*****WARNING*****

Consider yourself warned fair reader, I am in a feisty, bitchy, nasty mood this afternoon and I plan on venting it here.

Most of us have a work product we expel on at least a semi-regular basis, and some of us have said expulsions reviewed by peers, managers, and other hangers-on who feel the need to justify their existence. Let's start with the FACT that I have been engineering tests and writing test procedures for satellites for more than a decade and a half. Next let's proceed to the FACT that I have managed and mentored others in the fine art of engineering a test (yes, it is an art). Finally, let's proceed to my current situation where I am 1. In another country (Canada), 2. Have not worked with this company for more than a month and a half, 3. Cannot get time nor answers I NEED to produce complete test procedures, and 4. I am working at a MUCH less complex stage of satellite test and build. Throw in ITAR restrictions (anything in my head that is not common knowledge is governed by ITAR) and we get to my current gripe.

In the last few weeks I have learned the company and program, including the associations with the Canadian Space Agency and the Prime Contractor MDA, I have found multiple mistakes in test plans that directly conflict with the requirements, and I have learned the black box that I have been put in charge of Qualifying for flight. I was able to crap out two of the needed four procedures for these tests, with some "help" from another US citizen who does not know test at all, while troubleshooting a vibration table that word of mouth said would not work for us (yes it will, and I have proven so). These documents sat on one desk for 3 days, then I moved them to another, and finally after almost 2 weeks, I got comments back for them both. BUT, the comments were NOT from a required reviewer, and the comments we NOT of the value added variety. The manager of Engineering decided to take a peek, and bled all over the pages with crap like "page 1 should be after the contents pages," "you forgot a period here, and a comma there," "I don't like the way this flows, it feels awkward," and other silliness (yes I had to self edit there).

In over 80 pages of document (20 plus of each being boilerplate that should be the same for all procedures) there were TWO comments that had any technical merit AT ALL. So Stu, being the diplomat that he is, sucked it up spent ALL day today F-ing around in MS Word to get the formatting, cross-references, table of contents, etc. "fixed." Meanwhile I could have been bugging the owners of some of the many answers to many many many questions I have asked and not gotten answered. Today I was literally an overpaid secretary. Yes, I said that word! In this case it is NOT an Administrative Assistant. In the past (before we decided as a world that we don't need to pay someone for this) we would have someone on a lesser pay-grade, with great skills in areas I should not need to worry about, take care of the formatting, cross-references, etc. while I work on the technical aspects (the whole reason I am in this frigid country).

Follow-on contracts with this company will be graded on the flatulence that these procedures may be if I don't actually get some real feedback and THAT, my dear readers, is UNACCEPTABLE..........

DO NOT EVER comment on my test procedures with tripe that implies I do not know what I am doing as this manager has done! Especially when I have gone to great pains to use YOUR format, from YOUR company's released procedures. To quote a green friend....."you won't like me when I am angry." and remember that in a procedure, I may not actually use a full sentence, because I don't need to, so why in the hell would I put a period at the end?!?!?!?!

DEEP BREATH......BEER.......or is that VODKA I hear calling my name?
******END of GRIPE****