I realize that I wasn't a job shopper long enough, it wasn't even a year at Menasco and I really did not learn anything about being a contractor, well, maybe a bit, but mostly, my mindset was still very much that of a permie.
Permie, is that the right spelling?, perhaps it was, it was usually followed by wanker, for the full effect of the insult from the jobshoppeur, so my short tenure as a jobshopper was followed by a longer period of time as a PW.
Unpaid spare time continued, with a little bit of Patran education, but there was resistance, plus, I decided to learn some CAD and that was one thing that went down like a lead balloon, especially with the chief as he was not happy, not happy at all, with one of his minions learning to use a CAD terminal.
Yet, I persisted.
The reasoning behind that behaviour was that I believed there was a logical link between CAD and Patran and that conversion was possible between a three dimensional CAD database and a Patran model, it made perfect sense to "import" a solid model into Patran and then mesh it, plus it made sense to understand how the CAD models would dovetail into our analysis world.
But, the problem then was that (if my memory serves me well) the CAD software was written by one company, and that company wasn't PDA, so any importing would require a translation program, developed by PDA (eventually owned by MSC) and I think they were more keen to deliver the total package and sell the company the whole bundle. It seemed like everything was about money, and the software was insanely expensive, plus external forces wanted a change in analysis software, ie, NASTRAN and again, things would change once MSC took over.
I had the right idea, but they already had the solution, I just think they wanted Dowty to pay an enormous amount of money to achieve that goal. However, in the interim, while playing with the existing software, I learned quite a bit about the CAD process, something that would help me along the way.
It reminded me of the times back in 1985 when I would sit with Pete Gatehouse at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, we'd sit for hours at the "tube" and brainstorm various ideas for the T-45 landing gear and solve those kinematic problems in our own time, or the other times at APPH when Matt Hilliard and myself worked on the JAS-39 main fitting, rotating three dimensional points in space by creating a a BASIC program, almost as an unpaid hobby.
Unpaid spare time.
Friday, December 27, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Lost my Mind
Dowty was a tech incubator, that was for sure and during the first year or so after my return, I found time to learn Patran, Fortran and by chance, develop my knowledge of the personal computer. This was augmented by my relationship with Jim Collins and the association with the ham radio community, branching out directly with the computer "fest" community.
It was an exciting time for sure, I bought my first personal computer, spent an absolute fortune on it, along with some dot matrx printer. In a very short time I was on the upgrade path, replacing stuff, motherboards and hard drives, all because the latest version of Doom would require something faster.
I was turning into a gamer.
I was also turning into a Homebrewer.
Not just a homebrewer of very horrible beer, but a term used for someone who builds computers from scratch, I recall that Rob Chappell gave me a box of stuff from his dad, a box of Dell computer parts that at one time had been a "286" and they sat around for a while until there was a need, and if I recall correctly, the need was Graeme Wright, who wanted a personal computer and all we had to do was assemble, as cheaply as possible, a unit to do the essentials.
The essentials being Lotus 123 or it's equivalent free version, "Aseasy (as) 123" again, if my memory serves me well. This Aseasy program was a public domain, freeware program, that was equivalent to the famous 123 program, and me and the Scottish guy developed ways to track our finances and more importantly, our mortgages on a home computer (besides our handheld computers).
In was the beginning of financial freedom.
So, really, It wasn't like I was really losing my mind, it was more like I was finding it.
It was an exciting time for sure, I bought my first personal computer, spent an absolute fortune on it, along with some dot matrx printer. In a very short time I was on the upgrade path, replacing stuff, motherboards and hard drives, all because the latest version of Doom would require something faster.
I was turning into a gamer.
I was also turning into a Homebrewer.
Not just a homebrewer of very horrible beer, but a term used for someone who builds computers from scratch, I recall that Rob Chappell gave me a box of stuff from his dad, a box of Dell computer parts that at one time had been a "286" and they sat around for a while until there was a need, and if I recall correctly, the need was Graeme Wright, who wanted a personal computer and all we had to do was assemble, as cheaply as possible, a unit to do the essentials.
The essentials being Lotus 123 or it's equivalent free version, "Aseasy (as) 123" again, if my memory serves me well. This Aseasy program was a public domain, freeware program, that was equivalent to the famous 123 program, and me and the Scottish guy developed ways to track our finances and more importantly, our mortgages on a home computer (besides our handheld computers).
In was the beginning of financial freedom.
So, really, It wasn't like I was really losing my mind, it was more like I was finding it.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Three Year Term
The three year term began, and a rough estimate of how much it actually cost me, adjusted for taxation rates, overtime and what have you, was somewhere in the quarter-million dollar range, so it was quite the little promise I made there to the Chief of Stress at the time.
However, it wasn't all about money, things happened during those three years that changed my career in very good ways, cemented some friendships and the very fact that I was earning less made me focus more on being more careful with money.
In addition, there was a whole bunch of extra time that was to be enjoyed, something like two hours a day or more, six days a week, that's a dozen hours a week, it gave me so much more time to waste.
In my last months of 1989 at Dowty, Patran-G had reared it's ugly head once more and there had been strong hints that I was required to wear that Finite Element Analyis hat once again, something that I was reluctant to do, in fact, in retrospect, it was one of the factors that pushed me away from Dowty (besides the evil money thing).
Now that I was back, it was fortunate that two of the guys had firmly placed their knees under the FEA table, so the expectation that the "young jockey" would take the reins was long gone, in fact, another fortunate thing, I had the suspicion that there was an essence of punishment (for my year at Menasco) and that the mighty Patran-G, or whatever it was called in 1991, was being withheld from my not so enthusiastic mitts.
The two guys, Andrew North and Holger Oberlander, also appeared to have no intention of allowing me, or anyone else for that matter, at one of the FEA workstations, yet the Chief of Stress was concerned that if one of his men was "run over by a bus" then the valuable FEA work could implode, so there was a general upbeat "everyone should learn Patran" theme in the office, it was a theme, but it seemed to go nowhere.
It was common in the industry for people to be protective of their jobs, even though we were not unionized the general approach was to keep knowledge and only reluctantly, impart knowledge. This had been true even back in the Harry Clark days at APPH, it was the hierarchy of analytical skills that kept analysts in the higher pay grades, and here, ten years later in another country, the same thing was happening.
The two FEA jockeys, who had formal training from MSC, were instructed to teach other members of the stress office, but daytime training sessions were few and far between because "real work" was getting in the way of any training, and also, any time spent on the machines was next to useless, mainly because the teachers had no teaching skills, or as I suspected, had no incentive whatsoever in sharing their knowledge.
So, even though I had a reluctance to relearn the FEA software, I knew that it would be of some use in this so called career of mine and so, with the Chief's permission, I started using some of my unpaid spare hours to grab terminal time, after our experts had gone home, and relearn the nuts and bolts of Patran.
Unpaid spare time...yes, I truly had lost my mind.
However, it wasn't all about money, things happened during those three years that changed my career in very good ways, cemented some friendships and the very fact that I was earning less made me focus more on being more careful with money.
In addition, there was a whole bunch of extra time that was to be enjoyed, something like two hours a day or more, six days a week, that's a dozen hours a week, it gave me so much more time to waste.
In my last months of 1989 at Dowty, Patran-G had reared it's ugly head once more and there had been strong hints that I was required to wear that Finite Element Analyis hat once again, something that I was reluctant to do, in fact, in retrospect, it was one of the factors that pushed me away from Dowty (besides the evil money thing).
Now that I was back, it was fortunate that two of the guys had firmly placed their knees under the FEA table, so the expectation that the "young jockey" would take the reins was long gone, in fact, another fortunate thing, I had the suspicion that there was an essence of punishment (for my year at Menasco) and that the mighty Patran-G, or whatever it was called in 1991, was being withheld from my not so enthusiastic mitts.
The two guys, Andrew North and Holger Oberlander, also appeared to have no intention of allowing me, or anyone else for that matter, at one of the FEA workstations, yet the Chief of Stress was concerned that if one of his men was "run over by a bus" then the valuable FEA work could implode, so there was a general upbeat "everyone should learn Patran" theme in the office, it was a theme, but it seemed to go nowhere.
It was common in the industry for people to be protective of their jobs, even though we were not unionized the general approach was to keep knowledge and only reluctantly, impart knowledge. This had been true even back in the Harry Clark days at APPH, it was the hierarchy of analytical skills that kept analysts in the higher pay grades, and here, ten years later in another country, the same thing was happening.
The two FEA jockeys, who had formal training from MSC, were instructed to teach other members of the stress office, but daytime training sessions were few and far between because "real work" was getting in the way of any training, and also, any time spent on the machines was next to useless, mainly because the teachers had no teaching skills, or as I suspected, had no incentive whatsoever in sharing their knowledge.
So, even though I had a reluctance to relearn the FEA software, I knew that it would be of some use in this so called career of mine and so, with the Chief's permission, I started using some of my unpaid spare hours to grab terminal time, after our experts had gone home, and relearn the nuts and bolts of Patran.
Unpaid spare time...yes, I truly had lost my mind.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Dowty Stress Office 1991
We had a lot of characters in the Stress Office at DAT back in 1991 and I tried to capture their characters in the following cartoon. I'm surprised it has survived all these years.
You might be in an Aerospace Stress Office if...
1. You plan your escape every day and make lists...
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
2. You yearn for a hardbound copy of Roark's fourth edition.
3. Someone asks you what you do for a living and they think you're a psychologist.
4. You get really excited about an unknown lookup feature you've discovered in Excel.
5. You sit in a cubicle that wasn't yours six months ago and has less reference and drawer space.
6. The fun really starts when the "bad monkey" is someone else.
7. Communication is something your "group" is having problems with.
8. You see a good looking woman in the office and know for sure she's not in your group.
9. You're happy that the component that failed on test was analysed by someone else.
10. You don't know what you're doing, even so, you think you know more than anyone else.
11. Your bosses favorite lines are...
"We've lost another guy to the competition, so we have to work smarter..."
"My Hands are Tied"
"I'll get back to you on that"
"If anyone else is thinking about leaving, let me know"
12. You think that thread undercut related jokes are funny.
13. You think that weights engineers are very silly and only need simple math skills.
14. Manipulating numbers to satisfy someone else's needs is considered a living.
15. The report you were working on four years ago is sitting, unreleased, in a box at Iron Mountain.
16. You reply to design engineers questions confidently, without knowing the real answer.
17. The guy who sits in front of you makes odd peeps and pops all day. Smells of cabbage.
18. You make assumptions that are good sometimes, other times they're very, very bad.
19. You know at least ten people who don't work in your group any more, and several are still in it.
20. You have a posture problem, yearn to ring bells and douse invaders with boiling oil.
21. You laugh hysterically when someone says that Tim O'Shenko was an Irish guy.
22. You've heard of, or maybe even understand RPN and know someone with a HP calculator.
23. One of your colleagues has only one eyebrow.
24. You know at least one person (besides yourself) who has plotted the death of the chief of stress.
25. Jokes about hoop stress, column stability and internal pressure are hilarious in relation to sex acts.
26. At least one other person in your group has lost the will to live.
27. You read this entire list and understand it.
The Bunker, April 1991
Until the reversal of my fortunes I was hunkered down, wearing the wife's clothes, down in the basement in our townhouse and cutting coupons out of flyers to make ends meet.
To the far left the mighty Commodore Amiga A500 complete with disk drive, next the Commodore 64 and at the end, the soon to be, suitably attired, Permy Wanker.
What a plonker!
Permy Wanker
Almost a third of 1991 had gone by and strangely I found myself sitting back at Dowty with most of the old familiar faces around me once again.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
As though I'd bonked those ruby red slippers together and returned back to Kansas.
Well, Ajax.
The Chief of Stress, Barry Levoir, had asked me at the interview "I hope you're not going to run away and leave us for jobshopping again as soon as the market turns around" and I had said, hand on heart, that I would stay for at least a few years.
Looking back, I am happy that I made that promise, even if within a few days of starting back at Dowty my words would start to cost me a thousand bucks or more every week.
It was like some evil plot turn in the film of my life the April Tuesday morning that the office phone rang.
It was a familiar Lancashire voice on the other end of the phone, like a favorite Uncle the man began with "Hello me old fruit" and asked if I wanted to go jobshopping once again down at Brand-X.
The other landing gear emporium.
Unfortunately, I had made my daft promise and for some even greater daft reason I told Larry that I would honour it and had to decline his invitation.
Thus, with the knowledge that my panic shopping for a salaried position hadn't been necessary after all, I began my three year term as a born-again permy wanker.
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