I made a comic!

Yeah, work is still a bit of a hassle. The project is still moving forward, though. I've found that as long as that holds true, you're probably in good shape.

I would like to apologize for last week's rant. I don't usually get that depressing. I guess I was just having another one of those night.

So, this is the first comic that is related to my real work situation in any way. I'm going to try to find the proper line between my real life and the comic. I've never mentioned work, really, aside from giving basic status reports. It's been suggested, though, that I should use a lot of the situations there, because they are pretty ridiculous.

Being a contractor has really opened my mind to how America  operates. It's scary. I'm not going to complain about how stupid, incompetent or lazy people I'm working with are...because that's not really the truth, or the problem.

I think it's time we all take a deep breath and admit to each other that any project is full of unexpected delays. If software is caught up, the wiring is behind. If the wiring is caught up, the software is behind. If the software and the wiring are on time, the specifications were wrong, and one or both need something new crammed in.

It's no one's fault. That's just how things go.

So, why is it that every four months or so, someone from 'upper management', descends to our lowly level to make us point fingers and backstab one another? I'm not saying we shouldn't have schedules, or that we shouldn't stick to them. I'm just saying that, if anyone is going to judge the group, it should be someone who knows what's happening.

Instead, corporate America is designed to force even the least politically minded engineers and scientists to start pointing the finger and passing the buck.

When asking for more time, or more money, the only questions that 'upper management' really needs answered is 'do we need it?' and 'how much?'. I seriously don't think that anyone goes into a project thinking 'I'm going to drag this out, and make this as miserable as possible!'. If there's someone who's being detrimental to the project, then EVERYONE knows it....EXCEPT upper management.

Weird huh?

If we gave our workers a little more freedom to do the job right, maybe they wouldn't be completely apathetic and they'd actually work to complete their projects. Then, there wouldn't be any reason for people to be fighting about it.

What happens, instead, is that in the first three weeks of a 12 month project, people are already starting to set one another up, pass the blame, and figure out ways to look good when the project fails.

Most of this is probably because people are getting laid off left and right, and everyone is too afraid of losing their jobs to actually do them.

So, if you really want to be an engineer, the only advice I have is this. Just keep your head down and keep working. No one ever complains at the end of a project that succeeds. You might be losing the political game during the project, but everyone looks good under the light of success.

thanks for reading! 

Later,

Bish0p