Author Topic: Personal Stuff  (Read 55941 times)

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Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #525 on: December 23, 2018, 01:09:38 pm »
And thus was born the Flarnex 5040. Just three guys standing around with coffee mugs talking Geordi LaForge technobable. I work with amazing people.

OMG I just realized that this is an "agile workspace"!  Michael! Michael! We're agile!

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #526 on: December 23, 2018, 02:02:48 pm »
Tell Old Economy Dave that.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #527 on: December 25, 2018, 01:36:29 pm »
Ted Technician can be a bit of a headache around the office. He is usually pleasant and cheerful, but he is one of those people who always has to be right. He is very stubborn and headstrong and convinced of his correctness. If people disagree with him he repeats himself slowly and more loudly.  Also he magically appears wherever people are talking about something more interesting than what he's supposed to be working on so that he can add his own (assuredly correct) opinion to the mix. One time Good Boss Greg and Engineer Ed made a technical decision, and when Ted found out about it he came stampeding over to explain that he'd come up with a better idea.
Greg: "We talked about that, but we decided against it because of these reasons."
Ted: "...but..."
Ed: "also, we didn't like that because of these other reasons."
Ted: "...but..."
Greg: "Sorry, Ted."
He was overruled.  But that didn't stop him from spending the rest of the day pouting to anybody who'd listen.

Good Boss Greg is great to work for. He's always pleasant and even-tempered and always clear about what needs to be done.  He's got millions of great ideas, far more ideas than Ed and Ted and Bob have time to actually work on.

Engineer Ed is somewhat aloof. He is sometimes friendly and sociable, but often has his head in work. He'll walk down the hallway focused on something and not acknowledge that you're even there.   He is tall, athletic, well-dressed, and somewhat good looking. He can be witty and charming when he's pretending to be human.  Which is not all the time. He might be a clone or an alien shapeshifter or a Terminator robot wrapped in flesh. I am not sure what it is, but there are times when I just get this vague "uncanny valley" sense from Ed that gives me the creeps.  I don't know if I am the only one that senses it. Like on the TV show "Dexter", Dexter has everybody fooled except for the black cop who can see right through his act... maybe it's just me that has this sense that Ed is not all there.  I don't have any reason to assume Ed is actually dangerous. He may simply be very "in his head" a lot of the time, and not reacting to social stimulus. I really don't know.  However, I am pretty sure that if any of my co-workers has a human body in their freezer, it would be Ed. If anybody were to show up at work and go on a homicide spree, I think it would be Ed.  He has this very calm and controlled nature that makes me think that someday he could snap.  I have this vague sense that like Patrick Bateman or Roose Bolton, Ed's  pleasant exterior is hiding some powder-keg of rage and violence just waiting to blow up.

A couple of weeks ago the minions had built a bunch of units that were failing final test, so Ed comes over to my cubicle to explain the situation.  So I dug out the work order and the parts lists that we used to build the units. He looks over the parts lists and says "this isn't right."  And I told him that this was an updated parts list that Ted had given me and Greg had signed off on.

So he goes over to Ted's area and says "Ted, why did you delete these parts from the parts list?"
Ted: "Those parts aren't used in this version, so I wanted to speed up assembly and reduce cost."
Ed: "The unit doesn't work without those parts."
Ted: "...they shouldn't matter, they're only used for ...  ... Oh."
Ed: "So you decided to make 6 hours of work for me to save 50 cents worth of parts?"
(This is the closest I've seen Ed to actually being angry.)
Ted: "uhhhh..."
Ed: "hmmm.  Interesting."  (smiles and leaves.)

I can only imagine that he was smiling at the idea of mounting Ted's disembodied skull on a shelf in his cubicle.


 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #528 on: December 27, 2018, 07:12:13 am »
I always say 'mistakes are ok'.  If they happen twice, then it's the workers fault and we talk about it and put in something to mitigate it.  If it happens 3 times it's my fault.

Anybody else working this week ?  :-[

Offline wilber

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #529 on: December 27, 2018, 07:45:03 pm »
Sad day in my daughters family, they had to put down their Lab that the kids grew up with. He was a great dog but old and had cancer. Playing god sucks.
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC
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Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #530 on: December 27, 2018, 09:24:39 pm »
Sorry to hear.  Those are good dogs.

Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #531 on: December 28, 2018, 03:35:30 am »
Losing a pet is awful. :(   It leaves a tiny paw-shaped hole in your heart that never completely heals. 

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City

Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #532 on: December 28, 2018, 04:43:53 am »
I always say 'mistakes are ok'.  If they happen twice, then it's the workers fault and we talk about it and put in something to mitigate it.  If it happens 3 times it's my fault.

I think I read a Sun Tzu version of this where the emperor had challenged him to teach the maids and serving-girls to march like a military troupe. He arranged the girls into squads, appointed squad leaders, and trained them how the march was supposed to be done.

The first attempt, the girls made a complete shambles of it and laughed and turned it into a farce.  Sun Tzu apologized profusely to the girls for not giving adequate instruction, and clarified how everything was to be done.

The second time, the girls again turned it into a big farce. Sun Tzu said that this time he had made sure that they girls had been provided with adequate instruction, and yet the results were still unsatisfactory. So he had each of the girl's squad leaders executed while the others watched in horror.

The third time there was no laughter, no farce, and everyone did exactly as Sun Tzu had instructed.

Obviously I can't execute the Minions, but perhaps I should start a rumor that under-performers could end up in Ed's freezer.


Reasons mistakes happen:

 -Documentation has not been prepared correctly.  This is sometimes my fault, but not usually. Sometimes stuff from the engineers doesn't get carried through into the final design properly. This is often Boring Stories Bob type issues, as he does the CAD work. Of course this is not always Bob's fault, as the engineers sometimes hand him drawings that are covered with indecipherable red pen markings with stuff drawn in, crossed out, arrows and lines everywhere, and so on. They're supposed to review and approve the drawings afterward, but I imagine that sometimes they just glance at it and hit the approve button.
 -Beta Minion sometimes daydreams while she's working. Alpha Minion keeps an eye on her, but she can't be there all the time.
 -Ted Technician hubris.
As far as human error, that's our main sources. We do have processes that are supposed to ensure that stuff gets done right, but processes can't help some stuff.


We hired a new Minion in December.  He is a large nondescript man, but he is quiet as a mouse.  In terms of appearance, he reminds me of Grimace from McDonald's, or Patrick from Spongebob Squarepants.  In terms of personality, he reminds me of Milton from Office Space. In my head, he is "Milton Minion".   I will definitely not move his stapler!


Anybody else working this week ?  :-[


LOL, no! HAHAHAHA!!!


 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City

Offline Michael Hardner

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #533 on: December 28, 2018, 07:06:40 am »
Working from home today...

Well, yes, the secret sauce is 'how much' ie. oversight, management, documentation.

With Agile you rely on the team to decide how to do things, but you always try to move them to improve if you know there is something wrong.  The guys I work with seem to have never worked with specifications.  As such, they see rework and quality issues as just a natural and unpreventable thing. :(

Offline JMT

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #534 on: December 28, 2018, 08:29:43 am »
Sad day in my daughters family, they had to put down their Lab that the kids grew up with. He was a great dog but old and had cancer. Playing god sucks.

Tis the season apparently - my sister accidentally ran over my day's 15 year old toy poodle on Christmas Eve.  It wasn't a good start to the evening.
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Offline Goddess

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #535 on: December 28, 2018, 09:24:00 am »
Losing pets is horrible.  {{{Hugs}}} to you all
"A religion without a Goddess is half-way to atheism."

Offline wilber

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #536 on: December 28, 2018, 11:17:20 am »
Tis the season apparently - my sister accidentally ran over my day's 15 year old toy poodle on Christmas Eve.  It wasn't a good start to the evening.

That's awful, your sister must feel terrible.
"Never trust a man without a single redeeming vice" WSC

Offline waldo

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #537 on: December 28, 2018, 12:17:18 pm »
Things are very good! We have lots of fun together.  Mostly in bed, but also sometimes not in bed. We've been having a lot of sex, which is good.

let me bring this thread back on track... who wears the, uhhh... indispensable & 'next best thing' apparatus?  ;D

Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #538 on: December 28, 2018, 12:51:37 pm »
let me bring this thread back on track... who wears the, uhhh... indispensable & 'next best thing' apparatus?  ;D

Honestly, neither me nor most of my partners have had much interest in that sort of apparatus.  I'm not sure if it's a real life thing that a lot of women are actually into, or if it's just an idea that has propagated through a fetishized view of girl-on-girl sex as presented in pornography intended for a male audience.

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City

Offline kimmy

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Re: Personal Stuff
« Reply #539 on: December 28, 2018, 01:20:15 pm »
Working from home today...

Well, yes, the secret sauce is 'how much' ie. oversight, management, documentation.

With Agile you rely on the team to decide how to do things, but you always try to move them to improve if you know there is something wrong.  The guys I work with seem to have never worked with specifications.  As such, they see rework and quality issues as just a natural and unpreventable thing. :(

Honestly that sounds like a recipe for disaster. 

We're in an industry that is subject to regulatory overview and one of the things we have to comply with is having a thorough tracking process for everything from specifications to assembly to quality assurance. 

The process works, but sometimes people take shortcuts in the interest of time. That was what happened with the incident I described earlier. Greg thought Ted's idea looked harmless so he signed off on the changes as both reviewer and approver without having an actual review done. So that sort of stuff happens. I guess they were attempting to be "agile".

 -k
Paris - London - New York - Kim City