGP). We're talking small quanitities here, since I work for a small machine shop that does repair work.
A particular piece of 316 stainless came in at ~2.625" Outside Diameter, as drawn (drawn through a die to make it round, not drawn as in on a a piece of paper). It was taken to the Machining area and pre-machined to ~2.500" O.D., then routed to the Polishing Department to polish for chrome plating. We have 0.002" of hard chrome applied to the surface. They call it "two thousandths per side". Try arguing with the plating tech about how a cylindrical object only has one side, the outside. What they mean is that by putting 0.002" onto the outside surface, you add 0.004" to the Outside Diameter (hence "two per side"). So the pre-turned rod had to be ground to 2.5945" to 2.5950" to finish after plating at 2.9990", giving it one thousandth of an inch of slip clearance into the counterbore. I love writing technical junk!
If you're still with me, here's the scenario:
I am looking at the polished-for-plating rod, wrapped in kraft paper and stretch-wrap, on which the grinding technician (We'll call him "Squint") has written in fat black permanent marker: 2.522" .
ME: Hey Squint, didn't this rod get brought to you from Machining?
SQUINT: Yeah. Boss said take four thousandths off it and then get a final measurement.
ME: How can it now be bigger than it was when it was taken out of the lathe?
SQUINT: ...
ME: Um, did you use calipers or micrometers?
SQUINT: I mic'd it.
ME: Can you please unwrap this and do it again?
( Resistance interlude, after which Squint sets the mic but hands it to me. The mic reads 2.4960". )
ME (handing the mic back to Squint): What does that mic read?
SQUINT (gradually extends his hands with the micrometer farther and farther from his face, and walking over to right in front of a 500W job light, while making his eponymous facial expression): Um...
ME: Dude, you need glasses!
SQUINT: No I don't!
ME: You need to have your eyes checked, or at least buy a pair of reading glasses! You can't even read the mics! You're 50 years old! It happens to everybody!
SQUINT: No, they said I don't need glasses.
ME: You had your eyes checked?
SQUINT: Yeah, they said they were fine and I don't need glasses.
ME: You went to the eye doctor, and the eye doctor asked you to read something like I just did, and he said you don't need vision correction?!
SQUINT: Yeah, they said I don't need glasses.
ME: You've been malpracticed, man! Who did you go to? We have Kaiser coverage. You're saying a Kaiser doctor...
SQUINT: Well...
ME: Well? Where did you have you eyes checked?
SQUINT: At the Department of Motor Vehicles when I renewed my license!
ME (NOT out loud): I am so totally blogging this!
* * *
This is what we're up against.
A particular piece of 316 stainless came in at ~2.625" Outside Diameter, as drawn (drawn through a die to make it round, not drawn as in on a a piece of paper). It was taken to the Machining area and pre-machined to ~2.500" O.D., then routed to the Polishing Department to polish for chrome plating. We have 0.002" of hard chrome applied to the surface. They call it "two thousandths per side". Try arguing with the plating tech about how a cylindrical object only has one side, the outside. What they mean is that by putting 0.002" onto the outside surface, you add 0.004" to the Outside Diameter (hence "two per side"). So the pre-turned rod had to be ground to 2.5945" to 2.5950" to finish after plating at 2.9990", giving it one thousandth of an inch of slip clearance into the counterbore. I love writing technical junk!
If you're still with me, here's the scenario:
I am looking at the polished-for-plating rod, wrapped in kraft paper and stretch-wrap, on which the grinding technician (We'll call him "Squint") has written in fat black permanent marker: 2.522" .
ME: Hey Squint, didn't this rod get brought to you from Machining?
SQUINT: Yeah. Boss said take four thousandths off it and then get a final measurement.
ME: How can it now be bigger than it was when it was taken out of the lathe?
SQUINT: ...
ME: Um, did you use calipers or micrometers?
SQUINT: I mic'd it.
ME: Can you please unwrap this and do it again?
( Resistance interlude, after which Squint sets the mic but hands it to me. The mic reads 2.4960". )
ME (handing the mic back to Squint): What does that mic read?
SQUINT (gradually extends his hands with the micrometer farther and farther from his face, and walking over to right in front of a 500W job light, while making his eponymous facial expression): Um...
ME: Dude, you need glasses!
SQUINT: No I don't!
ME: You need to have your eyes checked, or at least buy a pair of reading glasses! You can't even read the mics! You're 50 years old! It happens to everybody!
SQUINT: No, they said I don't need glasses.
ME: You had your eyes checked?
SQUINT: Yeah, they said they were fine and I don't need glasses.
ME: You went to the eye doctor, and the eye doctor asked you to read something like I just did, and he said you don't need vision correction?!
SQUINT: Yeah, they said I don't need glasses.
ME: You've been malpracticed, man! Who did you go to? We have Kaiser coverage. You're saying a Kaiser doctor...
SQUINT: Well...
ME: Well? Where did you have you eyes checked?
SQUINT: At the Department of Motor Vehicles when I renewed my license!
ME (NOT out loud): I am so totally blogging this!
* * *
This is what we're up against.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)