>From Axil:
> In short order, my colleague lost his job, was banned, and was never rehired. > As a real word > prerogative and a practical life lessen, when staying in business and making > money is more > important than dispensing the truth, the pursuit of truth suffers. FWIW: Late last year I was deeply involved in an attempt to upgrade our new high volume scanning equipment to a new software version. There had been endless delays that seemed to hamper our efforts to complete the upgrade process. The truth of the matter, the new software upgrade was a POS. At one meeting, a meeting which had not been attended by my new supervisor, a new supervisor who had been hired only a few months prior, I tried to dispense some "truth" of the matter to some of the users who used the scanning software. The users already knew the software was a POS. We ALL knew the software was a POS. Nevertheless, I asked the user supervisor to give us... give me additional time to work out the bugs in the upgrade process. However in order to accomplish this we needed to step back and continue using current software version for a little while longer. Unfortunately, the user supervisor, misinterpreted my suggestion as an attempt to stop the upgrade process altogether. No amount of effort on my part could convince this user that if we could just back off for a little while longer and continue to use the current software version, I would eventually get most of the worst bugs worked out. Then we could upgrade. At the end of that meeting I was both drained and frustrated. I felt I had failed in my efforts to ameliorate my user's quite justified frustrations over the on-going software upgrade issues we were all battling with. The meeting happened late Friday afternoon. I was glad it was the weekend. Monday morning I was called into the office of my new supervisor. He read me the riot act. He basically told me that the software conversion was going on schedule no matter what I had to say on the matter. What dumbfounded me was the fact that my new supervisor, a supervisor who was supposed to be in my ball court, had ended up misinterpreting what I had said to the user supervisor as well. He, too, thought I was trying to stop the upgrade process. He took what the user supervisor had claimed I had said and had never bother to ask me what I had actually said at that meeting. My supervisor essentially threatened my employment status if I didn't shape up very soon. During our little meeting, after I told my supervisor what I actually had said, I noticed he immediately pivoted. He then accused me of not communicating properly with my users. In other words, it was still all my fault. It was at that point in my 36+ years career working for the state of Wisconsin when I realized it was time for me to start seriously planning my exit strategy. When there is that amount of dysfunctional communication occurring at the management level, there is no point constantly trying to fix things when you, yourself, occasionally become the target of management's wrath. There is an epilogue to this story: The new software version was, in turn, upgraded to an even newer version about six months later. The upgrade was done so on urgent request from the software company. They too, knew the previous software version was a total POS. The next upgrade was just as much a harrowing experience as the previous upgrade had been... and in some cases even worse. I lost several sleepless nights. But in the end, after the proverbial sh#t had once again hit the fan, and boy did it smell, and the guilty parties were finally fingered out I noticed that the same supervisor now seemed to be much more pleased with my current job performance. Nevertheless, I continue to plan my exit strategy. I have no interest in finding out whether Dr. Jekyll might on a moment's notice revert back t o Mr. Hyde based on another miscommunication snafu. At least I'm lucky in that I still have my job. I can continue planning my eventual exit strategy in an orderly fashion. So, yes, I sympathize with the plight of your engineering colleague. In my experience software engineers can be just as pathologically honest. It's also been my experience that management can occasionally act like they don't know what they are doing. The means: the truth of the matter often gets shoved down the toilet. * * * But what does what you had to say about the unfortunate circumstances pertaining to your engineering colleague plus what I had to say about my own recent employment predicament have to do with Dr. Mills? You seem to be implying that Dr. Mills is deliberately behaving in a dishonest way. If so, please elaborate on what it is "the doctor" is deliberately doing that you feel is dishonest? It is at least obvious to me that "the doctor" truly believes in the truthfulness of CQM theory. Perhaps you don't. If so, it seems to me that what might believe to be the truth is just as much a matter of personal interpretation as it is for Dr. Mills to believe in his own version of truth. As for me, I certainly don't have enough physics under my belt to say either yay or nay on the matter. Rather, my point is: Someone believing in something for which you might not believe is the real truth of the matter is not grounds to imply that the other party behaving in a dishonest way. From my POV, that seems to be what you are implying here. Please enlighten me if I have misinterpreted your intentions on this matter. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson svjart.orionworks.com zazzle.com/orionworks
