| Author |
Message |
    
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:37 pm: | 
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Court,
Thanks for the reference to Dr. Levin. At least a couple new books to put on my list. She sounds wonderful, boots or no boots. 
Patrick,
I gotta admit, that one snuck past me. I am wondering about how much of the trillion dollar stimulus has been held back intended for release and best effect just prior to the 2012 election. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 02:38 pm: |
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Hold on! We have boots! Don't tell RT! |
Court
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 04:34 pm: |
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For boots . . . well, you have to go to my idol . . Lisa Randall. World famous expert on theoretical physics and the first tenured female Physicist at M.I.T.
I enjoy academia. . . .
Off to teach QA/QC and ISO . . . see ya later.
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Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 04:43 pm: |
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Off to teach QA/QC and ISO . . . see ya later.
Now you're talking my language, throw in some performance measures like inputs, outputs, and outcomes, and we can have a real party.
Government folks, academia included, get all nervous and sweaty when you start talking about applying that stuff to them
(Message edited by sayitaintso on April 06, 2011) |
Aesquire
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 09:22 pm: |
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...get all nervous and sweaty when you start talking about applying that stuff to them
Lots of people do. A long time ago in a factory far far away.....
Somehow a batch of MMC parts had made it all the way to the grinding dept, through finish machining, having somehow skipped heat treat. This gave me ( In QC ) a dozen pallets of precision optical thingees that were a stone waste of time. They couldn't be heat treated and then remachined, they were already within a few thousands of an inch of final size. Warpage and dimensional change were certain. They couldn't be put into the grinders and finished, they'd explode. ( also not work ) A complex thingee, 2 feet long, looking like a bucket with a shaft through it. Total waste of ( $4k finished cost ) space and effort. I have no idea how they made it through the CNC lathes without blowing up.
So I wrote the whole batch up as scrap, sent a report to the engineer in charge, and had them stacked in the hall for disposal.
The next day I'm getting reamed by 4 managers, yelling at me how much money my stupidity was wasting, while ignoring my attempt at explanation. At the third threat of being fired for incompetence, I picked up a thingee, held it chest high, and dropped it on the concrete floor. A heat treated part would have dented, bent, and been 4k ruined. This one shattered like sandy glass. As the management team wound up to full Warner Bro's Taz fury, the engineer walked around the corner, glanced at the pile of shards, handed me the paperwork, said "good catch, that could have killed someone, scrap 'em all" and strolled away, "oblivious" to the stunned management team staring open mouthed. I handed over the paperwork, said "ok, back to work" and....went back to work.
The real world does not respond to threats, or votes. |
Swampy
| | Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2011 - 10:24 pm: |
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As they say in show business
"Timing is everything"
My timing is always a little off...situations like that never work out for me that well. |
Sayitaintso
| | Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2011 - 08:51 am: |
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Good story, I often wish I was more on the front end of things and could spend more time finding problems before they blow up into huge messes.....rather than the back end and putting the wounded out of their misery (which is what I feel like my job often turns into). In your case I would have been called in after someone died and been asked to figure out where the internal controls broke down and allowed a defective part to be shipped. Most likely the guys on the production line would already know what happened but management doesn't trust them and wants an "independent" assessment... so I have a job.
The three buzz words we go by are: efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability.
I'd love to spend more time on the first two and not so much on the third. We'll spend 2 months looking into a $2,500 fraud and what breakdown in internal controls allowed it to happen rather than helping ensure a $100 million project is a success by reviewing and testing the work subs and materials (or whatever may be applicable to the project). |
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