Cold War and Oooops, I Broke It
I have been in a cold war with the Russian outsource firm we use for the last year. At some point, we will be able to win this war. I feel like Ronald Reagan recently. That is, I feel old, senile, and avuncular. I will go ahead and describe the Russians, but please note that I am not racist or anything bad like that. I like anyone who will approach me personally or professionally, who will treat me in a friendly and cooperative manner. If you act like my enemy, at some point I will treat you like my enemy.
The first clash with Russians is their diabolical, maniacal technical fastidiousness. Now, I will admit that I (and we Americans) can be somewhat prone to "shortcut-itis". We try things, they fail. We try again, they work a little. We try again, and the results are sufficient but not perfect. We tend to move on at that point. The Russians cannot tolerate this. They will research each and every possibility of all outcomes before deciding on a particularly torturous and tedious path. The will demand that it be done this way and this way only, and no other way that results in similar or exact endpoints will be tolerated.
The only problem with the Russian approach is that they can often be wrong. Research in texts and manuals or on paper does not yield workable results in the lab. I (and we Americans) like to work in the lab. We like to experiment. "Oooops, I broke it" is a wonderful phrase to our ears. I can send out an email that says, "Ooops, I broke it" and I will have ten engineers in my office eagerly peering over my shoulder to watch. However, as long as we experiment enough, we come to a workable solution. In the real world I inhabit, a workable solution is the "right" solution. A theoretical dissertation on how a procedure "should" be accomplished is not guarenteed to give you a good workable, "right" solution. In my experience, almost all theories and plans are flawed and the execution of said plans are usually different if not drastically different than the original theoretical discussions.
Another issue I have with the Russians is that they over-engineer. I don't mean that they work too hard. I mean that if one-sixteenth inch of aluminum will exceed twenty times the engineering specs, the Russians will demand we use four inches of stainless steel and two inches of copper jacket. The whole thing is to be dipped in titanium before being certified. This is untenable. While the solution might work in some cases, the cost, complexity and sheer weight will make it unusable. As if over-engineering in terms of materials weren't enough, they would make unusual demands on the order of "The steel must be mined from Hamster, Pennsylvania, shipped to Konshyu, Japan to be smelted, and pressed into shape in Honzhchou, China and assembled in Jackson Hole, WY. You will move your headquarters to Iowa to finish the product." Are they nuts? We can pound the aluminum into shape in five minutes, and even polish it too. We don't actually build any physical items as I am describing. I am trying to give you a description that the lay person can understand. I hope the idea is beginning to make it through.
The biggest fallacy of all this is that the Russians are all stone cold drunken alcoholic manic depressive unethical slothenly lying schlubs. They lie, cheat, steal, rob, con, twist, murder, rape, pillage, defecate and smile. And then they present these drunken ramblings and designs to us mostly-sober, cheerful, mostly-honest, hard working, experimental, entrepenuerial Americans and we're flabbergasted at the waste, and absurdity and sheer gall of these idiots who tell us how things should be done. We pay them for this honour.
I am old and senile by this point. But Reagan won the cold war, and so will we.
I hope.
The first clash with Russians is their diabolical, maniacal technical fastidiousness. Now, I will admit that I (and we Americans) can be somewhat prone to "shortcut-itis". We try things, they fail. We try again, they work a little. We try again, and the results are sufficient but not perfect. We tend to move on at that point. The Russians cannot tolerate this. They will research each and every possibility of all outcomes before deciding on a particularly torturous and tedious path. The will demand that it be done this way and this way only, and no other way that results in similar or exact endpoints will be tolerated.
The only problem with the Russian approach is that they can often be wrong. Research in texts and manuals or on paper does not yield workable results in the lab. I (and we Americans) like to work in the lab. We like to experiment. "Oooops, I broke it" is a wonderful phrase to our ears. I can send out an email that says, "Ooops, I broke it" and I will have ten engineers in my office eagerly peering over my shoulder to watch. However, as long as we experiment enough, we come to a workable solution. In the real world I inhabit, a workable solution is the "right" solution. A theoretical dissertation on how a procedure "should" be accomplished is not guarenteed to give you a good workable, "right" solution. In my experience, almost all theories and plans are flawed and the execution of said plans are usually different if not drastically different than the original theoretical discussions.
Another issue I have with the Russians is that they over-engineer. I don't mean that they work too hard. I mean that if one-sixteenth inch of aluminum will exceed twenty times the engineering specs, the Russians will demand we use four inches of stainless steel and two inches of copper jacket. The whole thing is to be dipped in titanium before being certified. This is untenable. While the solution might work in some cases, the cost, complexity and sheer weight will make it unusable. As if over-engineering in terms of materials weren't enough, they would make unusual demands on the order of "The steel must be mined from Hamster, Pennsylvania, shipped to Konshyu, Japan to be smelted, and pressed into shape in Honzhchou, China and assembled in Jackson Hole, WY. You will move your headquarters to Iowa to finish the product." Are they nuts? We can pound the aluminum into shape in five minutes, and even polish it too. We don't actually build any physical items as I am describing. I am trying to give you a description that the lay person can understand. I hope the idea is beginning to make it through.
The biggest fallacy of all this is that the Russians are all stone cold drunken alcoholic manic depressive unethical slothenly lying schlubs. They lie, cheat, steal, rob, con, twist, murder, rape, pillage, defecate and smile. And then they present these drunken ramblings and designs to us mostly-sober, cheerful, mostly-honest, hard working, experimental, entrepenuerial Americans and we're flabbergasted at the waste, and absurdity and sheer gall of these idiots who tell us how things should be done. We pay them for this honour.
I am old and senile by this point. But Reagan won the cold war, and so will we.
I hope.
posted by T. Pascal | 7:08 AM
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