I’m sitting here teary eyed with pride and sadness at the end of an era.
I hope to hell that this doesn’t herald the complete end of the American Space Program.
So much of the innovation and technological advances of the last 50 years can be directly traced to our space program. If we fold, I suspect we’ll be taking yet another step down the path to being a third world cesspool.
I’m cynical about the Tag line CNN has been using describing the Shuttle launch.
It’s like they’re trying to get us to believe something by saying it over and over again. Something about blasting into the future or some such drivel.
I’m not sure how they figure that but obviously it’s the PC thing to say.
it is the end of an era to be sure. Lets hope and pray it’s not the end of Americas innovation as well.
I’ve got a bad case of Phone-itus
A couple of weeks ago my cell phone just blanked out. No rhyme or reason, it was working fine one moment and bang the next it was completely useless.
Oh it did manage to annoy the hell out of me be telling me it was receiving messages and phone calls but wouldn’t let me actually see the messages or answer the calls or in fact control it at all.
I pulled the battery, I pulled the sim card, I rebooted it, nothing worked. The next day finds me in my local cell phone store. They confirmed that yep the phone wasn’t working right. So we start the process where the phone insurance sends me a new phone and we’re good.
While I’m there I see this beautiful new smartphone. Wow! nifty display, cameras front and back, 4G THE WORKS! (Yeah I’m a techno whore! SO What?) I’m drooling and I’m thinking hey maybe I should just upgrade to this beautiful baby and keep the phone the insurance is going to send me as a backup.
Mind you we’re talking about a 400.00 upgrade here.
The internal justification was all that more reasonable when I was told that I wouldn’t have a working phone for at least 4 days in large part thanks to a Google mapping mistake.
A lot of companies are using Google to verify shipping addresses. In my case, Google has my address in the wrong city. This has on more than one occasion prevented products from being sent to my house.
This time the insurance / cell phone company couldn’t verify the address and categorically refused to send the replacement phone. This means that I’m going to have the phone sent to the other halfs workplace, because after all the house that I’ve lived in for 20 years is suddenly non-existent! Google says so, it must be true!
The whole time, the little voice is saying “Dude, you gotta have a phone… This one is freakin beautiful and you KNOW you’ll be happier with it than your old phone.”
I’m weakening in my resolve to do the right thing, and frankly PISSED off that Google has refused to correct the mistake that is now impacting my life on a fairly regular basis.
After a lot of back & forth in my head, I’ve finally beaten the fuck out of that little “Angelic guy on my shoulder” and decided to go for it.
The new phone, and an assortment of accessories is sitting on the counter. The clerk is scanning the bar codes and the total isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m starting to get excited “Oh boy a new top of the line phone… goodie, goodie”, it’s like Christmas.
Shut up, I know it sounds insane. You should see me with a new car…
Just sayin…
The clerk asks me for the sim card out of my messed up phone. I pop the back off, pull the battery, pull the sim and hand it to her. Because I’ve now got pieces of phone filling both hands I pop the battery back in the phone, and snap the back cover in place. After all I want to caress, hold, and watch the new phone as it powers up.
“Oh goodie, goodie, almost there. New phone! this is gonna be so cool!”
Out of the corner of my eye I see a light that I shouldn’t see. I try to ignore it, then I hear a start up tone and bigger than shit my “broken” phone is powering up normally. It’s sitting in my hand with a bright crisp clear display asking where the hell the sim card is.
DAMN!!!! I MEAN DAMN!!!
The “Angelic guy on my shoulder jumps up and says I told you so!”, The “Devil guy is stomping around screaming fuck, fuck!, fuckity, fuck!” The techno whore in me is whining in a most un-masculine fashion “But I waaaaannntttt it!”
I look at the clerk, Hoping that she’s gonna pull an I dream of Jeanie blink and my old phone will be dead again. She doesn’t.
Ever so reluctantly I tell her that we have to cancel the deal.
I can’t justify it anymore, I’ve got a working phone in my hands, that unconsciously I’m trying to strangle… Nope, the paper thin justification is gone. I can’t do it. It’s a chunk of change that I don’t need to be spending right now.
The clerk hands me back the sim card. I put it back in my old phone hoping against all reason that the damn thing doesn’t power up again. Nope, there’s the start-up tone, and the display is working right… Well SHIT!
I leave the store bummed, annoyed and feeling like a kid that got socks instead of a new bike for his birthday.
I had to do the adult thing. I know it was the right thing. Doesn’t make it any easier….
I will say this… the Next time my phone screws up… It’s outta here! And the latest new beautiful smart phone is going to be in my greedy techno whore hands!
The Car saga continues
This entry is in general about the car but there are broader implications in what I’m about to say.
To recap, the car started acting up then I got a check engine indication.
After a day or so the dealership said the problem originated from both turbo waste gates malfunctioning.
Aside from the strange coincidence that both units malfunctioned at the same time and that I’ve been chasing some kind of gremlin around the car since 2009. I’m more or less happy that finally some hard indication of a problem existing in the car has been documented.
I’m MORE than annoyed that when I started reporting issues I was WELL within the factory warranty and now that someone actually saw a problem I’m close to the end of the extended warranty. But that is simply the way things are and there’s nothing to be done about it.
90% of the issue in this case is the reliance of the dealerships on their diagnostic and onboard computers, then doing ONLY the minimum required NOT actually engaging in diagnosis.
Diagnosis being the logical testing and elimination of potential problems until the actual problem was found and corrected.
In many if not all of todays vehicles the “Technician” (Give me a good old fashioned MECHANIC any day.) interrogates the onboard systems and if they say nothing is wrong… Well then NOTHING is wrong!
I swear, The car could have come in on a tow truck with the engine not even turning over and if the computer said everything was fine, then some of these “Technicians” would return the car still not running with “No problem found”.
There is however an overarching problem in our society.
In my opinion this problem will continue to undermine us until we put a stop to it, or until the United States we know is just another 3rd world cesspool.
The problem is the minimalist approach.
Let me give you an extreme example.
You go in for surgery. Your doctor and surgeon have determined that you have a cancerous tumor in your gut. So they prep you and slice you open. While they’re inside you they see another tumor of a slightly different kind. They note in your records and remove ONLY the original tumor as required by the insurance company and per the legal documents you signed when you were admitted.
Then they schedule you for another surgery next month to remove the OTHER tumor. Of course the doctors get to hit you with double the costs and drive up the insurance payout. So literally everyone in the situation WINS….
Except of course the poor bastard that’s being sliced and diced.
This makes no fucking sense, we all know it defies logic. Yet we have examples of this kind of thinking all over the place.
There was a place I worked where we tested software. I’m a black box, start to finish, end to end, front to back, kind of Quality Assurance Engineer.
I’m proud of that and I take pride in my ability to find problems in software. (Except when I’m finding issues with software I’m not being paid to test… Windows? Anyone?)
This company was all about process, procedures, and documentation. Problem was they only tested to prove the requirement was met. It didn’t matter that the software under test didn’t actually fucking work!
The focus was so narrowly on meeting the individual requirement that they’d lost sight of the overall system. Requirements are, in general the MINIMUM thing necessary.
That’s the problem. Accountability means meeting the minimum. In a homogeneous work environment where the person that excels is never rewarded for their excellence, you build in mediocrity. You really cement in that “It’s not my job” mentality.
Another aspect of this is that costs are driven up and MORE busy work is being created, customer satisfaction drops into the shitter, customer loyalty becomes a thing of the past, OH AND you increase waste and consumerism.
Why? Because usually in these situations the customer spends an inordinate amount of time dicking with getting their problem SOLVED!
More often than not the customer in frustration SOLVES the problem by tossing the offending “Whatever” in the trash Then they buy another similar item from another vendor.
In this age of being green, hugging Mother Earth, carbon credits, and political posturing for environmental responsibility, you’d think the first thing to work on is fucking quality!
Here’s another example.
This is an actual email thread I had with the guy at the dealership today.
ME:
It occurred to me that there is a lot of oil going through the turbos.
If I remember general turbo construction the turbos depend on oil for a part of their cooling and they may even use oil bearings dependent on design.
This begs a question.
The next service interval was about 7000 miles in the future. It doesn’t make any sense to me that you’d put new turbos on the car and then subject them to OLD oil. Does this turbo replacement INCLUDE the OIL CHANGE and whatever other service is indicated?
It makes sense for the health of the car and frankly my convenience to just do the next service early. Is there any way we can take care of this now?
THEM:
The issue was not with the Turbo it self but the waste gate. The waste gate is attached to the Turbo
ME:
OK,
Are the waste gates external to the turbochargers? I know that’s a possible arrangement.
From the expense of the repair I assumed that both the turbochargers were being replaced as units which contained the turbos and gates
If it’s a whole unit replacement then it still makes sense to drop the oil and do the other service. Just so the turbos have a clean start.
If the waste gates are external, then i wouldn’t have expected them to be quite as expensive since there’s nothing particularly exotic about them.
In any case. The point is that I’m planning to take the car on a couple of trips over the next 6 weeks because of those plans I want to make sure it’s fully up to par before I leave.
Another question, I just want to confirm this is an N54 engine correct?
THEM:
Yes, It is an N54 engine. We can change the oil is you would like. I have a coupon for $99.00
ME:
OK
Do the oil change.
Change the Air intake filter.
Change the micro-filter.
I realize that those items are not included and will cost additional money. If it’s not over 200.00 then do it
Otherwise let me know what the estimate is.
Also and this is vitally important. Make sure that I haven’t missed ANYTHING that would be included in the service that is DUE in 7000 miles.
I’m looking at the “Service and Warranty guide.” And didn’t see anything that jumped out at me. If I did miss anything let me know.
IF there is nothing else that should be done for the upcoming service,
Then reset the service interval (CBS) system.
I’m attaching the oil service coupon.
To Recap
I currently Owe you for the Air conditioning service
I will Owe you for the oil change
I will Owe you for the air filter
I will Owe you for the micro filter
THEM:
Ok
THEM 2nd Email:
It’s about 364.45 for the oil & filter, air filter and micro filter
ME:
Do it
THEM:
Ok
IS IT ME???
There are several places in this email exchange where this guy is JUST not answering the questions.
I’m not naming anybody here but for FUCKS Sake! Why did I have to go digging up information,
Why was this apparently some kind of issue? Frankly this guys approach seems to me to be EVASIVE as hell and being a QA person this is like putting blood in the water in a school of great whites.
Again this is indicative of the minimalist approach.
This service guy SHOULD have suggested that we do the interval service NOW.
As I pointed out it makes ME the customer happier so I don’t have the car BACK in for service in a month or two.
Yet because the FUCKING computer didn’t tell him to THINK! He was just going to let it go.
I STILL don’t know if the DAMN turbos are being replaced in their entirety or if the waste gates are EXTERNAL to the turbos.
What I DO know is that you can’t ever hurt a car by changing it’s oil. I know that you can’t hurt a car by changing it’s air filter, and I KNOW that I drive in a dusty environment so it’s likely that the air intake and cabin intake filters are dirty. Yeah, maybe not dirty enough to require changing, but for FUCKS sake it isn’t going to hurt and in fact may help the new hardware get off to a healthy start.
At least mention the option… I can take it or leave it but DON’T make me feel like I’m having to fight you for it.
Again meeting requirements but not going beyond what the computerized program SAYS to do…
If all we are doing is reading scripts from our computer screens, in no time the computer will be reading the script and the humans will be living under an overpass like every other 3rd world cesspool..
I just can’t wrap my head around this kind of thinking, It’s so wasteful and irritating and then you see news articles speaking of low customer satisfaction and the writers are at a loss as to why.
All anyone has to do is try to have their car repaired, or call customer service for their computers, cellphones, game consoles, or televisions, or telephones.
Don’t we all cringe when we hear
“Yes Sir, I understand your concern…”