I couldn't find anything different in any of them. In fact, they all had incomplete welds on inward corners which would result in stress concentrations. I didn't know this at the time because I wouldn't take a strength and materials course for another year. Either way, they all looked the same to my untrained eye, and actually due to the incomplete welds, all the brackets were unsafe. What I didn't know at the time was that I had encountered on that day my very first professional phony.
After I graduated, I was hired by a defense contractor making submarines. I worked with this guy named, Alex. Alex had a masters degree in engineering from the same school I went to. He was short, bald and a pompous ass who believe he would never meet his intellectual superior. He hated my friend, Mike, a former grinder in the shipyard, who had put himself through night school to earn an engineering degree. Alex didn't like Mike because he felt "yardbirds don't belong on the hill." The engineering offices were on a slope, overlooking the dry docks. Unfortunately for my friend rode the same van into work each day with Alex.
The first thing I did was to inspect the text for the date when it was first published which was ten years ago. I told him,
"The answer in the back of the book is right."
In all the years of study I had under my belt thus far, I never encountered an incorrect math solution in a text that had been around for that length of time. There's just too much revising to let something like a math error in a calculus book go unnoticed. Mike's answer differed by a negative sign and would match that in the back of the book if two terms could be cancelled. Mike explained,
"I have a term in the numerator that is reversed in the denominator, otherwise I would be able to cancel them."
He had this,
( a - b ) (other terms)
( b - a ) (more terms)
I showed Mike that if he factored out a negative one from one of the terms, the remaining terms would be the same, and he could cancel, that is,
( a - b ) = - ( b - a )
Substituting,
- ( b - a ) (other terms)
( b - a ) (more terms)
Simplifying gave the answer in the back of the book. Mike was elated. That afternoon on the ride home in the commuter van, Alex announced,
"The answer in the back of the book is wrong."
"The answer in the back of the book is wrong."
"It's right," Mike responded.
Mike offered his superior solution which circulated about the van along with Alex's inferior answer. Each rider concluded that Mike was correct. When Alex got Mike's paper, he looked it over then exclaimed,
"Your solution is not in standard form."
That was the best Alex could come up with to save face. Everyone knew he was wrong. The solution in the back of the book was certainly the most simplified answer. Alex might have had a masters degree in engineering, but he messed up on some basic algebra. Alex turned out to be the second professional phony I had encountered in my life, and the first in industry.
A few years later, I had gotten a masters degree in computer science and was working for a small company making software to register motor vehicles. It wasn't Google, but there was certainly ample opportunity to make a difference. The company was coming off a big software project failure and hired me and a few other people to architect a solution which would be reusable in future projects.
A manager got his personal friend, Gary, into the company. Gary had a grey beard and man bun. He also wore sweat pants and a t-shirt to the office. Gary never really accomplished anything at work. He arrived late and left early and always worked from home on Fridays. He was suing a roofer, claiming that after they roofed his house, Gary and his wife had to move out because of mold. When he did come into work, Gary spent most of the day on the phone with his lawyer. On Thursdays, he called around the local colleges to find out if they had a sponsored speaker for Friday night. He was never interested in the topic of the talk. Instead, he focused on the hors d'oeuvres. Gary would get on the phone and ask what and when food would be served. He and his wife would show up in sweat pants and raid the plates of little niblets then leave without bothering to attend the lecture.
In meetings, Gary would ask the "why do you do that" question. As he listened to the answer, he would turn his mouth down and bob his chin left and right as if to convey,
"I wouldn't have done it that way."
The truth is Gary was clueless. I'm not sure if he could actually write software because in the month he worked for us, he hadn't done anything. One time Gary cornered me and began to ask a bunch of technical sounding questions. He began bobbing his head as I answered. He picked up a marker and began scribbling a schematic on a whiteboard in attempts at explaining some delusional idea that he had. It looked something like this,
A manager got his personal friend, Gary, into the company. Gary had a grey beard and man bun. He also wore sweat pants and a t-shirt to the office. Gary never really accomplished anything at work. He arrived late and left early and always worked from home on Fridays. He was suing a roofer, claiming that after they roofed his house, Gary and his wife had to move out because of mold. When he did come into work, Gary spent most of the day on the phone with his lawyer. On Thursdays, he called around the local colleges to find out if they had a sponsored speaker for Friday night. He was never interested in the topic of the talk. Instead, he focused on the hors d'oeuvres. Gary would get on the phone and ask what and when food would be served. He and his wife would show up in sweat pants and raid the plates of little niblets then leave without bothering to attend the lecture.
In meetings, Gary would ask the "why do you do that" question. As he listened to the answer, he would turn his mouth down and bob his chin left and right as if to convey,
"I wouldn't have done it that way."
The truth is Gary was clueless. I'm not sure if he could actually write software because in the month he worked for us, he hadn't done anything. One time Gary cornered me and began to ask a bunch of technical sounding questions. He began bobbing his head as I answered. He picked up a marker and began scribbling a schematic on a whiteboard in attempts at explaining some delusional idea that he had. It looked something like this,
"This is Joe's area of expertise."
Gary lassoed Joe as I made my get away, but before I got out of earshot, Gary pointed to the scribble on the whiteboard and said,
"So Joe, what do you know about this?"
Joe, trying to shake the feeling that Gary might be a threat to other human beings, answered,
"That? It's a scribble."
Gary talked until Joe's ears bled. When he finally got free, Joe swung by my desk and said,
"Thanks a lot asshole."
I felt bad, but I also thought Gary was nuts and not having paid much attention in the Psych 101 class I took years ago, I felt I didn't have the skill set to deal with a poser like Gary.
Gary began calling human resources to make a case that he was underpaid. He would get on the phone and argue about all the things he was promised including his own office and a $20,000 bump after a month. We all worked about fifty hours a week on this new project. Gary hadn't worked a full week since he was hired. My boss collected all of us together and announced that we had to start working on the weekends, everyone but Gary because he had his pending litigation to contend with. I couldn't take anymore of this, so I confronted my boss who vehemently defended Gary saying,
"Gary completed all his items on the schedule. Have you?"
This was true, but Gary had only three things to do, and all three were "make work tasks" that didn't advance the project. I was on the schedule for more than half the project deliverables, and no I wasn't done. My boss dismissed my complaint. After a month, Gary angrily argued with the head of human resources about his appalling work conditions. I heard Gary raised his voice which got him fired. I was glad to see Gary go even if my efforts at exposing his worthlessness likely didn't factor in at all. Gary was the third phony I had encountered in my life, and the first in computer science.
My wife, Christine, once went to a seminar in which Jack Welch was a keynote speaker who talked about his book, Winning. Welch unloaded this sage advice,
"Hire smart people."
The real problem is that phonies are good at appearing smart, and the true dumb people are the managers who can't tell the difference. I'm no Jack Welch, but what I've learned over the years is if you need to be told to hire smart people, then they shouldn't have hired you.
"So Joe, what do you know about this?"
Joe, trying to shake the feeling that Gary might be a threat to other human beings, answered,
"That? It's a scribble."
Gary talked until Joe's ears bled. When he finally got free, Joe swung by my desk and said,
"Thanks a lot asshole."
I felt bad, but I also thought Gary was nuts and not having paid much attention in the Psych 101 class I took years ago, I felt I didn't have the skill set to deal with a poser like Gary.
Gary began calling human resources to make a case that he was underpaid. He would get on the phone and argue about all the things he was promised including his own office and a $20,000 bump after a month. We all worked about fifty hours a week on this new project. Gary hadn't worked a full week since he was hired. My boss collected all of us together and announced that we had to start working on the weekends, everyone but Gary because he had his pending litigation to contend with. I couldn't take anymore of this, so I confronted my boss who vehemently defended Gary saying,
"Gary completed all his items on the schedule. Have you?"
This was true, but Gary had only three things to do, and all three were "make work tasks" that didn't advance the project. I was on the schedule for more than half the project deliverables, and no I wasn't done. My boss dismissed my complaint. After a month, Gary angrily argued with the head of human resources about his appalling work conditions. I heard Gary raised his voice which got him fired. I was glad to see Gary go even if my efforts at exposing his worthlessness likely didn't factor in at all. Gary was the third phony I had encountered in my life, and the first in computer science.
My wife, Christine, once went to a seminar in which Jack Welch was a keynote speaker who talked about his book, Winning. Welch unloaded this sage advice,
"Hire smart people."
The real problem is that phonies are good at appearing smart, and the true dumb people are the managers who can't tell the difference. I'm no Jack Welch, but what I've learned over the years is if you need to be told to hire smart people, then they shouldn't have hired you.
Editor's Note: Originally published on April 11, 2017.
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