Talking To Ed

Downtown there's an autoshop specializing in hardcore metal repair work. It's called Accurate Frame and Welding. Shortly after I ran over a good sized deer with my 1968 Cougar I had to take the car down to Accurate Frame for some serious welding. Both front shock towers had been split in half by the dead deer's corpse as I crushed it to the pavement. $600 dollars worth of welding later the car was in good shape up front. I did not at the time realize both my rear shock mounts had also been destroyed in the same accident. Behind the back seat both shocks mounted directly to the body on the top side. When that deer passed underneath the rear axle, it forced it upwards so violently that both shocks shattered through their body mounts.

Since I bought a Ford Focus to use as my daily driver I decided I could finally get to restoring the Cougar. Two or three weeks ago I dropped off the Cougar at Accurate Frame. I wanted those shock mounts fixed. Figuring the job wasn't that big of a deal I expected to hear back from the shop by now. They haven't bothered to call. Normally I don't like bugging shops when my car is being worked on because the guys there might get angry and deliberately slow down or sideline the car. This seemed like too long a period of time for such a simple welding job though.

I called the shop.

"Hello? Yeah, hey. I'm the guy with that '68 Cougar. Just wondering how the job is going."
The lady who answered the phone sounded nervous. Not good. After hesitating she said, "Uh... ummmm... uhhhhh."
"Is there a problem?"
"Uhhhhhhhh... you're going to have to talk to Ed."
"I'm going to have to talk to Ed, huh? Okay. Put him on the phone."
There was a long pause. Then Ed started talking.
"We caught your car on fire."
"WHAT?"
Ed said, "I told that dumbshit to take out the rear seat cushions but he didn't listen to me. He poked through the body from underneath with an arc welder and it shot some sparks. It caught the interior on fire, burning the back seat..."
"I'll be right over."

Shit.

No Brakes

Autumn has continued to pester me about fixing up the Oldsmobile. This weekend she suggested I take it out of the garage and at least give it a wash as it's been sitting in there collecting dust for the past couple of years. Problem is since the motor is half torn out of the engine compartment I'd need help pushing it out to the driveway and even more help getting the car garaged again. It's a heavy beast. I agreed to take her up on the suggestion because I didn't want to make Autumn mad. Lately that's been especially easy to do.

I called Senor 23 and asked him to come by and help us muscle the car outside. He showed up not long afterward and I hopped into the driver's seat. The interior was musty and filled with cobwebs. It really had been years since the last time I sat behind the wheel. No motor meant no brakes. This was going to be dicey, all I had to stop the car was it's parking brake. It would have to do. Putting the Olds in neutral and releasing the parking brake I gave Senor 23 a go ahead to start pushing. He was standing directly in front at the bumper. Gently, the car rolled backwards. I felt the rear tires cross over a bump which meant I was on driveway concrete. The trunk deck edged downwards and I picked up speed. Too much speed. With my left foot I jammed on that parking brake- and nothing happened. Backing down the driveway faster and faster I had no way to stop the car. Nooooooo!

My driveway opens up on to a very long, busy residential street. People often speed on down the road even though the limit here is 25mph. I was doomed and I knew it. In a second or two someone was going to slam into the Oldsmobile as it burst into the lanes or I was going to sail clean across to the other side of my street and split a parked car in half. Senor 23 could tell from the look on my face that I was panic stricken but there was nothing he could do. There was no way he could stop this beast. If he tried, the momentum and weight of the car would simply knock him down to the pavement and roll right over him. He'd be dead for sure.

As I jammed into the road I got seriously lucky. There was no traffic. I did the best I could steering like a mofo while coasting in reverse. Over the yellow line I went. I angled my path so that I narrowly missed two parked cars and gently came to a stop on sidewalk curb. Whew.

We pushed like hell at the rear bumper and got it back to my side of the street. With more help we were able to get it partially up the driveway. I stuffed two wheel blocks under the rear tires. It wasn't going nowhere now, but when I was done screwing around with this monster I'd need even more help to get it all the way up into the garage. Before it got much later in the day I grabbed my phone and started calling buddies to come over. I explained the situation and had three more guys show up at the house. We were going to need that many people at a minimum.

Washing the Olds took a while. When we were done I stepped back to take a good look at it. I'd forgotten how nice the light metallic blue paint job looked. My next door neighbor commented that he thought my car was gray. Heh. That's how dusty it had become. Autumn took a few pictures of the car sitting out there on the driveway after it was all cleaned up looking sharp. Then the six of us pushed it into the garage and called it a day.

* from left to right: Senor 23, Devil-T, factory peasant, Biskits, Adult Baby Diaper Man.

Focus

Car shopping during the past two weeks has been fun. It isn't at all like I expected it would be. I anticipated salespeople at dealerships would be trying to swindle me at every step of the way, but they've actually been low key. No pressure. Most of the dealerships let me wander around by myself to explore and told me to come bug them if I had any questions. Climbing in and out of their vehicles messing with stuff has been cool. I hit all of the major Japanese automakers and most domestic manufacturers. Here's what I found out.

Toyota has two kinds of cars I zeroed in on, the new Celica and their sedans. Celicas look kind of girly. I didn't fit inside them comfortably though even with the driver's seat pegged all the way to the back. They cost more than I wanted to spend on average with the base models lacking any real options or features. Visibility out the rear window was poor, cluttered. I decided Celicas weren't for me. They're in the same category as the Acura RSX in that the cuteness factor is too high, too foofy. Toyota Celicas are girl cars and I can't take any dude seriously if he steps out of one. Just like the RSX. Toyota's sedans were also a disappointment. I had to cram myself in behind the steering wheel. Visibility was far better than the Celica of course but again cost was a factor and base models had little in the way of creature comforts. I crossed Toyota off my list.

Out of all American made cars, Chevrolet had to be the absolute worst. Boring ass bland corny lookin' flimsy P.O.S. vehicles all the way around that only a mullet wearing toothless dumbshit with a healthy beer gut could love. I don't know what GM's fucking problem is but they can't get anything right. Just like Ford, they haven't put out a truly solid ride since the late 1960s. I've had a few of their products from back then and they were rockin'. Someday, when Chevrolet finally has something worth a shit maybe I'll seriously consider their offerings.

Saturn was never an option. Those cars are entirely retarded.

Mazda had the new Protege 5 sedan. Since Mazda is one-fifth owned by Ford my employee discount would work with them, but it was about one-fifth as good a price break. Nevertheless I hopped in a few of their cars to see what was going on. Like Toyotas they were on the small side which didn't work well for me. I really liked the instrument cluster though. The speedometer and tach had a white background with black lettering that reminded me of being in a race car. For the money, I could get one of these with a manual transmission and a tape deck. That was about it. I put them down as a definite maybe. The rest of their vehicle lineup didn't suit me.

Honda has a reputation for long lasting durability. I spent little time investigating their whole vehicle line. Nothing jumped out at me. Their body styles strike me as purely utilitarian, boring. I did fit better inside most of their stuff though. Perhaps Japanese who buy Hondas are slightly taller than average. Kekekekeke!

Chrysler sucks.

Volkswagen is poo. They are notorious for having tons of expensive mechanical problems, bugs, and performance issues. Plus those Nazi bastards brought back the beetle which I've hated consistently since I reached the old age of 4. Unforgivable. The curse of freeway systems since World War II, those stinking noisy air cooled overgrown lawnmowers infested with dirtbags had no reason to EVER be updated into a new-fangled fuel injected traffic roadblock. I hereby decree all VWs as soon as they come off a production line anywhere in the world should immediately be transported to the nearest scrapyard and summarily crushed. Amen.

Wandering through remaining various dealerships I finally made it to the last stop... Ford. Everything in their lineup was fairly boring sort of on par with Chevrolet. However, they did have a slightly larger version of their European hatchback called the KA available. I'd seen the KA advertised in a British magazine a year or two before and thought they looked pretty good. At the time I was angry because it seems like American automakers frequently have more interesting vehicles for sale but you can't get them Stateside. They're for the Euro market only. Weak. The larger US version of the KA was named Focus. A rather dumb name but whatever.

Hauling myself into a Focus sedan driver's seat I was surprised. I not only fit with plenty of room to stretch out, but I could see everything. The visibility was amazing. With the employee discount I could get one of these little suckers fully loaded. Cruise control, automatic transmission, 6 disc CD player, air conditioning, side impact air bags, and a power moon roof. Damn. It would cost far less than a comparable Japanese sedan with no extras. I took one of 'em for a test drive. That was when I appreciated the visibility. It was like driving a sliding glass door. Very different from driving the Cougar which after a Focus test drive seemed like I was inside a concrete bunker looking out through a gun hatch.

So I bought a blue one. Gave 'em a five thousand dollar down payment and used the Ford corporate employee discount plan. The whole deal was so reasonable that even if I get laid off from work soon I think unemployment will easily cover my $254.00 a month car payment. Not too shabby...

Bug Sue

Close to my cubicle there is a phone located in an aisle of assembly's production area. Late in the afternoon when most of dayshift has gone home it becomes very quiet throughout the building. Sometimes during that part of my shift I am frequently sitting in front of my computers monitoring tests and filling out spreadsheets. If I'm not tapping away making racket on my keyboard you'd probably never know I was there. At least I assume you'd be oblivious to my presence. Especially if you were being loud and obnoxious, babbling insanity non stop over that nearby phone.

That's what a blonde haired lady whom I call Bug Sue does on days when she bothers to come in to work. She either doesn't care if anyone is listening to her nutty conversations or she's too jacked up on Meth to notice. Bug Sue is a classic Meth Chick(tm) if I ever seen one. She's weathered in a bad way like a worn out middle aged stripper. Her hair is usually unkept, she's got sores all over her arms, and her clothes are dirty. Whenever Bug Sue is around I try to avoid becoming entangled in conversations with her. To be honest I don't even want to be within fifty feet of the woman. I keep a low profile.

The reason why I nicknamed her Bug Sue is because she's covered from head to toe in bugs. Naturally. Why else would I call her Bug Sue? Some of the creatures are purely imaginary, and some are very real. Little remains of her mind thanks to being burned out on Meth. Her imaginary bugs are big enough that when she thinks one is crawling on her skin she tries to scrape it off. Scraping can be performed with anything from fingernails to a screwdriver. It's all good. That's where some of the sores on her arms are coming from. The real bugs are too small for Bug Sue to see with the naked eye. Those bugs are called Scabies. Scabies are microscopic mites that burrow into an infected person's skin causing sores. As you can imagine, Bug Sue has many different kinds of scabs and lesions visible because she is constantly scratching at herself. Scabies happens to be highly contagious. Another reason for me to stay away from her at all times.

I learned of Bug Sue's scabies from one of her colorful phone conversations. Apparently she picked up a bum from under a bridge or down by the railroad tracks and brought him home to have lots of rowdy sex. He's no longer homeless thanks to Bug Sue's kindness and he has rewarded her with plenty of fresh hot-off-the-miscreant scabies. Mmmmm yummy. Lately Bug Sue hasn't been able to drive herself to work though because her car done did broke down. So she has been hitch hiking to and from the factory suckin' off lowlifes for transportation. This has also been brought to my attention thanks to Bug Sue's mentally ill phone use.

While all of this behavior makes me cringe, I wasn't too concerned until yesterday. When Bug Sue arrived in the area she brought a can of bug spray with her. That was entirely unexpected. It appeared to be of the Black Flag/Raid variety. Straight up poison. She set the can of insecticide on her workbench and proceeded to build an instrument. As Bug Sue pulled PC boards one by one out of their protective packaging, she hosed down each board with poison. The circuitry was completely contaminated with chemicals that are not good for electronics. In fact those boards were most likely ruined causing thousands of dollars worth of damage. Bug Sue claimed PC boards were infecting her with critters. To prove it she placed a white paper cup on her workbench. The paper cup was for trapping bugs as they crawled off circuit boards onto her arms. She happily announced capturing a few of those pesky beasts.

Shortly after a supervisor had Bug Sue removed from the area I walked to her workbench. Peeking inside that paper cup insect jail I saw nothing, of course. I concluded that Meth-vision was required in order to see the captive bugs.

Halfshirt's Butt Snorkel

Over in the instrument assembly area I've been hearing nothing but complaints coming from the dayshift crew about a guy named James. Since I haven't worked instrument assembly in what seems like forever I'm completely out of touch with who is doing what at any given time in their group. Everybody keeps whining about James and I couldn't figure out who he was. From the sound of things I imagined James was a cranky old bastard with authority who had been working here for decades. Expecting to see a gray haired old man that smelled like a mix of stale coffee and tuna fish I was startled to discover that James is actually a pudgy white guy in his early 20s. I finally spotted him today. As far as I'm concerned he's a nobody nothing and I fail to understand why people are letting him get away with being a punk.

Complaints range from James being excessively abusive in his choice of words when talking with coworkers to bossing them around like he's their immediate supervisor. He has no power to be telling anyone what to do. Two people have mentioned to me they wanted to haul him outside and stuff a fist into his face more than once. They were afraid to because James has claimed he's a black belt in Karate or some shit. I scoffed at that. James looks like he couldn't fight his way out of a size 12 dress. Besides, anyone who really knows a martial art has no reason to publicly announce it to anyone. I smell a fake, a coward.

James is Halfshirt's personally appointed Butt Snorkel. A royal kiss ass. Since Halfshirt was demoted from working in the NPI department and sent back to regular production he's been mad about it. For a manager his attitude is very poor. Not wanting to have much of anything to do with production work Halfshirt told his team in assembly that James is the area's lead. I seriously doubt Halfshirt can do that. Essentially this dumb kid who has no experience was put in charge of an instrument line. Bad idea. The line has been plunged into chaos and turmoil since then. This could really backfire on Halfshirt if things get worse over there. He might earn himself an exit ticket on the next round of layoffs. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Layoffs: Round 3

We're still entirely top heavy with more managers than you can shake a stick at. In the first couple rounds of layoffs most employees who lost their jobs were small time. Hourly wage, paid with peanuts style salaries. Hardly any supervisors or department managers were hit. From my perspective it's aggravating because we've lost some real hard working people that didn't cost much compared to useless managers who bring in high paychecks for doing next to nothing. Low overhead employees directly contribute to our success. Managers don't. If anything else they just sap company resources and muck things up worse. For every deadbeat supervisor who continues to suck down fat stacks of cash we could have spared ten above average production workers.

Round number three of layoffs has snared some management. I'm happy to see it happen. The interesting thing is instead of these individuals being shown the front gate instantly most of them are being shuffled over to work on Oracle for a few months. Then they are thrown out. Oracle has been such a colossal disaster since it was launched that there are literally hundreds of people working long hours trying to make it function properly. Apparently a whole army of consultants are working on it as well. Because Oracle's databases and supporting software turned out to be a gigantic steaming pile of shit many employees will be able to hang on for a few more months before their final day arrives. What a strange set of circumstances that must be. You've been eliminated, yet in order to receive your severance you are obligated to assist the company with repairing a massively broken project. I wouldn't be very motivated to put forth more than a token effort if that happened to me.

Recently I had two friends in town from Ashland, Oregon for a visit. I invited them here to work for a tour. Neither one of them had seen anything like this before. While we walked from department to department we passed by an empty floor of one building that had nothing but hundreds of office chairs stacked up half way to the ceiling. Every piece of office furniture and equipment had already been removed weeks earlier. You could see clear across to the other side of that building in any direction from where we were. The only things out there were those piles of chairs cordoned off with yellow tape like you'd find at a construction site or a police crime scene. I mentioned that this is where our microcircuit department used to be, with three shifts working nearly seven days a week. I pointed out across the shop floor to the chairs and I said, "Every single one of those chairs used to belong to someone who was laid off. They're all gone due to offshoring."

That put things into grim perspective for my guests.

Buying A New Car

The Cougar is wasted. I've been feeling bad about it pretty much since the deer wreck. It's front end is thrashed, the paint is completely shot. Under the hood sits a tired 302 leaking oil from everywhere. That motor was rebuilt by Dad and myself when I was still in high school. Back in 1987 I think it was. On the inside, the headliner is ripped to shreds. Safety pins hold it up in enough places so I can see out the rear window. There's a giant crack in the dashboard that's split it in two. Both front bucket seats need reupholstering badly. The driver's side is so destroyed that I stuffed an old shirt into it to keep my backside from hitting the floorboard below. There used to be a vinyl top on the roof but it disintegrated. I hacked the rest of it off the car with a dull carpet cutter which revealed a whole heap of red rust.

Basically, my car is a genuine cop magnet. No matter where I am driving that thing around as soon as a patrolman spots it they're anticipating a juicy bust with plenty of ticket writing. I keep my shit in order though and I don't bury my foot in the pedal doing stupid stuff. The cops always leave disappointed when everything checks out okay. Sometimes I get the feeling they'd like to bust a taillight so they can at least give me a fix it ticket, but the lights back there are armored. So are the headlights for that matter.

Seventeen years is a long time to have the same car. I'd really like to restore the Cougar, but to do that properly I can't be using it as my daily driver. I need something else. Something brand new for a change. All I know is old classic cars from the Sixties. The Cougar is as recent as I get. 1968. Maybe it's time I buy a brand new ride and park this mangy beast so I can fix it up. Could be a fun project and I won't have to worry about getting to work every day. While I'm at it I should finally do something with that Oldsmobile too. Autumn has been bugging me to get it running again. She's a hotrodder at heart with a secret lust for big old cars and their big back seats. Rebuilding that engine is going to be a serious chore though. Not sure I'm up for that.

Ford has extended their employee discount to our company because we exclusively buy their vehicles for our nationwide fleet. Not too many of our people know about that benefit. Through Ford I can instantly knock thousands of dollars off a car's asking price and there's no worry of negotiating with salespeople at a dealership. Ford Corporate handles the whole thing. I'm supposed to go in and just pick out a car and that's that. No haggling or bullshit. I think I'm going to check it out. Might as well see what the Japanese have to offer while I'm at it although I don't expect to fit inside any of their cars. I'm just too damned tall and those cars are made for little people anyway. Won't hurt to look though.

Exporting Greasy Guy

Ah. Things are getting back on track in the chamber area. Everything is organized and clean for once. As soon as Greasy Guy left for the airport I grabbed a bottle of Lab Clean and a box of blue shop towels. Walking through the chamber area and the environmental lab I scrubbed all of Greasy Guy's gray filmy forehead slime off the observation windows of each temperature chamber. You know what? I can finally see shit properly in the chambers. Yeah!

I've got three months of Greasy Guy free time running Mini-Rel. I'm in charge of the gig. Without him around I should be able to get caught up with management's production schedule, turn this whole operation around. I swear that guy is the biggest obstacle we have to meeting deadlines. It's like having a speedboat with a big block V8 in it, but you can't pull a water skier up and out because you're dragging three anchors along the lake bottom.

Someone had the bright idea to send him over to Penang. He's going to be training some of their technicians to perform Mini-Rel procedures. I feel sorry for those employees because they're not going to learn much from Greasy Guy except bad habits. He's also going to eat all their food. Those poor Malay...

DoD IG

I made an anonymous call to the Department of Defense Inspector General's office today. For the past year or so Malay employees from Penang and Singapore have been telling some of us here Stateside about serial number swapping on US Government rated orders coming through our Singapore division. Malay working there have been told by their management teams to change serial numbers on instruments that have been 100% built in Malaysia, and then ship them out to US Military and Government agency customers as boxes built in Singapore. Real dirty stuff going on there.

In the past all sensitive US Government orders were produced entirely Stateside. This included orders for defense contractors and foreign militaries. That is no longer the case.

Under current US laws Singapore is the only foreign country in that region of Asia that has been approved for working on military orders. However there are very clear restrictions on how they are built. For example, our products can be tested in Malaysia and they can have some assembly work performed in country. At least 51% of the unit must be built in Singapore. Well, that's just not happening. At first they were playing sort of a game, shipping boxes back and forth between Penang and Singapore then re-serializing the finished instruments. Now apparently they aren't even wasting their time with that. They're just doing the whole thing in Penang then shipping new instruments to Singapore and scraping the Malaysia serial tags off.

Our latest generation of instruments are unreliable and have so many serious electrical failures at all stages of the test process that no guarantee of limiting assembly work in Malaysia to 49% could ever realistically happen. I've been aware of these allegations for some months, and I was able to verify that US Government rated orders are in fact being almost exclusively built and tested in Penang then shipping out to the Singapore facility where they get the serial number switcheroo. I have access to all of Penang's computer systems so I can see individual instruments flowing through their test process. In addition to that I have a record of how long each unit has been in their area as well as how much assembly work they've performed on them. The more failures each box has, the more assembly work must be done. On average it's a massive amount.

Thanks to the negative environment our Shareholder Value CEO and his cronies have created here it's been easy for me to gain access to more and more information while investigating this. Employees are fed up, angry, and disgruntled. I've carefully approached a few key people asking for help concerning this serious issue and everyone has been very supportive. In addition to gaining access to the Penang systems, I was also given accounts with high levels of access in our ordering systems. That way I can look out ahead six months in advance, identify every single US military order and wait to see which production facility it magically appears in.

Part of my plan is to gather enough information over a long period of time so that I can show a pattern of deliberate, willful wrongdoing on the part of this company. I don't want to make serious accusations like this and not have much hard data or facts to back it up. If I'm going to do this I need to absolutely body slam these fuckers.

I've spent a great deal of time thinking about the situation and there are a number of things that concern me deeply. The Malay have many good workers there, but it is predominantly a Muslim country. Animosity towards the United States is at a much higher level now since the invasion of Iraq. Employees there who distrust and dislike us on religious grounds will have a much easier time deliberately damaging or sabotaging instruments if they know the end user will be a branch of the US military services. They also may be more likely to study how a military customer programs their units, settings and so forth, if those units ever end up back in their facility for repair. We do have security scrub procedures for sensitive customers but you never know; someone could be careless. What if sabotaged test instruments end up in the hands of military users who depend on that equipment to stay alive and it prematurely malfunctions? Maybe someone gets killed. Personally, I don't think it's worth risking.

So I call in to the DoD IG's office just to ask some questions. I need to find out what's legal, and what isn't. Put things into a framework. Who knows, I could be way off base with this and the laws have changed. Or something. Anyway, when the phone stopped ringing a tired old woman's voice with a heavy Southern accent greeted me. I explained that I worked for a high technology electronics company who supplies all branches of US military service with instruments. I also carefully explained the situation with our boxes built in Malaysia and Singapore. I voiced my concerns then I asked a simple question. It was a yes or no question, really.

"Is it legal for my company to manufacture US government defense rated orders in Malaysia?"

The slow, tired old Southern woman's voice drawled, "You'll have to check with your employer."
I was completely stupidified by her response. I'M going to have to check with MY employer about this? Like I can just go up to top management and ask "Hey guys is it cool for us to be switching serial tags on our military boxes in Singapore? Isn't that illegal? Huh?"
WTF?
Just to be sure I wasn't going insane or that my ears had suddenly picked up a random brainwave transmission from alien beings on planet eleven I asked the same question a second time. Again she gave me the same answer. "Check with your employer." This was amazingly retarded, not at all what I expected from the DoD.

Yes it is illegal for US military orders to be built in Malaysia.

OR

No it is not illegal for US military orders to be built in Malaysia.

It's not that tough of a question to ask a representative of the Department of Defense. Is it? Completely perplexed I asked another question rather sarcastically. "I don't think my employer is going to tell me one way or the other if our operation in Malaysia is breaking any federal laws, Ma'am. Nor would it be wise to ask. So where would you suggest I look to find an answer?"
She replied, "I don't know."

That's fucking great. I hung up. Guess I'm on my own with this one.

An Unemployed Drunk

Great news when I came in to work today. The Drunk got herself fired. Not laid off. No severance package. Fired. That is the coolest shit EVER.

The Drunk was pulling a fairly idiotic scam that finally caught up with her. Since 1996 she's been showing up to work almost every day totally bombed. Her peers knew about it but for some reason they looked the other way and tolerated it this whole time. She has an office at two of our factories here in the county. So what she did was place a notice on her desk at each office saying she was at the other site. If anybody was looking for her they'd just assume she was at the other division for a meeting or something. Then she stopped coming in to work altogether. What a genius. I guess The Drunk got away with it for quite a long time before someone noticed.

I laughed for a while.

When I first met The Drunk she was my boss in Spokane, Wa. Hired in as a Material Coordinator, my job was to train in every aspect of the instrument line and then take over responsibility for ordering all of that product line's parts and supplies. It's a tough job, but I could have easily handled it. Because of the job's scope it came with a decent pay rate. Weeks after I arrived on site in Spokane to begin work I was sabotaged by one of The Drunk's kiss asses who was pissed off that she didn't get the Material Coordinator job. I had the position swiped out from under me with no recourse or avenue to make a grievance. I lost a considerable amount of money over the years thanks to The Drunk and that is why I am particularly happy to hear she's been kicked out. I hope she buys a bottle of fortified wine and ends up face down in a muddy ditch.

Potatohead Rumors

Now that Potatohead has officially accepted his severance package and taken the coward's way out (wise choice), Shoelaces and I have been coming up with a colorful variety of rumors about him. This place is a giant rumor mill here. Employees love to hear fresh dirt on their coworkers past or present.

My personal favorite is one Shoelaces invented. He's been telling people here at work that he saw Potatohead standing off to the side of the freeway selling boxes of oranges. Shoelaces does a convincing job telling that one to wide eyed employees. It's awesome. So far it's been a very popular rumor that's spreading quickly throughout the division.

I've been telling everyone Potatohead got a job working construction, digging ditches because that's all he could do. Usually I add in an extra juicy tidbit- his wife left him. But I only tack that on for the ladies. Not that any of them thought Potatohead was a studly man or anything. Quite the opposite. That's what makes it so amusing.

Someone else started one that goes something like this. After leaving here Potatohead got a job working an auto parts counter at Kragen. That's also a decent lie, but it might actually be close to the truth. One guy who keeps in contact with a former pet of Potatohead's (who was also laid off recently) told my source that he is in fact working auto parts. He's running a parts warehouse though. It's not retail which of course if it were would be ultimately humiliating for Potatohead. We're cooking up some even more rowdy stories about Potatohead just to see how many people will fall for them. It's going to be a good time.

Me Me Me Me Me

"I don't know what I'm going to do. Your mother's sickness is going to cost us the house, our retirement, everything."
Here we go again. It's the same conversation every time. My eyes were rolling back in my skull as I spoke into the phone.
"You have medical benefits. You have a substantial pension coming from the fire department."
Dad snapped back sarcastically, "That won't cover long term costs of putting her in a nursing home. I'll go broke. I won't have anything left. No retirement, no house, nothing. This is going to be real fun for me. Work all these years..."
"Real fun for you? What about Mom? She's the one with the disease, man. You think this is going to be a grand time for her? She's scared as hell right now."
"I'M THE ONE WHO HAS TO DEAL WITH IT!"

Oh, the drama. Me me me me me... that's all I hear from Dad.

"You know what? You need to stop worrying about these doomsday blacker than black what-if scenarios. Worry about what you have some control over now. Research different kinds of medical insurance. Find out if there are some financial options. Investigate alternative treatments or new drugs that might be available. Right now you're constantly stressing over this junk which is years away from happening and you don't have a god damned clue about any of it."

I cringed before opening my mouth again to say it because I knew Dad was going to jump on the chance to drag me down with him as far as he could. I was going to try to stick by him and be a good son even though I'd have to wade through his constant bullshit piled ten feet high. Dad and I really aren't friends. Never have been. Mom was the person I had to keep myself focused on. She's the one who is in need, not this jackoff.

"I'll help do some ground work, research some things, and look into this stuff."

He'd just fuck it all up anyway.

No Retirement

Mom's situation is worsening all on fronts. Not only is the disease rapidly causing more of her cognitive skills to erode, she's also constantly being messed with by Dad, and on top of that the company just effectively burned her out of her retirement. After working here for 20+ years with less than a year to go to age 55 her supervisor in MTA completely fucked her over. This is really bad.

What happened at work was this: Mom's boss clearly stated that she cannot return to work unless her doctor writes a legal letter saying she is healthy and can perform her job duties normally. That would be impossible since there is no cure for Alzheimer's. There are a few risky drugs with multiple negative side effects that may help slow her mental deterioration down a bit but that's it. Feeling like she was being backed into a corner, Mom panicked and snuck into work late on a Sunday night to collect her personal belongings. My father isn't very bright at times and he went along with this goofy scheme. Apparently one of Mom's coworkers was there when they crept in, saw her clearing out her locker and desk then reported it via voicemail to their line manager. The reaction from her supervisor that week was predictable. She called it "Job Abandonment." Honestly I don't know what else Mom could have done. Nobody was willing to help her out with this understandable and difficult personal situation.

I suspect her manager is terrified of being laid off so she's following company policies to a ridiculous degree. She'll end up being laid off anyway, regardless of how she handles this.

It's rather sickening that our company is treating one of it's longtime employees this way. Bill and Dave used to take care of their own, especially when they contracted terminal illnesses. Right now it looks like Dad is going to have to sue the company for her medical benefits and retirement. They don't need this on top of all their other problems.

My father isn't the best person to have around as a caregiver. In fact, he is downright worthless. There are only two things Dad seems particularly concerned with in this world and those are 1) himself and 2) his bank account. So far he has shown little ability for dealing with Mom's disease. He's not treating her very well. She frequently becomes confused over real simple stuff and instead of Dad helping her out he gets all angry and starts yelling at her. Yelling only makes her more upset and confused. It's cruel. I've asked him a number of times to stop acting that way towards her, then I've told him to stop and now we're getting to the point where I'm threatening him with violence if he doesn't stop. I swear he's such a fucking asshole. And he wonders why I rarely ever talk to him or visit.

See, Dad has this aggressive obnoxious Type A personality. He's real weird about everything in the house always being spotless and in perfect order. As a kid I used to call him "Mr. White Gloves" behind his back. If I had dared to make fun of him to his face I would have got the daylights beat out of me. He's obsessed with little pieces of fluff on the carpet or crumbs on the dining room floor. Everything is always spotless. With an Alzheimer's patient around they do stuff like going to place a pen on the counter, but a few feet away from it just drop the pen on the floor. In their mind they put it on the counter like usual but in reality it's lying on the ground. Any person who had even a small shred of compassion or understanding would know you pick the pen up for them and put it away without complaining, or yelling, or having an angry meltdown. In the grand scheme of things shit like that doesn't matter. Well, in my father's fucked up little world an incident like that is cause for a total freakout. Similar petty problems are coming up all the time every damn day. He just can't handle it. I wish he'd shut up for a change.

Nixie Clock

Cathode Corner's NC620 kit arrived at my place a few days ago. It's been a long while since I've worked with thru-hole components and printed circuitboards which is what the kit comprises of. I miss that old era of electronics. Everything I deal with at my job these days is surface mount technology. It's a pain in the ass no matter how you work with it. Anyway after reading over the nixie clock kit's instructions I was impressed with Cathode Corner's design and excellent documentation. From start to finish the entire project only took me a total of five hours broken up over two nights. I was going easy on it too, drinking beers while I installed components and soldered them into place. I had a great time.

The clock functions perfectly. At night it's real cool because it floods my room with a warm orange glow like a fireplace.

Shopping around online for nixie clock kits I found about a half dozen designs that looked good. Cost was a factor though as some of them were in the $500-$800 range. That was far too much above what I was willing to spend. Also, one or two of those expensive kits didn't even include a set of tubes. You were supposed to go out on your own and find some. Shitty. I chose Cathode Corner's kit because it was affordably priced and it came with a full set of six vintage new old stock nixies. They looked pristine when I removed them from the box.

Nixie vacuum tubes first hit the electronics world in the 1950s. For about two decades most electronic devices that had a numeral display used nixies. Inside each nixie there's a set of thin metal filaments shaped 0 through 9. The numbers are lit up individually by running current through a specific set of pins at the vacuum tube's base. Pretty simple stuff. Previous to nixies, there were bulky vacuum tubes called Dekatrons that had a pie shaped metal element inside. They acted like primitive display devices by spinning a light around. The faster the light spun the faster a dekatron was counting. Dekatrons were replaced by nixies, nixies were rendered obsolete by seven segment LEDs. Nixies were expensive to manufacture and generally used above 150VDC to ignite. By the 1970s LEDs were cheap to produce and only required a small amount of power compared to vacuum tubes. They eventually replaced Nixie tubes in every application. These days nixies are more of a nostalgic item than anything else.

Scrap Boards

A15 board from an obsolete Carrier Wave Signal Generator shot with ultra bright green LED. 1024x768
A11 board from an obsolete Carrier Wave Signal Generator under blacklights. 1024x768
Vintage optional RAM board with 512K of memory. 1024x768

Sunday Night Experiments

I feel kinda stupid.

Sunday night before Autumn left to go home I set her up with some of this laser stuff thinking she'd be into it. What a mistake. She was a good sport, tolerating my nerdyness and all but her reaction was like "I'm happy to see you so excited." Basically she was saying I'm not interested, don't care, good for you. So from now on I'm going to work on electronics related projects Sunday evenings after she has split. I will try to refrain from bugging her about whatever weird shit I'm tinkering with.

Believe me I've got plans.

Dave and I were hanging out at his place after work the other night drinking beers. He's into retro technology like I am. I don't remember what made me think of it now, but I got on the subject of these strange vacuum tubes I used to see when I was a kid. Back in the early 1970s before seven segment LEDs were around anything that had a numeral display used glowing vacuum tubes. Each tube shifted from number to number with a cool fading effect. They were in everything from calculators to clocks. You never see them these days. Most people either forgot about them or don't know they existed. Anyway I started researching them online. They're called Nixie tubes.

I didn't tell Autumn about it, but on the sly I bought a six digit Nixie clock kit from a place called Cathode Corner. This coming Sunday I'm going to be a mad scientist again and start building it. I've also got ideas for doing more low light photography with a bunch of scrap PC boards from work. Maybe I'll mess around with my digital camera and see if I can make any interesting pictures.

Laser Photography

I think I've stumbled across a new, geeky hobby. Late last night I set up one of those scrapped lasers and started pumping the beam into different stuff just to see what it would look like. The lasers are low power 633nm HeNe which produces a beautiful ruby red light. I'm fascinated by this color for some reason. Dunno why. Anyway, some of the things I messed around with were a precision ground glass lens, a diffraction grating, bottles of various colored dish soap, a soft white lightbulb, and a salt shaker. The more interesting stuff I took pictures of with my digital camera. Low light photography like this is tough but I think I'm going to do a lot more of it in coming weeks because it's so much fun.

Diffraction gratings split a laser into multiple beams. Depending on which angle and side I shot the laser into it produced varying amounts of beams. It also changed the shape. Instead of a tight dot some of them came out and hit the walls more flat like a line. It was cool to have 20-30 bright red dots all over the ceiling and walls. Made me wish I'd had some dry ice or a smoke machine. Probably see individual beams shooting all over the place.

Yellow dish soap reacted nicely. I also tried green and purple dish soap, but it didn't do a fuckin' thing when I put the laser to it. Yellow gave off a bright glow which made the beam very visible inside the bottle.

I was drinking a rum and coke while being a mad household scientist so I had to take a shot or two of that...

Thanks Lightwave

Tonight I was walking back into the instrument line down by MI/EI when I rounded a corner from the main hallway to catch three of our production engineers standing around like cats with feathers stuck in their mouths. Dr. Fist was there, along with two other engineer guys that I didn't know well but recognized. I suspected they were up to no good. One of them was clutching something small. All three of them were smiling like fiends. Curious, I stepped over to where they were and asked in a sarcastic tone, "What badness are you guys up to? What you got there?" One of the younger engineers held up a black cylinder with a pair of wires hanging off one end and he said, "Lasers." My eyes got big as hubcaps.

"Where?" I asked.
"Out back between building 1 and 2, near the recycling center. They've been out there for days."

Holy shit. That meant the company was ditching them. It had been raining hard all week. Any time they haul stuff outside and leave it to rot in the elements that means the stuff is being scrapped. Fuck yeah! I ran back to my desk, snagged a flashlight and a black cardboard ESD parts box. Then I jammed outside in the rain towards the recycling center. When I arrived, I saw a single line of pallets thirty feet long with cases piled on them up to my waist. Not knowing where to begin or what I would find inside I carefully opened up water logged boxes to find brand new precision lab standard HeNe lasers. There were thousands of them along with their high voltage power converters. I also discovered diffraction gratings, lenses, mirrors, and fiber optic cables. Very cool.

Like a kid in a candy store I started throwing a bunch of shit into my ESD box under my arm. Being careful not to make a mess and consumed with excitement I kept sorting interesting items out and tossing them into the box. I was a rational, yet crazed shopper. Then a voice startled me. It was Dr. Fist. "You can't be ripping through stuff. Clean up after yourself or they're going to know people were out here." He was pointing to a pallet that someone had gone berzerk on and left packing material all over the ground. Offended that Dr. Fist would assume I'd be that careless I told him I didn't do that crap. I know better. This is covert shit. Gotta keep it on the down low. Motion sensitive video cameras are everywhere. Dr. Fist hung out with me for a while. He explained that since Lightwave was exterminated like vermin during the layoffs all this brand new gear they bought over the last year or two is no longer needed. So that's why they were jettisoning it. Interesting. Entirely wasteful.

Then it hit me: I had to spread the wealth. I can't let the brothers in other departments go without an opportunity to score some goods. One-Eye was a hell of a scrounge around here and he'd be seriously into this. Almost running up to his department I found the dudes. All I said was, "Each of you grab a box and a flashlight. Don't ask no questions, just do it." I got some funny looks from them but they figured it was probably important so they went along with it. Five or six of us walked back outside in the rain to those pallets covered with soggy boxes. As soon as the guys realized what they were looking at they were stuffing all kinds of shit into containers. It was hilarious to watch. I'd already snaked what I wanted. I got my fill so I left them out there and went back inside to work.

I can't wait to tell Autumn about this.

Customer Complaints

Man, more and more customers are real unhappy with us these days. Thanks to shortsighted managers rushing new product designs out the door just so we can have "something" in the marketplace ahead of the competition we've sold a ton of unreliable, defective boxes. All we seem to care about is selling test gear and getting the customer's cash up front. Everything else that happens after that doesn't matter. We don't care about their feedback and we're not listening to valid issues they have been bringing up. I am one of the few employees here on the shop floor paying particular attention to what our customers have to say. Nobody else around here seems to be aware of any customer satisfaction issues or cares. It's fucked up. Here's a sampling of what my customers complain about. I've removed instrument specific information. All of these complaints concern RF/Microwave Signal Generators but isn't limited to them only. Currently I am aware of numerous complaints and general dissatisfaction across most of our product platforms.

For those of you who are our direct competitors, take note of the information here. There should be some useful items to take advantage of...

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Our customer, Kathrein, evaluated our XXXX and the Anritsu MG3692. He likes our specification, the display and the user interface but doesn’t like the fan noise. The fan is the decision point. The Field Engineer asks “Are there any plans to reduce the fan noise? Do you have any other idea?” Response: XXXX is aware of this issue on the XXXX but we do not have plans to fix this noise level.
*Short answer, no. Nobody cares about the fan noise and nothing will be done about it.

In the call center, we are constantly trying to improve customer satisfaction. We are being hampered by not having access to real-time factory support in this country and in our time zone. We have a lot of legacy products out in the field, especially at military accounts, and when they have a question or a problem, they usually need it resolved quickly. It doesn’t work to wait a few days to get a response back from Malaysia. We need a minimum viable level of service center support in XXXXXX and division support in XXXXXX. At the service center, we should at least be able to work on the products that are still in their support life. For division support, if it isn’t possible to get a live person in XXXXXX for our products that are manufactured in Malaysia, we at the very least need someone in Malaysia who works the same hours we do and speaks good English.
*Well that's what you dumbshits get for sending everything halfway around the world just so you can exploit the Malay as a cheap labor force.

From the SPO (Service Parts Organization) liaison between our customer’s and our suppliers: “Our customers and SPO are faced with many problems due to the company's decision to outsource so much to Contract Manufacturers. These problems have been going on since the end of last year when the XXXXXX to XXXXXX transfer began. It is my job to resolve the source of the customer dissatisfaction and get their repair part to them immediately. Not so easy now days. XXXXXX has provided unrealistic lead times for our downed customers and there is no good expedite process in place with the CMs regarding these customer requirements. Our customers’ only option is to wait the long lead times for their required parts. The TAT in the service centers will suffer. For on-site next day customer contracts, it will have an even greater impact. This company's end user customer will have an even worse experience with our customer support. My concern is that once the transfers have all been completed, XXXXXX will lose any kind of visibility to their customers’ plight. I, however, shall continue to hear their unhappy screams and there will be little I can do to resolve the issues any longer. This will be the hardest aspect of my job to accept."
*Hey. I have two words for you: Shareholder Value. When you outsource this much of the company's operation in a foolish attempt to save a few bucks and boost end of quarter earnings this is what happens. Enjoy, pal.

Nokia Networks and Mobile Phones have had many XXXXXX failures in a short amount of time ... no output signal, unlevel sign is on. Nokia Mobile Phones is introducing the XXXXXX into one of its production lines to cover W-LAN application. They are VERY concerned about the product quality as they have experienced already several failures of Output boards.
*Outsourcing, offshoring, rushing new designs to market without flushing out critical design flaws all add up to inferior products with high cost and low reliability. You've also probably got quite a few counterfeit components in your units. I'll get to that later...

Skyworks Solutions, Inc: "I have 4 XXXXXX ESG's (our company has 50+). We purchased option 405 (802.11b personality) and option 410 (802.11a personality). The 802.11b software produces a waveform that is an ABSOLUTE VIOLATION of the 802.11 standard. To address the problem, XXXXX charges $5000 for a software upgrade (option 417), when the software was broken to begin with. Furthermore, we can no longer even download the broken software for the options that we did pay for (we still use options 405 and 410 for some measurements). We would like to at least be able to continue to download the software for those options that we paid for, even if it is XXXXX policy to sell broken software and then charge for the correction (802.11g is the same modulation as 802.11a, the fact that Option 417 supports 802.11g does not mean it supports a new modulation format additional to Options 405 and 410)."

RenTelco: "I have an XXXXX Synthesized Swept-CW Generator, 10 MHz to 26.5 GHz. What is the specific product that is recommended as a replacement for this unit? We are a rental company and when a customer wants to rent an XXXXX, I need to know exactly what XXXXX recommends as the replacement. I don't want to be sent to a "XXXX" page, I want it to be a specific model number and take me to that product page. I need it to be streamlined, linear, specific. I want to know what XXXXX says is the recommended replacement and that's what we'll put into our database. My sales people need to know specifically what to order for the replacement."
*Our customer-facing external website fucking sucks. It's so messed up that we can't even use it internally to find information on many of our older products. Many of us share your frustration but until the people in charge of our website pull their heads out of their asses this is going to continue to be a real problem.

In April, Telogy tried to order the XXXXX (Modulation Generator) they were told was available ... only to find out Oracle was showing it as not orderable. After telling the customer it was not orderable, we fixed the system and on May 21st customer sent his unit to Malaysia. The unit shipped back to him on June 23rd and was received with no AM modulation. They asked that the unit be repaired within two weeks to meet the needs of their customer. Unit was sent to XXXXXX on July 2nd. A second part needed to be ordered when the first part was received defective. The second board appeared defective as well. On August 2nd, the problem was found to be the motherboard... the option boards were okay. The unit was shipped to the customer on August 9th and is working, however, Telogy is still upset this has taken so long and that they lost a customer in the process.

Ascom Tateco AB placed an order in December for an XXXXX. For several (~7) weeks, there was confusion over which factory builds these upgrades. When the upgrade shipped on February 28th, we shipped 2 units, customer ordered only 1 unit. The credit for the second one is not released yet but hopefully we will do that very soon! So, from a customer perspective this has not been a good case, 9 months from order (dec) to final credit (aug/sept).
*Absolutely pathetic.

"I rely on the XXXXX Phase Noise performance > 100 kHz in the PSA cal software. I learned of the XXXXX discontinuance when one of my customers asked what source my future plans were going to use. After looking into the XXXX performance I realize the XXXX isn't a replacement for the Noise Sideband performance of the XXXXX. I have talked to many self maintainers....Casey (Rockwell Collins), James (USAF), Jeffrey (USAFMETCAL)....that have voiced the same concerns."

USAF: "The XXXXX website sends you over to the XXXX webpage. The XXXX doesn't have the Noise Sidebands performance (160 dBc/Hz typical performance @ 1 MHz to 10 MHz offset) that the XXXXX has. The XXXX isn't an XXXXX replacement. Are you working on a XXXX option that will perform as well as the XXXXX?"
*A recent trend here is we have been discontinuing our high performance legacy products and replacing them with inferior equivalent units that don't have the performance or tight specifications. Oh and our customer facing website is pure ass. Sorry 'bout that.

"I would like to use the XXXXXX to test our 50 GHz Wide Bandwith Option (Opt 122) scheduled for fall '05. The source would be used to verify our Wide Bandwidth IF Phase Linearity specification above 20 GHz. The >$200k price is going to prevent me from specing this source into the PSA cal software ETE. We will use the XXXXX and only test to 20 GHz."
*That's our marketing department having fun with price gouging.

RF Micro Devices requested a quote for Signal Studio for HSDPA. Between the time they were quoted a price (March) and when they placed the order (August) significant enhancements were made to the software and the price was increased during the semi-annual pricing round (May). Customer: "A $970 increase ??? That's a 20% jump. How do you justify that? Why has the quote gone up so much in such a short time? This may be unacceptable. I will have to check on this."
*More price gouging.

Third complaint in 5 months about the loud fan noise in the XXXX.
*Yeah, nobody is going to do a damn thing about it, either.

A need for improved security erase procedures in the XXXX from Northrop-Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, and Raytheon.
*Scrub procedures in our boxes are an overcomplicated hassle and in order to remove the hard drive you have to take the unit apart just to get at it. Same goes for CPU boards with sensitive data stored in memory. I agree this is a problem, but from what I have learned about the situation management has looked into this issue and flat out refused to change designs to include an easily removable disc drive or simplify the scrub procedures.

Concern from several groups in Lockheed Martin to PLEASE stop changing and obsoleting the model #s for the XXXX - this group in Owego, NY has purchased many XXXX and integrated them into systems for specific programs. All the support documentation has to be revised each time we obsolete a product. They are getting frustrated and have informed their FE that each time this happens it also allows them to easily switch vendors. All our competitors are focused on the defense companies like Lockheed - we need to try and reduce obstacles. He was less stressed when I (XXXXXX FE) explained his Cs were being rev'd to Ds - but then we got into the other XXXX. In the last couple of years they have purchased our latest and best Sig Gens. For basically the same XXXX CW generator they will have 3 different model #s in 3.5 years A-C-D. This gets expensive and frustrating for Lockheed to constantly update support packages and reduces our leverage of using common products across multiple programs when the model #s keep changing. Revising a suffix is much better than changing the model # ex A to B or A-B-C - is much less painful for our customers and also builds product loyalty. The XXXXXX has been the gold standard for almost 20 years - that is about the life of many of Lockheed's programs. We have trained our customers to expect stability and quality from this company - we have struggled the last few years.
*Marketing is always trying to push something that's "new" you know, it's that 1950s mentality that if you can tell customers you've got something "new" they'll probably buy it. It's irrelivant if it is actually an improvement over previous models. They're counting on this lame ass strategy, and I'd like to add the models you've already bought from us were hobbled versions of the full-fledged box. Things were running so far behind schedule in R&D that the decision was made to sell what we had at the time just to have something available for purchase. As soon as the design was more complete they obsoleted the previous model.

Anaren Microwave bought several XXXXXX generators in May. Now in September they need two more, and we've announced it will be discontinued on Nov. 1. Problem is support life. Anaren uses their generators for a long time. The C is being replaced with the D, which in their configuration is exactly identical. Trouble is, the C's they bought a few months ago will be out of support in 5 years! Models turn over too quickly these days to leave it at 5 years. In this case, the C should be supported longer than 5 years because the replacement is functionally identical.

Defence Account Manager in Australia: I'm figuring that the XXXXXX is still about 80% identical in hardware to the XXXXX, so why are we treating this like the complete death of a product and the customer has to figure out what he wants to do with it after 5 years! I've got to walk into a meeting and try to convince them that they don't need to go back out to competitive tender again. That the new model is virtually identical and only has a 'D' on the end of it instead of a 'C'. But if I have to tell them that we still don't really have a support plan for it, then we better be prepared to just take back all 23 instruments that they've bought in the last 18 months (19 earlier this year) and hand them new XXXXXX!

Mark, FE: "Rockwell Collins is looking at buying 2 of these software options (Enhanced Multitone and NPR) now and maybe 6 or 8 in the future. However, because of the price of each of the personalities, they are going through an engineering effort to figure out why NOT to buy NPR and that's not the mode we should have our customers in because of our price. We need to respond and respond shortly. It's been over a year since this has been under investigation and frankly, if we're going to be agile, we need to be agile -- and that's making decisions where it really makes a lot of sense. I don't know what the hang up is on offering a 2 for 1 1/2; that is, buy one and get the second one at half price. I think that would make a very good offer and not really cut into our profit line. It's cutting into our profit line now when they're going off and figuring out how not to use our software options. I need an answer and I think the division ought to get off the pot and make a decision on when customers want to buy more than one very expensive software option that we bucket these into a palatable solution that doesn't prevent sales, but actually enhances sales."
*Asleep at the wheel, no one paying attention to customer needs, price gouging, and only give a marginal discount when a customer complains loudly enough. Doesn't make a whole lot of common sense from a business standpoint to keep operating in this manner.

Comments about delivery requirements, product quality, repair turnaround-time and cost received from Flextronics, Southeast University, Nokia, RF Micro Devices, and Huawei Technologies during customer visits.

A request from Northrop Grumman to forward a letter to the management team expressing their outrage at "The company's lack of sensitivity for configuration control regarding the C change to a D. Northrop Grumman ES Test Systems is not a casual consumer of an instrument that sits isolated in some lab. The instruments we utilize, and I believe that was over $1,000,000 on this contract alone, are part of Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) used to sell product to our customers. As such we have drawings that call out all of our hardware. We have a Component Management System which tracks the part numbers, we have a Master Parts List which stores our part numbers, and we have SAP which is used to procure the hardware. All of these systems are affected when a part number changes and requires a revision notice to be generated to initiate this change and engineering time, and is processed by numerous other personnel which costs money. Not only does this affect the C, but it also results in a change to the C. WE HAVE ONLY RECEIVED DELIVERY OF THE C's SOME TIME LATE OCTOBER. THIS MEANS THAT THE ATE IS OBSOLETE BEFORE IT WAS EVEN ASSEMBLED. What I would like is for XXXXXX to take back all of the Cs and all of the XXXXCs and upgrade them to Ds at no cost to Northrop Grumman."
*These kinds of situations should never have happened in the first place. Inexcuseable.

US Navy reported they did not receive their option 420 (pulse building) software with their new XXXXC. "We did receive the signal generator, but the associated software was not in the box. The paperwork that came with the shipment listed only one box in the shipment, but was missing the C-420 Signal Studio for pulse building component." After letting him know he only receives a page letter inside an envelope with instructions for downloading the software from the web, he found the information he needed. "I am a little perturbed that for a price tag of $15,000.00 I had to download the system interface software, burn it to the appropriate media, download and print the manuals, and retrieve the host ID and license keyword from the Signal Generator in a very convoluted process. I assumed for $15,000.00 the company would have included a CD-ROM and Manual in the box."
*This is a totally unnecessary, fouled up process that many customers frequently complain about. For whatever reasons no one is taking a serious look at the way we provide software licensing to make it streamlined and easier for customers to use. Right now when you purchase software options all you get in the box is a stupid form letter telling you to go download the items. But what if the download system isn't working properly or what if you happen to work in a secure environment where outside internet access is prohibited? You're out of luck. Maybe someone in the company will eventually mail you a CD rom with an outdated version of your software options but you will more than likely have to complain for a long time before anyone is going to respond.

Similar to the feedback received last month from the US Navy and other reported OBDs, Northrop Grumman (D-408) and LG Electronics (A-170,160,168) reported they did not receive the new software they ordered. Response from Northrop Grumman: "My initial asssement is that putting the item in an appropriately marked box is more likely to result in delivery than an envelope. Alternatively a CD, even if obsolete seems to get through and having a notice on it to go to your web site for the latest works for me. Additionally, I would note that receiving has become a difficult operation these days when shipped options are buried in the units and are less than tangible to a non-engineer. Perhaps you need to enclose very specific directions to the receiver as to how to evaluate the contents of the shipment."
*See my comment above.

Rockwell Collins and Skyworks are having major problems creating and downloading files (waveform and data files) to the XXXX/XXXX. Our documentation (programming manuals, applications notes and download utilities) are not useful for many customers as they assume a higher level of programming knowledge than many customers have. The Contact Center reports there has been a significant increase over the past year in the number of customers calling with these download problems.

Navy Mid-Atlantic bought the C version (20 and 40GHz) of the XXXX to use as a drop in replacement for the XXXXX signal generator working together with a D scalar. In this combination it isn't possible to make good D scalar measurements in AC mode below 3.2Ghz. The customer is working on the Navy calibration lab and needs to do high quality load measurements with the XXXX/Scalar combination. The customer is very openly communicating his statement right now, "The XXXX is a piece of crap below 3.2GHz." The customer is in contact with the cal labs of the Army and the Airforce and will not hesitate to inform these departments about his experiences with the XXXX.

Lockheed Martin in Denver is experiencing numerous firmware bugs which cause the XXXX to go out of spec. This is a very serious customer satisfaction issue which the customer believes has cost them "tons of time, money and credibility." The four issues submitted to the firmware team were: 1) enhancements to gain cal for ALC MOD GAIN 3 with I/Q on; 2) Unleveled Output Power in Auto power search with LB filters on; 3) Power search span mode has 0.75 dB error with IQ on; 4) Need error reported if power search with RF Off.

Our customer at ITT Industries sent an email to his Field Engineer, "I thought you'd like to know we've found problems with the signal generators (2 XXXXC) we have here and the XXXXA freq counter. When you add these issues to the XXXXXXA issue, then the quality level at your company is not looking too good. It makes it very difficult to take calibrated measurements when you have no faith in the test equipment. Both signal generators exhibit broadband spikes of several db and sometimes the CF spikes by 6 db. This happens when stepping the amplitude in most step sizes and seems to occur in spacings of 10 db for both signal generators. It happens at +2, -8, -18dbm. We didn't try more settings." We suggested the customer upgrade to firmware revision CXXXX6 or greater which eliminated power spikes when switching the mechanical attenuator. He was unable to do that immediately because he had sent the unit in for repair and it had been at our service center for several weeks. "When and if it ever comes back, I'll let you know." The unit was not returned from XXXX when expected. "We just received notice that our SG that was broken has now been rescheduled for 6-13. This will mean that your company has hijacked our equipment for 60 days. This is completely unacceptable! We need to understand why your company needs 60 days to repair and calibrate a piece of your own equipment." An escalation to the Service Center resulted in the return of their unit. XXXX product support is waiting to receive information from the customer to further investigate the issue as "the one (XXXXC) we received back recently still has the original problem. We are putting together a package of screen shots and firmware information. Can you please ensure that the one that is in calibration currently has this problem fixed before it is sent back. You can easily check for the problem by connecting the output of the SG to a SA in max hold and then step the SG power level."

Lucent/Celestica: "There are so many units of XXXX with opt. H99 installed in my production line. Most have the same failure i.e. 'unlevelled O/P' which needs to be sent to your company for repair. I was informed that this failure symptom is covered under service note warranty. That means your company is supposed to know that this special option must have problems and may cause failure to the instruments. Your company should recall back the units that have potential to get affected by this failure and replace with the new units -- or -- there should not be the expiration date for service note warranty as this is your company's fault not the customer's fault."
*You caught us, and you are entirely correct. The output board fails routinely on boxes with option H99. They are of a totally poor design and are known to be defective (bad HFETs, bad circuit design). We sold them anyway. There is a long story behind the H99 failures which I hope to get into shortly. Basically if you're not a big customer like Motorola or Boeing, the attitude is we don't care about you. We got your loot and as far as warranty service goes we don't stand behind our workmanship like we used to. Big customers such as Motorola also caught us on this one... and in that case management created a special "back door" service policy to repair their units and keep them happy. The rest of you poor bastards were left out in the cold while we gave you a big bony middle finger salute. For that I am truly disgusted, and sorry. We know better, and we used to take care of you guys.

In April of 1986 we made the following announcement concerning our warranty/service support:
Announcing Ten-Year Minimum Support
A further definition of lasting value

Lasting value is an integral part of every XXXXX product. Lasting value means enduring quality in both hardware and software as well as in strategies to protect these investments. It also means support and service to help you get the most out of the products and systems throughout their useful lives. Now XXXXX has extended it's support commitment to a minimum of ten years after active manufacture of the product. This commitment inculdes the availability of parts, maintenance services, training, useage assistance, and a whole host of other programs designed to ensure your access to the help you need in using your XXXXX products effectively. What's more, this backup is only a minimum. In many special situations, we will continue to offer support beyond this time period. This continuing effort is an extension of our larger commitment to an ongoing partnership. We stand behind our products with support you can count on- for the long run.

Today, twenty years later all of that has gone clear out the window. When you buy one of our brand new test instruments the standard warranty period is only one year. One. If you want warranty coverage longer than that, you have to pay through the nose for it. Marketing doesn't want you to continue using our legacy products over long periods of time. They want you to buy whatever latest and greatest high cost instruments we've got instead of maintaining your vintage gear.

Tucker Electronics: "There seems to be 2 issues every time we order an option where a key code number can be sent to us via email to open up the programming capabilities of the unit. The first issue is that it usually takes up to 2 or 3 days to get the original order entered and a confirmation number sent to me. The second issue is that it takes a couple of days after that to receive the email with the key code number. We are quoted 2 weeks for the delivery time for the option and we know well that the key code will come sooner via email ... It just seem that when we order 4x4 or 5x5 parts we never have these issues. We place the order, a confirmation number is given at the end of the conversation and the parts ship the same day. Is there a simple explanation?"
*Sure there's a simple explanation! Nobody on our end is paying attention. Weeeeehooooo!

Motorola received the entitlement certificate for his (2) Baseband Studio for Fading order. He was surprised that it arrived in an anti-static bag "why did it come in this type of bag? what a waste of money!" He was confused when he received two copies of the entitlement certificate There were no instructions on the certificate for what to do after retrieving the license file. No indication what to do next or how to obtain the software.
*Yep. We rock.

More customer reaction on the recent expiration (May) of the H99 service note which covered all H99 repairs under extended warranty. NEC Wireless Networks had 6 XXXXX/H99 failures at the same time they were ramping up production after a 1 week factory shut down. The customer still has reliability issues on their 40 units of H99 even after we provided the proactive corrective actions to improve the reliability. They are experiencing 1-2 units out of 40 broken every 3 months. NEC totally disagrees to pay any repair cost for their H99 because they have a strong concern about "high failure rate of H99" and "owner cost" while under cost reduction pressure on their products. Anritsu is pushing the MG3700A to this customer to replace their XXXXXBs and the customer is interested due to cost. According to the FE, "This is our biggest threat in the near future". They are asking XXXXX to provide extended warranty for H99 repair cost and material until the end of support.
*See my above comments about the H99 debacle. Warranty service on these defective output boards was extended, but the redesigns are not much better than the original boards. They won't last long even after repair with an upgraded output board.

Feedback from FEs in Japan about XXXXXC quality issues ... 10 out of 20 failures at Kyocera (unleveled, hard disk failures, download problems). Other customers are experiencing this as well. Two dead units recently for "no modulation" and many H99 units become unleveled.

An exceptionally high XXXXX failure rate (over 100% among their 15 As!) reported by the FE for our customer, Leihua. One unit even failed 7 times!!! One failed 4 times and another 3 times. The biggest problem they are facing is when those XXXXXs reach their EOS (end of support) date next year and fail again, they will have to discard them even though some of these boxes are just ~4 years old! Please give the customer a way out! Those failures are hurting the customers and our company a lot! We already begin to lose SG deals to Anritsu in this account and there's almost nothing we could do.
*Worldwide in the first year of service we've observed a 28%-30% fail rate in these products. Normally when we release a new instrument platform for sale our worldwide failure rate target for the first year of service is 3%-5%, with 5% being totally unacceptable. A major factor in the low reliability of these units is that they have surface mounted tantalum capacitors that are either counterfeit or underrated on voltage for the circuit. In either case they will usually overheat, grenade off the board and crater it rendering the PC board useless. This is a collective result of rushing products through the R&D phase, cutting corners, outsourcing, and offshoring our manufacturing. Can you say Shareholder Value? C'mon now and say it with Supergeek like you mean it... Shareholder Value! Yeah!

Dr. Sullivan

Someone around here, I don't know who left out a copy of a news article from The Wall Street Journal concerning our company. The article was titled "Your Career Matters: In Hot Demand, Retention Czars Face Tough Job." Out of curiosity I picked it up and started reading. Then my jaw dropped. The article was about a guy named Dr. John Sullivan who had been brought in at corporate as a hiring/retention consultant. Dr. Sullivan apparently wasted no time in studying our company's culture and in less than seven months he accurately identified every single major problem we have. I mean this guy was dead on with his observations and he even gave Supergeek solid solutions for correcting our woes. Problem was Supergeek and the rest of the top dogs refused to listen to him. Typical.

During the tech boom of 1999-2000 job attrition across most hi-tech companies was at an all time high. People were scrambling to find a good job, and then once settled would promptly go out and find a better job. Skilled workers at almost any level were in total demand. Wanting to find ways of keeping our employees from quitting Dr. Sullivan began to look very closely at the company's negative aspects.

One of our biggest company wide problems is that we have an abundance of lower level managers with little skill or aptitude for making good business decisions. Nor do they have skills to deal well with the people that work for them. Generally speaking these supervisors treat their top performing employees very poorly while favoring non-performers and kiss asses. As a result, the star employees either quit working in that department which disrupts production on their former line or they quit the company altogether. Then we lose the value of time and resources invested in that person. I've seen this happen over and over again here, it's a serious issue. To deal with this, Dr. Sullivan recommended identifying all of the worst supervisors and getting rid of them. Upper management refused to do so.

Here at this division Dr. Sullivan gave a presentation to management. Shortly after he began to speak about 10 of our supervisors got up and walked out of the room. Why? Because Dr. Sullivan was telling them the truth, that they were bad managers. Their ears were closed as usual, not wanting to hear any of it. I imagined both The Drunk and The Beard were two of the first to walk out.

After seven months of fighting with Supergeek and upper management Dr. Sullivan quit the company. How ironic that the man they hired to retain talent ended up quitting. That says quite a bit about us, I think. Today most if not all of the same problems we've had for years are still plaguing us. When I finished reading the article I made some more photocopies of it and I highlighted a few sections that talked about our problem managers. I even hand wrote in a note saying, "This means you" then I walked around to the offices of some supervisors who in my opinion are the worst of the worst and should be eliminated. I left a copy on their chairs. Nothing would come of it, but I knew they would see it and read the WSJ article first thing the following morning. They'd be angry. Just thinking about that made me feel better before I left for the night.

Layoffs: Round 2

During the second round of layoffs (which happened to coincide nicely with end of quarter earning results) I was genuinely worried they would hit me with the axe. At work I made jokes about it like the whole thing was no big deal, rolling off of me like nothing but that wasn't really the case. I was deeply concerned. I'm not sure how good of a front I kept up when I was around Autumn. Another aspect of the situation causing me a great deal of stress was how would Autumn react to having an unemployed boyfriend? I was unsure about that. Something told me our relationship wouldn't last long if I lost my job.

Months of restless waiting later I finally got my turn in the execution room. That day I was particularly angry about the overall workplace situation. Things had become so toxic and unfun at work that I decided to take a risk and wear my "Revenge Is Easy" T-shirt with a silhouette of an M4 carbine plastered across my chest. I wanted to let the management chain know where I was coming from if things didn't personally work out for the better. Stepping into the room I was greeted by Halfshirt and a department manager that I didn't know well but had heard he was a fair man. As I sat down he started to speak, and then hesitated for a moment while he stared at my shirt. On the inside I was laughing.

The department manager was still off guard after seeing my T-shirt. With a stuttered pausing between his words he said, "Peasant, you are going to be part of the Go-Forward Team." I'd heard that was the latest corporate-speak for "you still have a job with us." I was relieved, but agitated. I responded to him as Halfshirt looked on, "Okay. So how many more times do I have to go through this junk? You guys already said no more layoffs would be necessary and yet, here we are. More layoffs." He didn't say anything. Neither did Halfshirt.

I walked out into the hallway. A group of nosey employees were not even trying to hide out further down in our building watching like hawks to see who came back out carrying a package of paperwork with them. They were making comments amongst themselves as I walked past. Assholes. It was mostly a crowd of those shit eating busybody dingbat housewives. I hate them.

As the day wore on and I went back to business as usual I had to walk around the factory from building to building on errands. Pick up parts from stores, talk to so and so in engineering, that sort of thing. Everything was subdued. Quiet. I passed a random handful of people from hallway to hallway. Some people looked at my shirt and shook their heads in disgust, others felt the way I did I guess and laughed while giving me a thumbs-up. One guy whom I never saw before or since stopped me in the hallway and said, "YOU wore that shirt today? You got BALLS, man!" We both laughed and went on our way.

Everything wasn't all doom and gloom though. News reached me through the evening about individuals that I wanted to see thrown out. Super Shopper and many of her cronies were given the front gate. Awesome, and about god damned time. A number of substandard line supervisors were given a choice of either stepping down out of their management positions back to production like being a tech or taking the package. Potatohead was rumored for weeks to be one of those underperforming supervisors given this option. I whole heartedly hoped he would choose stepping down to tech because the moment he did, I'd be up on my old line harassing the shit out of him. I was licking my fangs in anticipation of making his life a miserable hell the likes of which he had never dreamed possible. I know others were thinking of doing the same thing to him as well. Unfortunately Potatohead made a wise decision and decided to take the severance package. I think he knew what was going to happen if he stepped down and hung on for dear life. It would be like putting a bad cop behind bars with the inmates he had been fucking with for far too long a period of time.

Halfshirt was also demoted, in a way. He's been kicked off the NPI team and given the task of being nothing more than a production line supervisor. I think he's real bitter about that but I don't have much sympathy for him. Apparently he's really bungled the handoff of new product designs from the R&D lab to the line here. If I were him I'd just be thankful I didn't get thrown out.

Memo To Corporate

As round after round of layoffs continued, our ability to meet product deadlines was significantly degraded. For those of us who remained employed our jobs rapidly became more stressful. Instead of doing our own primary work we also had more and more responsibility piled on our shoulders because there was no one else around. Instead of performing one peron's workload you might find yourself doing the work of four, six, or ten employees who had been eliminated.

Instrument quality continued to plunge and angry customer complaints continued to come in each month with more frequency. A major factor in decreased instrument reliability was the workmanship performed by the Malay. Part of it was due to cultural issues: they tell instructors what they want to hear rather than the truth and they don't ask questions when learning on the job because to ask a question is to show your stupidity. They'd rather wreck stuff and look really stupid than ask a question about an aspect of the job that might prevent dumb mistakes from ever happening. The other part of the problem is entirely our fault. US managers were in such a psychotic rush to send our manufacturing overseas that they failed to fully implement the Malaysian operation with necessary tooling, supplies, and support. Corporate totally dropped the ball.

When visiting US managers toured Malaysian divisions, Malay employees were instructed by their managers not to talk to the Americans. Malay managers did their best to wine and dine visiting Stateside managers keeping them busy with lavish meetings and off-site meals at restaurants so they wouldn't have much of an opportunity to observe what was going on there. Their plan seemed to work quite well with keeping corporate in the dark, but they didn't really have to put much effort into the smokescreen.

The situation finally came to a head when clueless managers who didn't understand why things were going so poorly with boxes produced in Malaysia invited one of our top technicians to write a report based on his experiences working in Malaysia with our employees there. This individual whom I will refer to only as "J" is a highly respected and extremely intelligent electronic technician with decades of hands-on experience. He could easily be an engineer. J accepted corporate's invite and wrote a very detailed, thoughtful letter concerning these serious issues. Remember that J was asked to write to corporate with his opinions and observations rather than coming off half-cocked, from out of nowhere. With his permission I have decided to make his letter public here however please note I have removed any identifying information such as product specific model numbers, employee's names, company divisions, etc.

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There is no culture for microwave in Malaysia. Every engineer and technician that I talked to told me that the only training they had came from a few on-site classes. There are no journeymen, much less experts or masters. They are still struggling with the basics and have no mentors to turn to.

Engineers and management have no knowledge of the applications of the instrument and no knowledge of our customers. Their engineers were trained on the individual pieces of the box, they did not spend any time learning how to use it. They know nothing about our customers; their buying habits, their requirements, their applications or even the applications that are loaded into the box.

Everything that they have learned came from production, they have no concept of the box as a system or the work that R&D has put into the design. Engineers are brought over here and trained mostly on the analog aspects of the individual boards. They barely even know about the RF aspects or how the circuits work together. They don't know about all of the work that is done on grounding and shielding for EMI/EMC, the work that has gone into the box for airflow / thermal issues, or even the safety issues. They do not know anything about our firmware and almost none of them even know anything about the cal arrays or how they are applied and what affects they have.

They have no environmental lab, they have an oven and a vibration table. This barely qualifies them as being able to do MiniRel testing, there is no way they can qualify a design or changes to a design. There is nothing for radiated or conducted emissions / susceptibility, nothing for electrical safety or transients, nothing for long term reliability / strife.

They don't understand microwave connectors and adapters and the importance they play in making good measurements. There was not a single cleaning kit or torque wrench at the cal stations when I arrived. They were using vise-grips! We set up an interim connector care class but it is not sufficient. Along the same lines, they do not have soldering classes. In the US, both of these classes are documented in our ISO process.

They have very few folks who can access, much less use proficiently, many of the tools that we use in production or rely heavily on during the design and NPI (New Product Introduction) phase of an instrument. They are starting to learn NextGen and PADB, which are great for production metrics, but they know nothing about EEDP or Mentor. The engineers can't use them and the technicians are forbidden by their IT dept. There is no way than could possibly have ER if they can't even get schematics, much less go into a board's design layout and look at trace routings.

They have no labstock to speak of, they are working on this but what they have is a joke and it is still so new that most folks do not know that such a thing exists. How can an engineer be expected to solve part problems if he can't breadboard? Their "hot" process means they can get parts in three weeks. Normal process takes six or more weeks. Just in the Sources area, they have hundreds of dog boards. I asked someone to count, they gave up at 178 of just one board! I'll bet that many of these are dog boards simply because a technician could not get the part that they felt was the problem.

The folks over there do not have the tools to do their jobs. I'm talking about expensed items that should be considered as consumable and would need a regular supply. While my team was there, we had 14 people sharing a $2 torx driver. Every time I wanted to troubleshoot an instrument, I had to go find the tech who had THE adapter and the tech who had THE cable and the tech who had THE scope probe, the tech who had THE wrench, etc. These things are so precious there that they are kept locked up by their individual owners. They have to be locked up because they are so scarce. The list includes hand tools, test accessories, test adapters, test cables, etc. Often, because they don't have the right adapters, they put four, five or six together to end up with something that will work and since they don't understand, they don't know how this compromises their measurement integrity. I am not sure that the managers there understand that these things wear out or get broken no matter how carefully they are used. There was one board inspection scope (Mantis) and two soldering irons (with one set of mostly broken or inappropriate tips) for the department.

They have excellent training but they don't encourage learning. I've looked at some of the class notes for their training and some of it is the kind of stuff I would have killed for as a technician in the US. The problem is that the classes are often mandatory and most training they receive is very product specific. They are largely discouraged from learning anything outside of the immediate scope of their jobs. I would rank almost every one of their techs as a level 94. They certainly have some sharp, motivated people, they just have very little experience. They probably have the same distribution of excellent-to-bad techs that the US has, but no availability of mentors. The skills and broadband knowledge that NPI techs need to have would be almost impossible to develop under the rigorous control of their system. This is one area where there truly is a cultural difference (that term seems to be used as a smoke screen more often than not). The various cultural groups generally do not socialize and do not form the tech-engineer relationships across these boundaries.

Many engineers and technicians were dissatisfied with their jobs and indicated to me that they would move on when the opportunity arose. They are very cognizant of what is happening in the US and firmly believe that the same thing will happen to them: their jobs will be transferred to China and they will be let go. The engineer's dissatisfaction stems from overwork (they are expected to work 60+ hours per week), pay (this relates to the 60+ hours, techs get overtime, so they can make more than an engineer who is working more hours), and the fact that they spend a lot of their time making spreadsheets on production metrics. Several engineers stated that they wanted to do engineering, not spreadsheets. They also said that they did not go to school for microwave (they couldn't, its not taught over there) and they would move to a job that allowed them to work in the discipline that they chose and studied.

The techs were dissatisfied with the inequities in the system, the micro-management of their jobs, and management's lack of understanding of their job's technical requirements. They said that they were expected to fix X amount of boards per day, it didn't matter that one person was working on a simple analog board and another was working on a complex RF board or a CPU. The inequities that they spoke of were cultural, real or perceived, it was enough to make them state that they will leave. A few microwave companies are moving into Penang (Mini-Circuits is there) and apparently microwave experience at Bill and Dave's is a magic word.

This list could go on for a while and there is more to my story and I could cite more examples on every issue. The engineers that I spoke with were all scared and felt like they were already in over their heads on both workload and work experience. I don't think that they can handle 80-90% of our volume and they are not ready for ER. Direct launches of NPIs is going to be a huge challenge and they simply do not have the experience or the tools in place to be successful yet. It could happen, but you better be prepared to throw schedules away. We often get behind schedule on NPIs Stateside and we have experienced NPI techs, production engineers and the availability of the R&D and firmware folks to come on-site to help solve problems. Newly hired technicians and untrained engineers in Malaysia will not be able to do the job on anybody's schedule. Having done many Pilot runs and product transfers from division to division, I was surprised at how poorly our process with Malaysia worked. There was a number of things that US and Malaysia could have done and I plan to make them known or work on these myself.

I think the following list would have a high impact on improving Malaysia's short and long term success.

1. Have marketing give them some classes on our customers and their applications. I think they have too much of a high-volume mentality, they think that if our customers get a bad instrument, they'll just throw it away and order another!
2. Give them the money they need to properly outfit their technicians, assemblers and test processes. Hand tools, adapters, soldering tools, etc
3. Revise the training plan, their techs and engineers should be here during prototype builds, not after Pilot. (and don't count them as NPI resources, they will be in training)
4. Take a close look at their staffing levels, you can not use the assumption that their efficiencies are the same as Stateside. Look at the first run of xxxxx, six weeks, six boxes into FGI, 25 dogboards.
5. The division model should help us on this; the linkage between US production and Malaysia production needs to be tighter than it is. We need better communication, mostly in the US-to-Malaysia direction.
6. Have someone explain to IT in Malaysia (or wherever it is) that we build instruments and they have got to stop creating roadblocks to the tools that they need.
7. We had 2 engineers, 6 US techs and 6 Malaysia techs sharing two workbenches. Floor space was not an issue, but work benches and equipment was. Transfers and product launches need a dedicated area with sufficient equipment to do the job.
8. Look at employee retention / job satisfaction issues.