Schedule This

August, 2006 :

It may be a sign that I’m getting very old, but every day here in the salt mines I find the frustration associated with the new, latest and greatest system, is growing.

There was a time, when we where young and foolish, that we’d do a bit of rewarding engineering and create a viable part, watch the thing grow in the workshop and eventually see the component or assembly off flying somewhere. There would be strength and fatigue tests, sometimes the occasional surprise and a redesign, but often everything was just plain old fine and we’d move on to the next challenge.

Not any more.

In the early 1990s, there was a scent in the air that things were going to change, it was decided in a dark, smoke filled room somewhere, that engineers had to be relabeled as a resource, and that resource could be managed, and of course, micro-managed. It feels like over those fifteen or so years, each individual engineer has been enhanced by the addition of at least two, maybe even five managers. All who will do their best to slow the process down so that it’s done properly, and if it’s not done properly they will produce the appropriate document or manual to ensure things fit with the global ideas of a progressive and harmonized company.

If it ain’t broke, they’ll break it.

And they will tell their managers, higher in the food chain, that everything is fine and can be done on time, even when the loaded bus is teetering precariously on the edge of an Italian mountain road, they assume someone will drive on and things will be just lovely.

We cannot do that any more, besides having no traction with the wheels hanging out in thin air, all the managers are sitting at the back, wondering why we’re not getting anywhere, reading their owners guides with respect to the importance of an efficient yet tidy bus and the application of correct windscreen washer fluid specifications and standards.

Meanwhile, on the driverless bus to nowhere, the engine is completely seized and gravity is about to do it’s magic.

Are we there yet?