Why it's been awhile

Amazing how sometimes things just turn out, and the circle closes. I've been trying to escape my day job for quite sometime, got all set to bail out, when they announce a plant closing. Now I get to do what I want to do (albiet a few months later) with some paltry, but helpful amount of severance. Of course some of my co-workers are in shock, they have essentially worked for the same people for 20 or more years, never had to do a resume or any job search work, now they are 50+ engineers with no job search skills. It's bad enough they have let their engineering skills stagnate for so long, but over time their salaries have risen to the 99th percentile, while their skills have withered to the 33rd percentile. With the ever shrinking job market up here in New England, their future will be dependent on contacts and luck.

I was fortunate in my childhood to have seen the empty mill buildings in Lowell. To realize that once great companies can just up and move, or cease to exist was earth shattering to me at the ripe old age of 8. It certainly explains why I've never lasted longer than 4 years at any one company, and why continuous training and learning are integral to my life. In this day and age where there is no such thing as loyalty in the workplace, the ability to keep your skills generic is the best way to insure continued employability.

The counterpoint to generic skills is that a lot of firms are looking for specific skills. It's interesting to look at some of the jobs that are out there. For example, "some company" is looking for someone who has experience designing and testing the power supply used in EMC's Symmetrix system. There's a 6 month contract for a former EMC employee who has no other skills than what they learned at EMC. Yup, that's what I want to do with the rest of my life, wait for an ex-employer to need me. You still waiting to re-marry your ex too?

Sorry if this is turning into a rant, but damn if American manufacturers aren't insisting on performing an Abort to Orbit. Rather than use approriate components that require a higher engineering talent level, they are embedding PC's in coffee makers, and scheduling reboots. It's bad enough NASA is still stuck on the ground, do we have to bring down what little is left of domestic engineering talent and manufacturing? It's fine for me, when it's a crisis, my rates start at $100 per hour and soar from there. But wouldn't you like to do a little thinking up front and pay $50?

Introduction

I have zero tolerance for people acting under the influence of stupid, people who fail to take personal responsibility for their beliefs and actions, and people who think they know me better than I do. Thus from time to time, I will share what I feel are the more egregious cases of any of the aforementioned Zero-T issues. And you may ask, why Abort to Orbit? It's one of the abort options for the space shuttle during liftoff, when they are too high and too fast to land, but don't have enough power to go to their planned orbit. So the abort to orbit, though not high enough to do their mission, but maybe high enough to do something useful. It had become a favorite phrase of mine years ago, when mighty NASA forgot they were in the vision business, and settled for a poor excuse for a launch vehicle instead of holding out to do things right. It represented mediocrity, settleing for less than you need, less than you could be. As I watched superior technology fall by the wayside (Betamax, OS/2, non-segmented processors) in favor of less than second best, as I watched elections become a choice between the lesser of who cares, as I watched absolute drivel rise to the top of TV, movie and book sales rankings, I realized abort to orbit isn't just an option, it seems to be a way of life.

I'll finish this first post with an example. I have recently completed reading several books, the most thought provoking of them being God's Debris by Scott Adams, a great read so long as you observe the disclaimers in the preface. This is a quiet book that started life as an ebook, will never reach some of the loftier heights a good book should reach, yet is nicely done. Then I finish The Godfather Returns, by Mark Winegardner, which I'm sure will soon top everyones bestseller and most recommended lists. The only problem is the book is awful. Some of the story ideas are pretty good, but the exposition is abrupt at best, a hydra headed compound sentence doing the work of a paragraph or three. After all these years, and a grueling search for "S/HE WHO WOULD FILL MARIOS SHOES" and this english teacher (professor, sorry) is the best they could come up with? Guess they just aborted to orbit.