Precious Goods looked up from the paperwork on her desk at the sound of a knock on her office door. Because the door was open and ponies would just walk in, it was immediately obvious who had announced their presence.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Van Dijk?”
The Abyssinian stalked into the office, her lashing tail indicative of her mood. “We have a problem. Demand for the room-temperature superconductor has exceeded expectations and our stock has been exhausted already. It isn’t even the end of the week and we can’t meet the orders that our customers have placed.”
“We already have that team working full-time on that product. We can’t produce more any faster.”
“How many unicorns are working the spell to produce it?”
“Three – Patient Hooves, Crimson Style, and Artful Twist.”
Michelle huffed. “Only three ponies for such a high-value product? Why don’t we assign more to that task?”
“Creating the correct molecular matrix to enable the material to superconduct is an extremely tricky enchantment. Only those three have mastered it, and even then not every batch is a success.” Precious opened a drawer and pulled out a file. “Here are my records on their output. I can send you PDF copies if you wish.”
The cat woman took the proffered files and started looking through them. Her frown deepened and her whiskers twitched. She threw one of the pages onto the desk. “This tells me that Artful Twist has a twenty-three percent greater failure rate than the other two. That is unacceptable!”
Precious Goods shrugged helplessly. “It is what it is. He works hard but applying the enchantment is tricky and miscasts occur because it takes a lot of concentration over a long period.”
“He? Artful Twist is a stallion? What about the other two?”
“Both are mares,” the earth pony replied.
“Why am I not surprised. Let’s go visit this slacker stallion. I want to have a few words with him.”
Precious scowled. “That isn’t necessary, Ms. Van Dijk.”
“I’ll decide that, Ms. Goods.”
Michelle exited the office and Precious trotted to catch up to the feline. They made their way to the section of the factory devoted to the production of the superconducting wire. There was a line of equipment that took the raw materials and combined them in precise ratios before heating them into a semi-molten material. That flowed into a reservoir with six output tubes, although only three of them were in use. The mixture passed through extruders that forced a stream of composite into vats of liquid nitrogen. The fluid boiled furiously as the material rapidly cooled while three unicorns stationed at each stared intensely at the wire through a window, their horns glowing brightly. Rollers brought the metal thread out of the vats and onto a conveyer where fans blew air over it to bring its temperature up. It slid over contacts that confirmed that it was superconductive. Then, no longer brittle from the extreme cold, it passed through rollers that formed the finished wire and coiled onto spools. These were kept air-conditioned to ensure that the material never approached critical temperature.
Precious held out a hoof to prevent Michelle from interrupting the workers. “Be quiet,” she whispered. “This is the crucial phase of the process. They’re controlling the formation of the crystal structure as it cools. You could ruin the entire batch if you break their concentration.”
The Abyssinian humphed but stayed back as directed. “What happens to the dud material?” she asked softly while they waited.
“Since the superconductive properties can’t be restored, it gets thrown back in with raw material to try again.”
It was only a couple of minutes before the run was complete and all three unicorns ceased casting with sighs of relief. When the last of the wire passed the superconductivity test, Precious nodded in satisfaction.
“Well done, everypony. That’s another three spools completed.” She looked at Michelle and nodded.
The Abyssinian frowned. “Mr. Twist, I wish to have words with you!”
The stallion yawned as he raised his drooping head. “Right now? I need a break.”
“What you need to do is pick up your game. I’ve just seen the stats and I’m very unsatisfied with your performance. Your failure rate is completely unacceptable. If these two mares can consistently and significantly out-produce you, then you must be doing something wrong.”
Artful Twist’s widened as he stared at Michelle in disbelief, then he glared. “Ma’am, you’re not a unicorn and have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t need to have a horn – I just need to see the figures. Since you have been part of the production team, you have performed an average of twenty-three percent worse than your co-workers. By now, you should be close to being on par with them, but I suppose that’s too much to expect of a male.”
His two co-workers gasped. Crimson Style got up from her chair and marched up to Michelle until she was practically in her face. “Who do you think you are? That’s no way to talk to a stallion!”
“I’m the district sales manager and I have customers to satisfy. I can’t do that if I don’t have the goods that I promised, can I?”
“He’s doing the best that he can. He doesn’t deserve your disrespect!”
Artful said, “Give it a rest, Crimson. Seems like the kitty-cat doesn’t like me and doesn’t think I’m up to the job, so I’ll just make her happy and quit. Ms. Goods – I’m going back to my old job. No bonus is big enough to put up with these horseapples.” He then picked up a lunchbox next to him in his magic and trotted away.
Patient Hooves jumped up and began following him. “Don’t go, Art! Ignore that bitch.”
“Hey! Don’t you dare call me urk—” Michelle’s words were cut off as her arm was grabbed and Precious Goods dragged her rapidly away.
“Shut up, you bucking fool! You just managed to cut our production down by at least a third. You think we’re running only three of the six stations because we like it? Casting that enchantment is specialist work and extremely difficult. We only managed to persuade Artful Twist to take the job with the promise of a big bonus. Not to mention the prospect of working beside the two mares who are courting him! You managed to buck up weeks of building up his confidence in just a few sentences. How in Tartarus did you ever get your position with an attitude like that?”
“Let go of me!” Michelle demanded, her ears folded down in ire. “You can’t treat your boss like this.”
Precious abruptly stopped and wheeled around to face the Abyssinian. “My boss? Are you an idiot? You run the Earth-side operations with Mr. Davis – you coordinate with me, this factory’s manager. I answer to the Martines, not to you.” She pointed in the direction of the portal room. “Go back to Houston, Ms. Van Dijk. I’m going to try to undo the damage you’ve caused. Hopefully, I won’t have to contend with a walk-out by the mares too.” She then cantered off to find the unicorns.
Michelle fumed, her tail lashing. She eventually headed to the portal as directed, defiantly mumbling, “We’ll see what Rosa has to say about this!”
Rosa Martine had more than a little to say about it the situation. Michelle realized that the Latina was no less fierce and frightening as a small human than as a large griffon. She no longer wondered why she assumed that form when in Equestria. The frequent inclusions of Rosa’s native Spanish clued Michelle into how upset her boss was right now.
“…and I’m now regretting urging mi esposo to consider you for this position. I believed that you could do better in an environment where mares greatly outnumbered the sementales. But no! That wasn’t good enough for you. You had to attack the one male whose lesser performance threatened to upset your sales. And I’ve seen those figures, Ms. Van Dijk. You’ve sold mucho superconductor wire – roughly half as much again as our peak production of that material. You’re making promises of delivery times that Harmonic Composites can’t keep!”
“You hired me to grow the business. That can only happen if ponies like Artful Twist get their act together,” Michelle objected.
“So you think you could get him to perform better by humiliating him in front of his marefriends?”
“I didn’t know they were his girlfriends, and besides, they shouldn’t be fraternizing—”
“Stop right there! If this was happening here in America with humans, it would only be a problem if one managed the other two. However, that is Equestria where the major portion of the population consists of caballos – ponies – a species that thinks and interacts socially in a very different way than humans. What you call fraternizing is totally acceptable behavior for them. Far from being a distraction, Patient Hooves and Crimson Style have encouraged Artful Twist to bring up his actuación and increase his output. Now, they’ve threatened to walk out in support of Señor Twist.”
“I still think those mares overreacted,” Michelle replied sulkily.
Rosa slapped herself on the head. “Ay, yi, yi! How are you so dense?! Ponies have a matriarchal society because the mares greatly outnumber the stallions. Machos are a limited resource, so the hembras are extremely protective of them. By threatening their stallion, even if only by insultos, you were effectively doing the same to them! Phillipe had to play peacemaker to half the mares in the factory over that incident.”
“Oh. I didn’t think of that.”
“No, you blinded yourself to it. Mi esposo and I tolerated your attitude toward men before now because you didn’t let it get out of hand here in America. However, I’m beginning to think that sending you to Equestria was a mala decisión. I’ll remind you that you are on probation and any more incidents like this will not be tolerated. Precious Goods has requested that you be banned from her factory. For now, we will comply. You may still visit Equestria but stay completely out of our operations there. You will communicate only by telephone or email. Tyrone will handle any interactions en persona in Equestria until further notice. ¿Comprendes?”
“Yes, Mrs. Martine,” Michelle acknowledged quietly.
“Good.” Rosa headed out of Michelle’s office. “And, Ms. Van Dijk, as you say – get your act together.”
Michelle’s mood was still sour by the end of the day and she made a beeline for “The Bucking Mare” to have a few drinks. She met an eighteen-year-old mare who was disgruntled at something the cat woman couldn’t care less about but pretended to sympathize with anyway. They eventually went back to the mare’s place to have some angry sex. As she lay in bed afterward, Michelle could only dwell on how a male had effectively screwed her even more than this mare had just done.
# # # # # # # # #
Well, she was sure being catty.
Wouldn’t be “Comprendes”? Since Comprender is the base verb “to comprehend/understand?” My Spanish is a tad rusty
11330517
You're right, but all my Spanish comes from Google.
Lady, you still don't know much about the difficulties of spellcasting and it's various branches.
So if someone that has more knowledge and experience on the subject tells you it is okay you should, either trust their opinion, or have a longer discussion with them about it
Mistake number two today
No my dear, you did this
A hard and fast human resources rule like "you should be dismissing your bottom 10% each year" runs into a problem in a situation like this. The rule assumes you can find someone to replace the bottom performers, and sometimes that just isn't true.
I've run into rules like this in the workforce, and utterly despise them.
And Michelle is an idiot who needs to be fired right now.
11330544
And though she should have tried to listen to them they definitely need to find a way to increase productivity. Many a boss has failed in the end because they were supposedly too busy with their self importance to listen to those below them.
Sounds like a vendetta brewing when Artful Twist did nothing wrong at all but Michelle did.
I see more problems on the way, possibly.
I have been in a situation in the past, someone was mad at me and I didn't see any problem or care, at all.
That made him ever more angry.
Had a feeling this would happen
Id love to try working through this stuffs production methods using a couple obscure technologies Ive seen over the years, and some recent announcements.
Effectively if these techs work togethre as hoped, we can mass produce freefall materials on Earth. The trick is how sensitive they are to gravitational field density.
Artful Twist’s widened as he stared at Michelle in disbelief, then he glared. “Ma’am, you’re not a unicorn and have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I'm sorry Goldie but there's something wrong here. it doesn't quite make sense.
What Michelle failed to realize is that all the arguments men have against women working are the same ones mares have against stallions working.
And the Martines will hopefully learn to not hire anyone that has strong biases against others, for such is not the way of Harmony.
When stupidity wins... Kitty forget four things:
- She can be replaced a lot easyer than her specialists
- She forget that Males are a precious good in general
- She openly showed her biast, very VERY big mistake
- Saying one can produce more isn't actually changing things like facts
hum
if i was her boss......
Ms. Van Dijk would have a permanent sex change ,, hung like a Clydesdale,, thrown out of the program, and her life for ever black balled and i mean to the point she / he would be lucky to mop the floors at a hamburger joint....
and that is if i was in a good mood.
i fracking hat begets and entitled people and go out of my way to burn there ass down.. i do love finding the wiled Karen that has slipped off of her leash.
11330544 She probably thinks magic is like the processes she managed in America everything is done by machine or chemical process where failures are more likely due to fixable error in the process.
This will not end well unless that cat pulls her head iut of her ass
I was drafted into the QA Department at the lab, and I've been gradually picking up on the philosophy that's taught in ISO certification programs. All too often, the gap between what's taught and what's practiced is better described as a Gulf.
I only wish your Ms. van Dijk were an exaggeration...
I love the comment section, quite the great view points. But Kitty really made it easy to get Steamrolled by hitting the switch and running head first into it and expected to be complimentary successful anyway.
Why do I get the feeling that Michelle is going to do very, very stupid soon?
11330656
Because A Good Manager Can Manage Anything - especially a FUBAR...
11330649
As a Tradie, I resemble this remark.
What Management DECREES as Gospel, most of the Tradies shrug and say,
"Well, we can do it your way, and go over time, or we can do it the right way, and stay in the time you've ALLOWED us to do the job".
Honestly, I feel like anyone who wants to manage the production/work output of a business should really have an understanding of what that Production/Work Force ACTUALLY does. Too often, it's some tie wearing degree waving jackanob that has no actual practical experience, and is just painting by numbers, and then wondering why it all falls over and/or everyone leaves.
So well done Goldy, on making a realistic Middle Manager character.
Edit: And No disrespect your way @Uncle Mike, in case it came across as such.
11330748
I saw nothing that would be offensive, because we're in complete agreement. Most of the FUBARs that happen on the job start with some management type with cranial rectitis a) claims to see a problem that b) only exists in the imagination whilst c) having no clue of what the job entails, but d) is dead-set convinced he knows more than the analyst on the bench, and e) abuses the QA system because he's too cowardly to put himself in any situation where he'd have to admit his ignorance.
Sound familiar? I wish it wasn't familiar to me. Fortunately, I'm learning how to use the rules book to fight back; unfortunately, it's a steep learning curve.
ETA: Reminds me of the old routine about engineering vs. management- ever heard the Balloon Story?
11330783
It's the internet. People get offended over anything, even pretty pastel ponies of Friendship.
Heck, I'm Offended that you DIDN'T get Offended!
On a serious note, it can go the other end of the spectrum too. Our last Branch Electrical Manager was an old-hand that had been running his own business (of one) for the past 10 years or so. Suddenly, we had an overabundance of work that we couldn't keep up with, because there wasn't enough allowance in the work and all the jobs were underpriced. When he complained that we weren't getting it done fast enough, and we explained that we were doing it as fast as we could, he tried to get us to do it the way he had priced (which involved a LOT of corners being cut, some of them not legally). As I was head Electrical Inspector for our branch, he was not happy when someone 20 years his junior hauled him up on the Code.
Eventually he threw in the towel, but not before costing us a lot of business.
And no, I haven't heard the Balloon story (afaik), but I loved the one about the aircraft.
11330847
Well done! Even the worst jackasses will back off in the face of Health and Safety regulations that could put them in jail.
As for the balloon story: here ya go
11330656
She kinda already has in this chapter, and she's blaming the backlash on someone else instead of the one responsible, herself.
11330526
Google Translate has some weird asymmetries when going from one language to another. It also has some weird and inexplicable omissions when it comes to colloquial vs. literal speech; sometimes it knows slang and colloquial phrases in one direction, but not the other.
If you put "¿Comprendes?" into the left side, and translate to English, it will come out as "Do you understand?" -- but, if you put the phrase "Do you understand?" into the left side, and translate to Spanish, it comes out as "¿Lo entiendes?" (which also translates back to "Do you understand?" in English if you go the other way), and "¿Comprendes?" is not even shown as an alternate. Apparently, it doesn't know the colloquial use of "understand?" as a question, where the "Do you..." part is implied.
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Colloquialisms are always the bane of translation programs. I shudder to think how some of my Australianisms would come out in other languages.
One of the things about this that bothers me and hasn't been mentioned is that in any job, there will be someone doing worse than others. This doesn't mean that they're doing poorly, but short of serious shenanigans, your employees are not going to all produce the same quality at the same rate. Someone will be best, someone will be worst. This attitude of "I don't care if you're the fourth best in the world, you're not on the podium, so you're gone" really seems wrong, unfair, and illogical. It just gets on my tits.
Once years ago, I was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant. I'd had the job for a week, and the other dishwasher had been doing it for two years. The chef said to me, "You know, Tony is much faster than you." I held her eyes and, stone-faced, said."Well, he's better than me." Then I just held eye contact until she turned away. It can really take the wind out of an employer's sails if you admit your deficiencies and refuse to engage further.
11330987
Realistically, she screwed up (and screwed herself) even before she set foot in the factory, by accepting sales orders without first consulting with the factory to determine whether they can meet those orders. No sales manager with a lick of sense should ever be committing to delivery dates and quantities, in writing, without taking the factory's normal production capacity and lead times into account. That's an excellent way to shrink the business, rather than grow it, when your customers start feeling the impacts on their businesses when they can't meet their own commitments because of your inability to deliver materials on time.
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True, but not necessarily relevant in this particular case. Michelle's attitude towards Artful Twist's "under-performance" is rooted in her misandristic ("man-hating") attitude towards males, not out of any rational evaluation of his performance vs. his co-workers. Had Artful been another mare, Michelle would likely have had an entirely different attitude -- "Does she need additional training? Are there any continuing-education courses for this kind of thing?", etc. -- but since he's a stallion, she jumped straight to "Oh, he's under-performing because he's a male, and males are lazy and stupid and he's probably just slacking off and making the mares do all the work because that's what lazy stupid males do."
11331072
All true but with one caveat – this is an extremely valuable product of which they have a monopoly. Michelle over-committed because what could her customers do otherwise? Of course, that is a foolish attitude too. Some customers will decide that they don't need it that badly and cancel those and future orders.
Michelle, you have not seen the fact that the mores of ponies and humans are distinctly DIFFERENT from each other, and you have not done your cultural homework. Shape up fast before you echo the last words of the last Dalek standing at the Battle of Arcadia.
Those words are oh fuck...
Was wondering how quickly she'd run headfirst into such a screwup. Seems some preconceptions just couldn't be chiseled through. Well, we'll see in any case...
11331098
Which means she is a bad manage we have too many of those today
That last paragraph sounds a bit.... Predatory. No offence.
11331098
True -- and some customers will be highly motivated to start looking for alternatives, too, which increases the chances that either (A) someone will eventually succeed in infiltrating Harmonic Composites' operations and finding out how they make the stuff (which will blow the lid off of the whole "clandestine trade with another universe" thing), or (B) someone will eventually figure out how to make the same stuff with Earth-based, non-magical technologies. (Which, even if it turns out to be more expensive, could still lead to a loss of business for H-C if Michelle's poor decision-making gets them a reputation for unreliability. "I know this new outfit is twice the price of our current supplier, boss -- but I did some checking, and everyone who's used them says it's just as good and, more importantly, these guys actually meet their delivery dates and have stock on hand...")
11330847
There's a similar story during the Apollo program of a young engineer standing up to Werner Von Braun. That's right. THE Werner Von Braun who invented modern rocketry.
The difference being that the old engineer settled down and worked with the young QA to get the genuine concerns addressed.
11331032
'Stralia! Struth Mate! O'im Right across the pond!
(Hope I got some of that right, brb, just getting some Feesh n Cheeps!)
As far as Bad Translations go, I LOVE this one.
They run the thing through a dozen languages in Google Translate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIrDYVriLYk
Funnily enough, some of it still works, even with the weird translation.
Misandry is every bit as stupid and unacceptable as misogyny. I hope Michelle is fired for that kind of BS.
I think Rosa would have to say...Michelle your fired. How enormously rude of her. At this rate Tyrone is gonna just be handed the job due to her extreme sexist attitude.
What the actual hay, Michelle? Fing middle-managers and their meddlesome muck-ups...
Unfortunately this kind of blame-throwing is typical of modern day feminists. She's blaming HER sexist screw-up on everyone else but herself because she took every opportunity to hurt a male, just because he had been born. This is why I hate modern feminists, they hate men just because. They just want to hurt all men, not promote equality, just cause pain. The very core of evil is the want to cause pain to innocent people.
11330603 What else did you expect from a femenazi? She saw an excuse to hurt a male and she took it. They hate everything with male genitals even if they've never met them and they want to castrate or murder all men. It's just what they do. Do NOT trust a modern femenazi. She will do EVERYTHING she can to hurt males.
11334253
Which means the leaders of the companay are 2 for 4...not good.
11334387
Not quite yet, but perhaps trending that way. It depends on whether or not Michelle can pull her head out of her backside before she runs out of slack. Given that last scene though, my hopes aren't very high.
11331335
Well.... She's a cat
11330544
Lesbian bar, gross.
may I suggest some catch-up clases for the involved parties here?
one to learn of Pony opperation, and the other in his issue?
though I guess it may be of some interest both for the group and the mares with some activities to improve?
11334226
That's not feminism, it's plain ol' misandry. She's just a bitter woman, is all. And she apparently really didn't get the memo that, when you go to a different world, you check your biases in at the entrance. This world is literally alien to her, and she seems to have forgotten that because it seems not all that different at first glance...
I mean, I kinda hate a little bit on Mark and Caleb for having wet noodles for a spine (well, sometimes) - but they handled this shit waaaaayyyy better than this lil' ball of hate.
I honestly expected her to be this way not because she's a misandrist, but because's she's a ruthless corporate bitch - which she kinda has to be if the goal is to start with improving efficiency to 150%. I knew she was going to be the next problem of the group, but I rather expected more "human", less "personal", issues.
11331199
11330544
11330585
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11330617
Now now gentleman. I think we're missing what truly lead to this debacle, and it can be summarized in two words
https://m.No, you stupid feminazi cunt, you screwed yourself over with that goddamn attitude. Please go do both your Earth and Equus a favor and go kill yourself to rid them of your stupidity and bias.