Good News and Bad News

Years ago during my career as a management consultant,  I liked to think of myself in baseball terms,  a relief pitch brought in to save the game in the late innings.  At least that was the way it seemed ... until ....

My boss called me into his office.   Wrap up your work in Pittsburgh.  They need a little help on the big IT project here in Arizona.  That sounded good to me.   Very high profile work and I wouldn't have to travel.   No more long plane rides and no more long hours spent in airports waiting for the long plane ride.

The first hint that the job was more than them needing a little help was when the overall project manager told me:  "We need you here ASAP."  Me:  "You mean after Christmas."  PM:  "No, I mean before Christmas.  You can take Christmas day and New Years day off."   So I went back to Pittsburgh for the weekend,  wrote to-do-notes on little yellow papers and pasted the to-do notes all over the remaining Pittsburgh project team's cubicles.  Sayonara troopers!

As soon as I arrived at the project site in Arizona, the project manager handed me her work plan.  She said:   "You're in charge of the programmers and systems analysts ... and the work plan.  Update the work plan before everyone gets back from Christmas vacation."

It wasn't my first rodeo, and it wasn't long before I realized there was a real probability I wasn't coming in as the closer.   I was the guy they bring in to eat up innings to save the bullpen so it could save another game, another day.   About the only kind thought I had for the boss who'd put me into the game was that he might not have known how bad things were ... but he must have had an inkling.

I reported back to the project manager.
"I have some good news and bad news.   First the good news.  It is possible to successfully finish the project.   The bad news.   You cannot finish it by the contractually promised due date.   You will not be able to complete the project for the fixed amount our firm will be paid.   It's just a matter of how much money the firm is gonna lose.   Before you blow your stack.  There's more bad news.   You've already said in the work plan that it will take more than 100 programmers and system analysts to complete the project.   You are far along in the project and are supposed to begin programming in a few weeks.   You only have 50 people on the project now and only 5 of them are programmers.  You need to hire at least 50 programmers who know the unique programming and database languages being used here (Datacom/Ideal).  Worse still,  you don't have any space or desks for the new programmers to work at.   Start looking.  The really bad news is that adding more programmers than you've already planned won't help you meet your promised delivery dates.   You simply won't be able to break the work into enough smaller and manageable pieces for you to do that:   you can't hire nine women to make a baby in one month.

They hired the programmers, literally bringing them in from all over the world.  After much grumbling we got the customer to find more work space and desks for the additional programmers.  The project didn't get completed on time, but it did get completed.   The firm lost more money than even I imagined.   The project manager who started the project was replaced not long after the bad news got out.  Lots of promises were made to those of us who came in to save the day.  None of them were kept.

Gilligan Solves a Hi-Tech, AI Problem

I'm very happy with my new car.   It has adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, automatic emergency braking, front and back, and bunch of other stuff.   Stuff you really need if you day dream about the root cause of climate change and whether it's appropriate for hot college girls to wear skin-tight leggings to mass at Notre Dame University ... or are subject periodic flashbacks about tank battles and monitoring the emergency SAR channel when somebody screams "Shit" and then nothing but dead air.

Yesterday my son's buddy needed an emergency ride to Tucson for a meeting.   I figured it had something to do with the Army reserve or a girl.  Either way I was glad to help someone meet a commitment.  Turned out it was a girl.   He's off to Vietnam next Wednesday to meet her parents and had to fit the trip in between reserve training and going to an academy for a new job.   If you need a rush, rush passport you have to go to the Western Regional Office in Tucson to get it.   You can probably get a third party to do it for you, but it costs a lot more than the kid has.

Half way to Casa Grande all my AI dies:  cruise control, braking, lane-keeping assist.   No flashbacks or hot college girls in leggings, we made it to Tucson in one piece.   

I waited outside while the young lover got his passport.  While I waited, I decided to check the sensors on my fancy car.   Maybe one got busted by road debris.   They all looked intact, but one in the front had a tiny bug, about the size of a mosquito, plastered right in the middle of the sensor.   "That can't be it.   What the hell."    I licked my pinkie with my tongue and wiped the bug off the sensor.

After my exercise in post-preventive maintenance, I stayed entertained by watching a homeless guy play human yo-yo riding a bike up and down the incline in the passport office parking lot.

If you have a uniform wear it to your passport appointment.   By the rules, they'd have mailed the passport to the young lover and it might or might not have arrived in time for his flight.  The folks at the passport office took one look at young lover's uniform and said come back at 3 and you can take your passport home with you today.

As I backed out of our parking spot my butt got buzzed and the car jerked to a halt by itself,  emergency braking.   The homeless guy with the bike flew past the back of my car.

When we hit the highway all the AI was working again.   Gilligan had fixed the bug.

Sincerely,

Gilligan

Christian and Muslim Battle Grounds

I suppose if you want a history lesson on hate, you would go to the Balkins like the New Zealand nutjob did.

Some years ago, right here in Phoenix, I worked for a time with a Serbian immigrant.   We were chatting one day and he started talking about the old country and his time in the Serbian army.  

"You know you people were on the wrong side ... trying to stop us ... we know how to take care of them."   Then he pointed his finger at me, cocked his thumb like the hammer on a gun and said:  "Pow!"

He went on trying to impress me by telling how he helped shoot down a stealth fighter.   I observed that we (the good old US of A) were only trying to scare him and his fellow Serbians away from the Muslims, while trying to not actually hurt anyone.

"If they'd taken off the glove and sent in the big boys,  you wouldn't be here today,"  remembering, but not otherwise talking about, how we took the NVA apart in '72 when they finally let us take off the gloves.

Our relationship was never the same and we never chatted again about old times ... because ... you know ... I was pissed off.

Gilligan

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mosque-shooters-radical-views-fed-by-trips-to-christian-muslim-battlegrounds

Importing Tech Talent

Heaven forbid that we encourage bright young Americans by making American companies offer apprenticeship programs to bright young Americans, including young blacks and Hispanics stuck washing the floors at Pizza Hut.  My Uncle Joe never went to college.  He got a job at Pratt and Whitney just before the war and became a crack engine mechanic.  In his time he was responsible for testing the engines being developed for the F-15.   That isn't possible today … but it should be.  Uncle Joe earned a top salary and died a millionaire.

The Man Who Never Returned

"People in the West don't understand how easy it is to get around [without a car]."  

-- Transportation expert, quoted by Linda Valdez, AZ Republic, 12/21/18

I did my time on the LIRR going to graduate school and work, a mind-numbing experience.   My grandfather organized the Boston Carmen's Union (and picked Felix Frankfurter to arbitrate during the big strike).  It seems like every other person in my neighborhood is from New York ... some of the neighbors even have siblings born in the same hospital as me or who went to my high school.   My next door neighbor went to the same college as I did in Massachusetts.  It takes us as long to get to the T station near grandma's house near Boston as it does for me to drive to downtown Phoenix.   Lots of people in the West have a really good understanding of what it's like to get around without a car and how mind-numbing it can be now to travel in Boston and New York.

The rail systems in New York and Boston were built decades ago when there was no minimum wage and health care benefits, and bargaining for a five day work week was a big deal ....  Good luck to those who want to replicate those rail systems elsewhere in an era when the elves have to be paid a living wage.

Good luck to private private investors who want to build a railroad to Tucson from Phoenix ... but what travelers in the West really need is another lane on I-10 and/or a surtax on all the trucks headed to California that clog I-10's lanes (let's call it a carbon tax). 

BTW:  there was a time when a 10-year-old girl (ie, my mother) could be handed five dollars and be sent to downtown Boston via the MTA with her little sister to buy shoes (and the elves lived in triple-decker tenements).   "If you have a problem find a policeman."  Would anyone in their right mind do that today ... not in Boston and certainly not Phoenix ... when to find a policeman you dial 911 and have to wait 30 minutes to an hour for the cop to show up.  We're going to grandma's house for Christmas ... Uncle Paul's loaning us a car to get around when we get there.

Nollaig Shona!

Gilligan

Data Scientist

Linebacker Strike Group, Pocket Money Strike Group, Freedom Train, North SAR

Cook/Deckhand, MV Mugwump

*  *  *  *  *

These are the times that try men's souls
In the course of our nation's history the people of Boston have rallied bravely whenever the rights of men have been threatened
Today a new crisis has arisen
The Metropolitan Transit Authority, better known as the M.T.A.
Is attempting to levy a burdensome tax on the population in the form of a subway fare increase
Citizens, hear me out, this could happen to you!

Well, let me tell you of the story of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket, kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA

Well, did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (what a pity)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him, "one more nickel"
Charlie couldn't get off of that train!

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (poor old Charlie)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station
Crying, "what will become of me?
How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea
Or my cousin in Roxbury?"

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (shame and scandal)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

Charlie's wife goes down to the Scollay Square station
Every day at quarter past two
And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich
As the train comes rumbling through!

But did he ever return?
No he never returned and his fate is still unlearned (he may ride forever)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned
Pick it Davey

Kinda hurts my figers

Now, you citizens of Boston, don't you think it's a scandal
How the people have to pay and pay?
Fight the fare increase, vote for George O'Brian
Get poor Charlie off the MTA!

Or else he'll never return
No he'll never return and his fate is still unlearned (just like Paul Revere)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned

He's the man who never returned
He's the man who never returned
Et tu, Charlie?

Songwriters: Bess Hawes / Jacqueline Steiner