Figure NCC-1701, the only Engineer that has ever made any sense to me.I hate working with Engineers.
Engineers don’t have know anything about the particular business you are in or how things work.
Engineers know everything about the business and any other business for that matter and how things work.
And since Engineers know everything about everything, they should be excused for being unable to have a normal conversation. Unfortunately, I can’t excuse them. Anyone who can’t have a normal conversation is an idiot, I don’t care how many degrees they might have.
See, when you talk about something with an Engineer, as I have found with most Engineers I’ve worked with (and I worked with plenty for Shell, believe me), they are unable to stay on the point without going into all kinds of frivolous detail and theoretical scenarios around the particular subject you are talking about.
They will take a straightforward subject and malign it to the point that not only have you beaten the dead horse, you have propped the dead horse up, dressed it in fine attire and taken multiple pictures of the dead horse from various angles that you will later file in a desk drawer somewhere, never to be seen again. But they’ll be there if you ever need them.
It has been my experience that when you are totally on track with getting something done, and you add an Engineer to the mix, BOOM, watch it go all over the freakin’ road rather quickly.
For people who supposedly pride themselves on their attention to detail, they are truly the most inefficient people I have ever met. To them, the simplest of matters must be dissected down into kinds of detail that the matter in question never had to begin with. Let me give you an example.
There is a rock sitting in a garden. To you and I, it is a rock. Sitting in the garden.
But you and I are complete morons. We need an engineer to tell us about it.
To us, the “norms”, if you will, there is a rock sitting in the garden.
To the Engineer, it goes like this.
The rock is not simply a rock, it is piece of indigenous matter sprung forth from other matter that clearly needs to be identified. For the sake of this exercise, we shall call it a “rock” so your untrained mind will follow the sophisticated line of thought that we are about to set forth. Try to keep up, please.
The origins of the “rock” need to be identified and classified as to where the “rock” actually came from, and when it arrived in the garden and then all of the responsible parties involved in the migration of the “rock” need to be identified and the process from where the “rock” came from needs to be mapped.
There are also theoretical scenarios during the migration of the “rock” from Point A to Point B, a.k.a. what you call “the garden”. For the purposes of this exercise, we will continue to call it “the garden” so your untrained mind will follow the sophisticated line of thought that we are about to set forth. Try to keep up, please.
There are also scenarios that could affect the entire process where the “rock” could actually have wound up somewhere else other than “the garden”. These scenarios can represent a failure of the entire process and must be avoided at all costs. These scenarios must be documented, procedures put in place, and massive amounts of redundant training must be applied to assure that this does not ever happen. If it does happen, all of the work we do in regard to these processes must be reviewed and adapted and people need to be retrained to ensure that it can never happen again.
There also is matter of the positioning of the “rock” in “the garden”. We must decide who is responsible for the actual positioning of the “rock” in the “garden”. The process for who makes the decision and who signs off on it must be flowcharted and that flowchart must be approved by an appropriate manager. Of course, we don’t have a procedure for how flowcharts are done, so we must map out the process for how flowcharts are created, who signs off on them and then flowchart the flowcharting process. After that is done, and everyone has been properly trained, we can flowchart the process of the actual positioning of the “rock” in the “garden”.
And you know what, I’m just not comfortable calling it a “rock” or a “garden”. What you call the “rock” is really “indigenous matter”, isn’t it? Yes, you can see that, I think… and therefore, what you call the “garden” is really the “resting area” isn’t it? Yes, I think your simple, common brain can understand that now, especially after several minutes of listening to me.
So what we really have is a process, where our indigenous matter flows through a variety of different possible scenarios, all rigidly planned, to where the processes, if they are properly executed, will enable the indigenous matter to assume it’s proper position in the resting place so that it can achieve optimum efficiency in what it is supposed to do.
But what is it supposed to do? Has anyone written a proper job description for it? Well, then, job descriptions must be written for the indigenous matter (or the “rock”, if you can still follow me) and resting area (the”garden”, you idiot) and all of the proper parties involved in the process need to have job descriptions as well. Also, if we do not have proper procedures in place for who writes and approves job descriptions, we will need those as well.
Also, I’m just not comfortable with the positioning of the indigenous matter in the resting place. Has anyone mapped out the resting place to know that the positioning of the indigenous matter is correct? Has there ever been a study done on this? Perhaps the indigenous matter can accomplish more over there. Yes, the resting place must be mapped into a grid, with each grid being broken into sectors, with each sector being rated, on a scale of 1 to 10, on its optimum efficiency.
Now that we are all on the same page, I want all of this done by Tuesday. I’m going to get some coffee now and go back to doing whatever it is I do.
I truly do hate dealing with this kind of mentality. And you why?
Because sometimes a rock is just a f-ing rock, man.
Engineers don’t have know anything about the particular business you are in or how things work.
Engineers know everything about the business and any other business for that matter and how things work.
And since Engineers know everything about everything, they should be excused for being unable to have a normal conversation. Unfortunately, I can’t excuse them. Anyone who can’t have a normal conversation is an idiot, I don’t care how many degrees they might have.
See, when you talk about something with an Engineer, as I have found with most Engineers I’ve worked with (and I worked with plenty for Shell, believe me), they are unable to stay on the point without going into all kinds of frivolous detail and theoretical scenarios around the particular subject you are talking about.
They will take a straightforward subject and malign it to the point that not only have you beaten the dead horse, you have propped the dead horse up, dressed it in fine attire and taken multiple pictures of the dead horse from various angles that you will later file in a desk drawer somewhere, never to be seen again. But they’ll be there if you ever need them.
It has been my experience that when you are totally on track with getting something done, and you add an Engineer to the mix, BOOM, watch it go all over the freakin’ road rather quickly.
For people who supposedly pride themselves on their attention to detail, they are truly the most inefficient people I have ever met. To them, the simplest of matters must be dissected down into kinds of detail that the matter in question never had to begin with. Let me give you an example.
There is a rock sitting in a garden. To you and I, it is a rock. Sitting in the garden.
But you and I are complete morons. We need an engineer to tell us about it.
To us, the “norms”, if you will, there is a rock sitting in the garden.
To the Engineer, it goes like this.
The rock is not simply a rock, it is piece of indigenous matter sprung forth from other matter that clearly needs to be identified. For the sake of this exercise, we shall call it a “rock” so your untrained mind will follow the sophisticated line of thought that we are about to set forth. Try to keep up, please.
The origins of the “rock” need to be identified and classified as to where the “rock” actually came from, and when it arrived in the garden and then all of the responsible parties involved in the migration of the “rock” need to be identified and the process from where the “rock” came from needs to be mapped.
There are also theoretical scenarios during the migration of the “rock” from Point A to Point B, a.k.a. what you call “the garden”. For the purposes of this exercise, we will continue to call it “the garden” so your untrained mind will follow the sophisticated line of thought that we are about to set forth. Try to keep up, please.
There are also scenarios that could affect the entire process where the “rock” could actually have wound up somewhere else other than “the garden”. These scenarios can represent a failure of the entire process and must be avoided at all costs. These scenarios must be documented, procedures put in place, and massive amounts of redundant training must be applied to assure that this does not ever happen. If it does happen, all of the work we do in regard to these processes must be reviewed and adapted and people need to be retrained to ensure that it can never happen again.
There also is matter of the positioning of the “rock” in “the garden”. We must decide who is responsible for the actual positioning of the “rock” in the “garden”. The process for who makes the decision and who signs off on it must be flowcharted and that flowchart must be approved by an appropriate manager. Of course, we don’t have a procedure for how flowcharts are done, so we must map out the process for how flowcharts are created, who signs off on them and then flowchart the flowcharting process. After that is done, and everyone has been properly trained, we can flowchart the process of the actual positioning of the “rock” in the “garden”.
And you know what, I’m just not comfortable calling it a “rock” or a “garden”. What you call the “rock” is really “indigenous matter”, isn’t it? Yes, you can see that, I think… and therefore, what you call the “garden” is really the “resting area” isn’t it? Yes, I think your simple, common brain can understand that now, especially after several minutes of listening to me.
So what we really have is a process, where our indigenous matter flows through a variety of different possible scenarios, all rigidly planned, to where the processes, if they are properly executed, will enable the indigenous matter to assume it’s proper position in the resting place so that it can achieve optimum efficiency in what it is supposed to do.
But what is it supposed to do? Has anyone written a proper job description for it? Well, then, job descriptions must be written for the indigenous matter (or the “rock”, if you can still follow me) and resting area (the”garden”, you idiot) and all of the proper parties involved in the process need to have job descriptions as well. Also, if we do not have proper procedures in place for who writes and approves job descriptions, we will need those as well.
Also, I’m just not comfortable with the positioning of the indigenous matter in the resting place. Has anyone mapped out the resting place to know that the positioning of the indigenous matter is correct? Has there ever been a study done on this? Perhaps the indigenous matter can accomplish more over there. Yes, the resting place must be mapped into a grid, with each grid being broken into sectors, with each sector being rated, on a scale of 1 to 10, on its optimum efficiency.
Now that we are all on the same page, I want all of this done by Tuesday. I’m going to get some coffee now and go back to doing whatever it is I do.
I truly do hate dealing with this kind of mentality. And you why?
Because sometimes a rock is just a f-ing rock, man.
2 comments:
Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Most of the engineers I have worked with have been fine people, then again I spent 20 years building waste water (shit) treatment plants. How much detail do you really want or need there??? As I often say, If it ain't broke, LET ME AT THAT DAMN THING!
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