Archive-author: William D. Wickart
Archive-title: Ladies’ Can, The
Copyright (C) 1991, William D. Wickart. All rights reserved.
It was another long, late night in the lab at work. This is a great job,
but the occasional “crunch” times explains why so few people survive more
than a handful of years. The problems are rewarding, and correct solutions let
me attend national trade conferences as an “engineering expert”, answering deep
questions on state-of-the-art technology for any of the twenty thousand people
attending from all facets of the industry. That’s the real “high” of all this
grinding: to look over a huge convention trade hall, filled with the most active
people in the whole high-tech industry, and be publically acknowledged as one of
the very few who actually *creates* the magic.
In all humility, I am merely the representative of a team of 20 to 50 people
who worked equally hard; my specialty outside design is that I can translate the
world of pull-up transistors and half-latches into the information needs of a
potential sales representative for a major customer. I can do it for 15 hours a
day for a week at a time, and keep track of who I have told what, and how much
they seem to like it. Our sales force loves me, and it gives me that one skill
outside my own department that I need for long-term advancement in the company.
True power is being among the best, and being able to get other people to recog-
nize it. Thanks to my God and my teachers, I am both.
Tonight, however, was one of those nights lost in the shuffle of “nine parts
perspiration.” I had taken once again to working midnight to about 10AM, so I
could get a peaceful environment and all the machine cycles I could eat. I have
a whole stable of routines that start their deliberations as soon as enough
people leave for their families and night life; by the time I come in, I had
quite enough diagnostic information in my electronic mailbox to take the next
step in debugging. Sometimes, I can take a few good ideas and get Jeff to
run them during the day; sometimes, I do the same for him. Between us, we cut
about 10% of the development time out of the overall department schedule, and
our stock options bear witness to our continued effectiveness. We even see one
another about once a week in these times.
That night, however, I had things almost all to myself. Someone was working
in the layout area across the floor; the overhead lights were on, and I could
see a few brown curls bob occasionally between there and the offices to the
right. Probably Debbie, one of the brightest of our new college crop last June.
She has a quick mind and a good insticnt for the correct solution, but she still
has a hard time letting go of “her” solution when a better one comes up. Also,
she puts in even more graveyard time than I did. The pace of work here will fix
both those deficiencies within three years, one way or the other. I was in no
position to guide her into more productive paths, as we rarely shared a problem
on a day-to-day basis.
…End of the part1. To be continued..