The problem was throwing more than one engineer in there. Once you have more than one engineer, you are no longer engineering a solution you are playing a game of "Who's the Alpha Engineer". This phenomenon is not limited to engineering, of course.
On Wed, Feb 3, 2016 at 4:27 PM, Larry Colen <[email protected]> wrote: > I just posted this to my facebook page. I have a strong hunch that at least > one or two people on this list will empathize with this. > > Life in engineer land. > > A few weeks ago, a friend of mine who worked in engineering in a previous > life, got in touch with me. Another friend of hers, also an engineer, was > about to get a second broadband connection and needed a network cable run > from his phone box to his server room. Sometimes these installations are > straightforward and take a few minutes, other times, not so much and it > takes someone who knows what they are doing. So the first order of business > was for me to head over there, scope out the place and see if I could help, > or if it would be wise to refer the job to a friend of mine who owns a > network cabling business, and actually knows what he's doing. The evening I > was free, I headed over there with another friend who happens to be an > engineer, on our way to something else. > > So, to set the stage. We need to run a 20m (or 60 foot) cable, from the > outside wall of the condo, across the ceiling of the garage, and up two > floors to the office. In effect, we are throwing four engineers at the job. > In the real world, what would happen would be that a real business would > send their installer out, with a box of cable, a fish line, and a drill, who > would spend 10-20 minutes tracking down the existing wires, another half > hour running the line, and 10-20 minutes terminating the line. > > But, this isn't the real world, this is engineerland. The first step is to > find out where the cable starts, and where it ends, then to figure out if a > new cable can be easily run. This process takes something like forty > minutes. We determine that it can, indeed be done. But, I'm an engineer, I > have to look for any opportunity to optimize. So, I ask the question, "while > we're doing this, are there any other lines that it makes sense to run or > upgrade?". > > Now, we start reverse engineering the existing network. Two hours later, > we've decided to replace the cat 5 of the existing DSL line with cat 6, move > the DSL modem from the downstairs office in the kitchen to the server room, > and to upgrade the cat 5 lines from the server room to the wall plates in > each of the kitchen office and the dining room. > > In short, it has taken us about two hours to change the scope of the job > from running a single cable from the phone box to the server room, to > running two cables, and to replace four cat 5 cables from the server room > with an effective 1 gigabit bandwidth, to cat 6 cable with a theoretical 10 > gigabit bandwidth. > > One of the most important things I've learned in my engineering career is to > get a good set of job requirements before you start. There are few things > more important than being able to know when you have actually finished the > job. Yes, the requirements may change while you are working on things, but > it's important to note (for billing purposes if nothing else) that they have > indeed changed. > > The next step is for the customer to get a rough estimate of the distances > and send me a note, or spreadsheet, that says: > 2 wires from point A to B, approximately 60 feet > 2 wires from point B to C, approximately 10 feet > 2 wires from point B to D, approximately 40 feet > > RJ 45 connectors at points B,C, and D. > > What I received was a PDF diagram with 15 different locations, color coded > lines marking each of the different cables, notes on the distances between > each location, and notes as to which distances are to be the installed cat > 6, and which are to be patch cables. > > At this point we start discussing the drawing over email and SMS, > considering such vital details as color of the wire, how to mark the wire > and jacks, running pull string for future enhancements (already implicit in > the plan), where to get the various items, scheduling and just about every > other detail except for the color of the electrons in the cable. > > At this point we have ordered the specially colored jacks, scheduled the > work for Monday, and have spent probably close to 15 engineering hours on a > task that would take a technician approximately an hour to do. > > On the other hand, the customer will be able to surf the web from his > kitchen on a home network that is more finely engineered than the one in an > NSA supercomputer lab. > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] (postbox on min4est) http://red4est.com/lrc > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. -- “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness ” ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Earth from Above -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
