Things were going well right up to Thursday night. That day I had been asked to put together a schedule for delivery of some units. The schedule was aggressive, but it was attainable provided everyone worked together as a team to get it done. This was generally not a problem. For whatever reason, I am blaming the full moon, this time it was. It seemed everyone was at each other's throats and nobody was doing anything correctly.
One of our units had a bad bottom seal, whoever had installed it cut it too short. I recommended to the engineer that I was working with that we take the 2 minutes required to reseal the unit correctly. The engineer grabbed the seal, stretched it out a bit and re-seated it in the channel. He then grabbed the bottom plate for our unit and sealed it up- This unit failed to enter burn in because the seal failed.
Another of the units had a bad/ intermittent front panel switch. I recommended to the engineer that we replace the switch with a new one. Since the computer was restarting itself intermittently I also recommended switching out the battery board and power protection components. This is an easy switch and takes all of 20 minutes. Again, I was overridden by the engineer.- This unit failed to operate and was brought back for repairs: a new switch, a new battery board and new power protection circuit.
A third of units also failed to enter its burn in period. The unit was showing some resonance on one of the channels. This unit had passed our operational check according to another engineer. It turns out that there were loose connections inside the unit causing the resonance.
In all three cases above, I handed off a system to an engineer and trusted their judgement. This has come back now to bite me in the butt. I have been asked not to come into work tomorrow so that the company can decide where I am best suited to be an employee. They say the failures of these units as my fault, and I believe they are looking for a scapegoat. My guess is that come Monday afternoon I will not have a job. If that is the case, so be it.
I ask for all of your prayers in this situation. I am lucky that I have a wife who has a stable job and who loves me. I worry for my kids, but somehow, somehow, God's hand is here. Please pray that I can see it.
Prayers,
Pisio
2 comments:
Working for a defense contractor, I feel your pain. While management likes to take all of the credit when things go right, they're always more than willing to share the blame when things go wrong. My program is going through a period of fixing previous mistakes, when it would have been cheaper to make things right the first time. I hope you're not picked as the scapegoat.
Hello Corporate Barbarian,
I was busted from a Tech/Supervisor to an Assembler; 40% pay cut. I am still employed though, and looking as hard as I can to get out of a bad situation. At least I was not fired, although I assume that is because they do not want to pay the unemployment. They would rather bleed me dry until I find something else.
Prayers,
Pisio
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