Disassembly
The one-line description I give to people who ask about my job is simply, “I build simulators.” Actually, I lead people who build and integrate simulator components but let’s not split hairs.
Today I had a unique experience: I got to help take a simulator apart. For good. We’re decommissioning a 20-year-old flight simulator because the airframe it simulates is also being decommissioned. There was some interest in reusing parts of it elsewhere but ultimately there were no takers so she has to come apart.
So I went into the darkened hut with a flashlight, screwdriver and cable cutters and helped myself to as many MS connectors and simulated instruments as I could get to. Some of these things cost tens of thousands of dollars and take up to a year to manufacture so having them on a shelf for future use is a cost and schedule advantage for us and the taxpayers. Anyway, she was a good sim. I spent a lot of weekends working on her back in Albuquerque back in ’99 before it was upgraded and shipped here. I followed not long after. Hopefully, I’ll be putting a new trainer in the same high bay a couple of years from now.
We received a weekly newsletter from our corporate office earlier this week with a feature on project engineering. My compadres down south came up with a few gems:
- you can see the big picture, but focus on the details when you need to.
- when you're assigned to lead a project, you pick the most important thing to get done first, not the most fun.
- you are good at understanding complex situations and communicating them with others.
- you can come up to speed on a new program quickly.
- you have a "sixth sense" when something is about to go wrong on your project.
- you can tell when someone is giving you a line.
- you have to coordinate with every engineering and ops discipline in the plant.
- you can focus on ten things a minute.
- you are beat up by contracts and finance at least once a week and survive to lead again.
- you have the courage to stand up to the Program Manager/management when they are about to do something wrong.
- you can cope with the stress when the program isn’t going well.
- you like one foot in engineering and another in program management.
- you enjoy talking to people and learning about their problems and concerns.
- you think the best way to handle politics it to just get the job done.
That last one pretty much says it all.