A Tall Tale, Half-Remembered

Apparently, I've reached the age where one starts indulging in nostalgia. This particular reminiscence was sparked by Pineta's short, "This Is How a Unicorn Talks", wherein Izzy, Sunny, Zipp, and Hitch must defend a high-energy particle accelerator project. (BTW, brilliant thesis, that I would sum up as, "You can hypothesize to your heart's content, but you don't know whether or not it's valid until you actually look...")

But, the story reminded me of an engineering management issue that seems to pop up a lot. Back in my misspent youth, I read hard sci-fi, and had subscriptions to Galaxy and Analog, as much for the science fact columns from Jerry Pournelle and G. Harry Stine as for the stories. I can't recall which one wrote this, but the op-ed piece was on how to run a "Skunk Works" - an advanced research projects organization. Along the way, the author told a (probably apocryphal) story about one of the things not to do. I'll admit that this was decades ago, the author anonymized the companies involved, and memory may have embellished things, but as best I can recall, it went like this:

There used to be a company that made engines for small aircraft - Cessna, Beech, Piper, and the like. A niche market, to be sure, but they were very good at what they did, and made a tidy profit doing it. As it happened, they were bought by a multinational conglomerate, and a new manager was sent to take over their operations. The fellow had no education, training, or experience in aeronautics or engineering, but he had a stellar track record in retail store management. That shouldn't have made a difference - after all, a good manager can manage anything.

So, the new manager arrived, and studied the company, looking for whatever efficiencies he could find. He used a method that was tried and true, and had served him well over the years: he evaluated each department on revenue generated per square foot of floor space used and operating expenses charged. In due course, he found a pair of serious problems - two departments that took up thousands of feet of space, consumed hundreds of thousands of dollars, and brought in no money whatsoever:

Metallurgy and Quality Assurance.

And he stood steadfast that those two wastes of resources should be disbanded, protestations of the engineering staff notwithstanding - clearly, Metallurgy and QA were featherbedding, and all the protestations from the other department heads were just trying to protect their buddies. He knew better, for he was a manager, and a good manager can manage anything.

And, in due course, airplanes started falling out of the sky, investigating agencies started publishing mishap reports, regulatory agencies started issuing airworthiness directives, and next-of-kin started filing lawsuits. The company went into bankruptcy, the engineers went on the dole, and the manager went on to bigger and better things with the parent multinational...

...Because, after all, a good manager can manage anything...

The parallels draw themselves. TL;DR version: Let's not put Neighsayers in charge of things they don't understand...

Just sayin'...

Comments

[Shachza]

Ah, yes. But just think of how phenomenal the company's profit margins were for the short time they were in business. They could probably build another engine manufacturing operation with the leftovers!

[A.P.O.N.I.]

This isn't funny, as it's too real.