Cry for Help

Hopefully, this won't get me fired, but it's an actual email that I sent to my boss (whom I've worked with at 2 previous companies and not only trust, but would run through a wall for) while, indeed, in the Lion's Den. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Hi "Boss",

I decided to send this message on your personal email
just because I don't intend to start any trouble and
feel that I can be much more candid here.

On the ride back to the hotel last night, through the
extraordinary Bogota traffic (if I weren't in a taxi,
and actually had to drive through this stuff myself, I
might not EVER complain about traffic on 880 ever
again...but since I am in a taxi...), I had a
revelation as to why we our challenges are so
plentiful in the face of prime time performances.
Rather than spell this out in a very verbose
manifesto, I think I've effectively reduced it to a
single concise statement.

Our culture of engineering is sorely in need of a
paradigm shift. Ideally, that shift would be sharply
toward a Dell Computer culture and away from our
IBM/Soviet Union attitude of "we designed it that way
BECAUSE, and you'll LIKE IT" , if I may appeal to your
"Fox News" sensibilities. (Okay, sorry...that's two
statements.). From top to bottom we are engineers and
as a result we often lack the ability to think like
normal people.

We have an amazing product offering, and it is created
by a group of amazingly talented and brilliant minds.
However, where we fall short in bringing this
brilliance to the public is in our ability to
translate said brilliance into something that benefits
our customers. We talk a great game in the office. We
even put on a nice show at the Shows. Where we fall
woefully short (and that woefully could probably use
several more o's...) is in our ability to state what
it is we are doing behind our smoke and mirrors.

It is one thing when the customer needs to be educated
on something since they don't work with it and aren't
there for the creative process. It is the job of
people like me to ease that transition for them. It is
entirely something else, however, for our own people
to not have a clear understanding of what is going on
because engineers do not communicate. I daresay that
engineers are not even logical.

I know what you're thinking. They MUST be logical by
the very nature of their ability to create complex
algorithms that make complex operations possible.
Well, the logic that they lack is the fact that their
"voodoo" is inherently understood by all. Their
"voodoo", in their minds, moves in mysterious ways
from person to person, perhaps by osmosis. They have
no use for thinking about these mysterious ways, they
just think that they happen, just because, and rest
easy at night with that knowledge. In actuality, this
"voodoo" MUST be clearly documented in explicit detail
to every other person that resides outside the area
between their two ears, including their peers (i.e.
the other engineers that develop adjacent products
that might even sit in adjacent cubes or share
adjacent lab benches).

I might even go further and suggest that engineers are
like politicians, in that you never get the absolute
completely factual testimony until pressed in a grand
jury testimony type fashion. For example:

Me: Does gui6 work?

Engineers: Absolutely! I've got it working in my
office...and i've had it working at the show.

There is no mention of important facts like specific
platforms, software versions. Everything is assumed to
be the same when we know that rarely to be the case.It
is not until after the pain is experienced and better
questions are asked, that more specific, more useful
information is given, albeit begrudgingly.(In fact, it
gets even worse. "Pablo" shared with me last night that
the s/w version for the amino130 is a not for public
version given by amino when they took his box from the
London show back to their lab and returned it to him
later, after he and Tariq so vehemently complained
about how bad the stb was. This version is much higher
than the one available to the public that I've got
"The Big Boss" (ceo/lead braintrust/superbrilliant guy) trying to hunt down right this minute. Of
course, there was no mention of this detail, just
"your amino 130 should work...mine does.")

Another example:

Me: Is there anything special about configuring video
content in gui6 to make it as easy to use as gui3 (and
saying that gui3 is easy to use is indeed a
stretch...more familiar maybe, but easier, not
hardly...)

Engineers: "Make sure that your database is upgraded
before with the right tables and also populated with
the right data,..." and "There is an additional step
with GUI6 to play VoD, is the movies categories."

Notice, there is no mention of what the "right tables"
are or how to configure them. There is no mention of
an extra non-"mycompany" tool that needs to be
downloaded, nor instructions on how to use said tool
in order to do the configuration. And don't forget
that the "additional step" was never previously
mentioned to anybody in any written form and probably
not verbally either. Keep in mind that if I don't know
about the step or the tool, that the customer
definitely does not know about it. It was just
assumed. Osmosis...

I could go on and on with these types of examples from
within the office and while on trips, as I know "Rodney" (a peer with the same position as me)
can (he and i shared frustrations all day yesterday)
and as I suspect "Pablo" (also a peer with the same position as me) does at times too (although
being such a seasoned vet, he dabbles on the dark side
and is prone to forget to mention a step initially as
well), but it would get repetitive. Maybe it's me.
Perhaps I should ask better questions. But should I
have to? Should we have to waste taxpayer money and
elected officials time and resources to find out if
Slick Willy had some extracurricular activity in the
Oval Office or if baseball players were being enhanced
by substances? You're right! We shouldn't, just like
we shouldn't have to be up against the wall of a
headend with guns pointed at us as frustrated
customers demand that we make it work or they'll throw
us out in the street with our gear(after they shoot
us). (Colombia is not that bad, really..i'm just
exercising my flair for the dramatic. I actually like
the place. It's alot like Washington, D.C. )

So, back to our paradigm shift. In a perfect world, we
could all get together for our Monday pow-wows, do a
litle venting, and pledge to work together much more
effectively and efficiently by doing logical things
like documenting and sharing information with one
another. That's probably not terribly realistic
though. It probably won't be realistic until we get
hit where it hurts. Your efforts will indeed start to
go in vain if we don't start to solve these issues
"inmediatamente!" because the Felipes and Gobrogges of
the world will get frustrated and have to move on
because time is money. If your efforts are in vain,
then ultimately we all lose because you're the "bring
home the bacon" guy (and I both need and like this
job, above comments notwithstanding). From the top
down, we either need to get a more logical, customer
focus from within(think Dell with its "we'll build it
your way", Apple with its "we'll make it easier and
prettier than PC" and even Burger King with the "have
it your way" that is always near and dear to our
hearts) or perhaps install another layer that will
champion the efforts of the company and needs of its
customers and no longer allow ourselves to be led only
by the whims of very talented engineers. That layer
can be at the top, or below the top, as long as the
top buys in.

Well, that's probably quite enough from me. I'm still
sittin' here like Daniel, seated firmly in the Lion's
Den. But I have faith that I (and "my company") will make
it out alive and prosper.


Thanks for listening.

Destah

P.S. Desculpa me (forgive me)...i never seem to be
able to avoid verbosity when I write :-)

Your emailing privileges have been revoked...

Okay...so I've been sharing with you all of the
interesting phone calls that I get throughout the
course of a day. I regret to report to you that the
"disease" has spread over to the email arena as well.

WARNING: What you are about to read is arguably the most random
account ever recorded in the annals of business
communication.

To place his note in the proper context
(although you'll doubt there is a context after
reading it) I will first allow you to read my note to
him. Truly a masterpiece in brevity...

Hi Everett,
I tried calling both of the numbers that you left in
your email, but neither voicemail picked up. To
expedite this process, I have attached
our non-disclosure agreement to this email for your
review. Please sign and fax back at your convenience.
Also, my contact information is listed below so please
do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or
concerns.
Regards,
Destah

And now, I present to you, in its entirety…randomness
personified.

Dear Destah -
Sorry for the phone problems - we have 4 buildings in
santa clara and 1
in sunnyvale - we were supposed to "go live" with a
new VOIP PBX on monday - it hasn't happened yet and
doesn't appear like it's going to happen this week, so
as a result all lines are ringing on their terminal
blocks with nothing
plugged in to signal us

Brace yourself. This, and the next sentence about the times , are probably the last pieces of relevant information in his email.

I will be at this number generally in the evenings
from 5PM until 9PM if you want to speak in person - it
has an old fashioned wall phone stuck on it with
the little bell ringer (Hey - sometimes technology
just gets in the way and
we long for those simple times when the phone rang,
you KNEW where it was, and it didn't require a -48VDC
loraine rectifier and battery array to run it.)

Whatever that is. I feel like I’m having a conversation with Marvin the Martian, with his Supersonic XL-14 Modulator.

That number is 408-261-2000 - evenings 5-9 pm best
time - once the VOIP PBX
is in you are supposed to be able to ring me on any
number based on your caller ID line number - once you
and I talk the PBX remembers who's callerID goes to
which engineer here and automatically puts them
through without an auto
attendant feature in between where you have to listen
to recordings and dial
extension numbers. Plus it dumps all the out of area
/ private telemarketers into voicemail to preserve our
free time.

Are you sure you don’t want to talk to the Telemarketers? You guys might be cut from the same cloth. On second thought, they might hang up on you.

As for your attachment - I will try to print it - we
use text mode email here running on hewlett-packard
servers using the HPUX operating system - so no
attachments ever show up - the major advantage is no
virusus ever show up
either. It also cuts all the spam crap and lets me
quickly get through my
email when i'm on my inmarsat phone on the back side
of the mountain without downloading everything to read
it (messages stay on the HP server and I can
just read the subject screen).

You don’t say. Mere mortals like me just wait until I return to the front side of the mountain before downloading.

Sometimes I can forward emails with attachments to
another system which is a microsoft PC based system
that handles inline attachments - if that works I'll
fax over your NDA.

Everett Basham

If this guy got me on the phone, I might not ever get
off. Can you imagine an actual face to face meeting? No thanks.

The Conference Call

I had an amusing conference call this morning. Yes, I’m being facetious. By their very definition, there is nothing amusing about a conference call. I loathe them actually. There’s always somebody that loves to talk to an audience of folks , just because he has an audience. Furthermore, they always drag on much longer than they should have because said blowhard just can’t wrap it up. If those conference services (we use Raindance) wanted to add a useful feature, they would add what I’ll coin as the Academy Award Feature. Chatterbox’s filibuster shows no signs of reaching its conclusion? Start the music…bring the MC out to make a joke about his diatribe.

My pre-occupation and fatigue got the better of me. Pre-occupation? Yeah, I’m bad enough in a meeting when we are all face to face. I have quite a “portfolio” of doodles, some worthy of tour to some of the world’s finest museums: The Van Gogh, The Prado, The Louvre…. Some of them are as random as the day is long, related not at all to whatever is being discussed in the meeting. Some even contain caricatures of the principals in the meeting. But, I digress. On a conference call, I might be surfing the web, instant messaging, writing a blog....

I totally wasn't paying attention and twice, it was my
turn to speak and there was a long silence before I
chimed in. Another time my boss said, "right, Destah?"
and I said "RIGHT!" without having heard what he said.
I made a quick save and gathered a couple action items
at the end of the call. I took the lead and did the
summation before we all got off the phone. I then made
a beeline for one of the RF engineers
(oh..sorry...that's radio frequency) and asked my
question. For one shining moment, I had an Electrical
Engineering flashback as we began to discuss bandpass
filters and propagation and ..oh..nevermind..i know
its not interesting. I then returned to my desk and
quickly called back this customer to report back about
my findings.

Techie Dan Rather

I'm on the phone with a guy that has the voice of Dan
Rather and the knowledge of your basic computer nerd.
While being very well versed in the technical arena,
his story-telling capabilities and the runs of his
soliloquys are very Rather-esque. He is one of those
guys that is answering his own questions. (Why did the
chicken cross the road? I'll tell you why...").When I
inhale to start to address his question (or whatever I
perceive to be the question), he starts talking again.
At the end of all this I say, "Yes! Exactly."
I keep getting lost and think he's giving me
information about Baghdad or Fallujah and then when
there's a silence, I know that it's my turn to talk.
I'm really not motivated to be here today. But at
least I'm finding humor in this...

He's from Philly, so I get him talking about
cheesesteaks and hoagies. He's giving me the
particulars on where you get the appropriate cold-cuts
to make the best hoagies. He even told me about a
"survival kit" service in which people in other places
can order express-mailed hoagies by phone.
The single most entertaining moment in the whole
conversation was this statement: "This has been great.
You've answered alot of questions for me..."
It was kinda like in "As Good as it Gets" when Jack
Nicholson stands up and leaves just as Greg Kinnear
starts to open up to him and says, "..this was
great...I'm glad we had this little talk..let's do it
again sometime..."
And then Mr. Rather got off on another one of his
rants and talked non-stop for another 6 minutes.
At the end of his rant, just when I thought that there
was no possible way that this could get any better, he
came outta left field with:
"Hey...do you have sinus trouble? I've got this
incredible medication for that. I found it on this
herbal remedies website..."
And that's your news for Friday evening, October
26, 2007. I'm Dan Rather, and this has been CBS World News,..TONIGHT

The Reference

This lady just called me as a reference for a guy that
I managed at a former company. I would imagine she was
an HR type that was supposed to check references so
that they could formally extend an offer and hire him. You know the type...knows enough buzzwords to stay in the conversation, but can't go into depth about much else if you deviate from the script.
Such experiences are never painful for me, especially
when I am talking about such an outstanding former
co-worker.
This one was painful. It was like giving dictation to
my 8-year old. She would ask me a question, and I would
answer, giving the appropriate detail for each
response. For example, she asked the following
question:
HER: Describe what his role with your organization
was?
ME: "Chris served as a Field Support Engineer as
well as a Telephone Support Engineer. If an issue
warranted his flying somewhere to fix it, we put him
on a plane and he resolved the issue..."

There was about 30 seconds of silence on the phone. I was wondering if she were still there, or if perhaps our call had dropped, since my Verizon service is so incredibly reliable. Finally she mumbled something to her self, but audibly enough for me to hear it.

HER:"...served......as........a......feeeeeeeeeeeld.....sup.....port....
...in.....gin......eeeeeer...as...well...as..."
I just knew at any time she was going to ask me, "How
do you spell FIELD? Is it F-i-e..."

Ear Hustlin'...

A guy (Alan) 2 cubes over from me just got the following phone
call, probably from his daughter.

ALAN: "Hello? Hi Pumpkin"
Kid: (apparently explained the story , which was some
kinda crisis, which required some adult assistance
because, clearly, the kid had run out of ideas)
ALAN: "Where's your mother? Did you try calling her?"
Kid: (explains further, mom's not home, not answering
her cell)
ALAN: "What do you mean Austin broke the damn
doorknob? How did he do that? He's locked in the
bathroom?"
Kid: (i dunno, blah blah blah, i dunno...i can't get
him out...we tried to do this, we tried to do that...)
ALAN: "Tell him to try putting a screwdriver in the
little hole and jiggle it a little..."
Kid: (we tried that, but we'll try again...maybe we'll
hit it with a baseball bat...Austin's crying)
ALAN: "Where's your mother? You know what you need to
do--Go get Dave. Just go knock on his door and ask him
to come over and help you. Nothing I can do for you
from over here. Bye" (hangs up)

Alan subsequently rings his wife's cell phone
unsuccessfully. He makes another call, presumably to
some older offspring...
ALAN: "Where's your mother? Is she there with you?
She's shopping??!!!"
Kid: (blah blah blah...she's here...i'm at another
store in the mall or something...call her phone..)
hangs up.

Alan rings her phone again...no answer. Calls the
daughter back, and with a little attitude this time.

ALAN: "WHERE IS SHE? DID YOU SEE HER YET?"
Kid: (yeah..blah blah blah..she's here...i told her
you called...she forgot her phone at the house...)
ALAN: "WHY THE HELL DID SHE LEAVE HER CELL PHONE? PUT
HER ON THE PHONE!"
Kid: (hands the phone to mom)
ALAN: "YOU NEED TO GET HOME AND GET AUSTIN OUT OF THE
BATHROOM"
Mom:(blah blah blah...WHAT?...WHY?...)
ALAN: "I DON'T KNOW. HE's locked in there, and they
are about to take a baseball bat to my doorknob!"
Mom: (waWAwaWA wa wa...sure..i'll take care of it)
ALAN: "Bye!"

Alan calls kid #1 back at the house and says that mom
is on the way.
ALAN: "DO NOT DO ANYTHING WITH THAT BAT!"
Kid: (yeah..whatever dad...bye)

Alan stands up, sighs, walks out of his cube, turns to
Randy and says, "let's go grab some teriyaki
downstairs..."

consultants: the cunning linguists of the corporate world

No matter how much I despise them, there is always the possibility that it cannot be avoided. Yes, once again I was stuck in a late afternoon meeting. Contrary to my usual apprehensions, I did not think that fatigue would play a role as I was relatively wide awake and downright anxious to leave work on time to catch Game 7 of the Spurs/Pistons series. If I had to pinpoint one single element of this meeting that had me feeling a tad uneasy, it would have to be the unknown. Hopefully, this unknown would not cause me to miss the tip off at the local sports bar.

I really had not heard of this client before, nor was I clear on exactly what my contribution to the meeting would be. In the end, to my delight, I discovered more amusing material for my archive of ostentatious observations.

Consultants were the subject of the day. You’ve got to love the consultant. Everyone thinks they need one but no one is ever quite sure what they do. Even the consultant cannot tell you precisely what it is that he or she does, but will be quite clear about the cost of having it done. Want some issues raised? Want a very admirable perception of the obvious? How about a sense of having engaged an expert for the task at hand? The consultant is your guy. If you want a definitive analysis or a decision made..well…

Perhaps I’m being to hasty with the generalization. Yes, too hasty indeed. There are plenty of consultants that do actually roll up their sleeves and provide a valuable service to those that enlist them . However, just as in other “relationship building” professions, there are plenty of consultants that rarely get their hands dirty, choosing instead to operate within a very Seinfeldian, “show about nothing” framework. Such was the case with the subjects from this meeting. Almost immediately in this meeting I found myself wondering, “so what is it exactly that you’re going to do here?”

It bears mentioning that while I was not compelled to add the “emperor’s new clothes” that this pair was pushing to my wardrobe of client projects, I was quite taken by their style and technique. Like a classical musician admires a melodic run of a jazz composer, like a ballplayer gives “props” to another with Game, like a thespian pays homage to the work of another of much lesser fame, it took significant effort for me to contain my appreciation of their skills. After all, it took an extreme amount of chutzpah to step into this conference room and attempt to out-hustle three hustlers (my boss, my ceo, and me). That’s what we do, isn’t it? We hustle. We know there’s money to be made selling this stuff, and we try to figure out new and inventive ways to give that money a new home on our side of the fence.

But these were hustler’s hustlers. One would play straight man, while the other would provide the slapstick. One would be grease man to the other’s tactician. One would play warm hearted, bleeding heart socialist, while the other played capitalismic magnate. So impressive was their range that it could consume this whole narrative, but I will instead highlight three of the most spectacularly entertaining arrows that they drew from their proverbial quiver.

First was the incessant name dropping. Surely a successful run at this would leave us basking in the glow of the degree with which he is connected in the industry. However, the languishing of a dimming bulb is what ensued. One exchange went as follows:

“What is your background…Where did you get your start?” said John to our CEO.
“I was VP of Marketing at Cascade in the Northeast, “ stated our CEO.
“Oh! George Franklin and I play golf together…and that Mike Stephens is quite the go-getter isn’t he… “ John blurts out smugly
“I’m not familiar with those two gentleman. Cascade IS quite a large company…” quips our CEO.

In an another attempt to garner favor, establish some credibility and just overall impress us with the breadth and complexity of his knowledge, John pulled the multi-lettered acronym card. Having just reached my tenure in the high tech industry, I take pride in staying on top of the TLA’s (three lettered acronyms) that are often called out as frequently as…well..names in some other less technical circles. The Cistine Chapel came to mind when he uttered his 5 lettered masterpiece. The three of us were supremely perplexed when Michelangelo’s broad brush strokes coated us with T.B.R.P.F (later defined as Truncated Broadcast Reverse Path Forwarding). Thirty-six hours later, I still have not realized the relevance of this obviously very high level field of study.

Finally, in what would prove to be the make or break moment of this meeting from a “how serious should we take you” standpoint, our consultant friends stumbled mightily albeit quite gracefully. When asked about their overall knowledge of our specific industry , with respect to the players, the merits of various products, and where any of them may fall short as they pertain to the needs of their proposed project, the two of them paused as if on queue and with the appropriate amount of cloak-and-dagger stated in unison (at least for the first half of the sentence), “We’re talking to several others right now and will continue to diligently research this before we arrive at a decision.” Translation: We’re clueless. You’re the first ones that we’ve talked to. We really don’t have a clue right now how your product might conform to the needs of the application in said project, but we were intrigued by the buzzword “wireless” and the fact that your company was geographically closest to our offices so we thought we’d check you out first.

All of this proves once again that I am so easily amused.