Apology to Martin Erudjian

[Vinh Pham]

Martin,

I owe you an apology for how I treated you during last week's thread. Though
I disagreed with you, you didn't say anything that deserved being insulted.
I rashly formed a negative, and inaccurate, image of the type of person you
were and didn't treat you with respect. I failed miserably at being open
minded during my first few posts and ended up instead being condesending.
Naturally you were upset, but you handled things more graciously than I did.

So a long overdue, "I'm sorry Martin."


Regards,
Vinh

Since I can't help myself, I'll comment on something I noticed during last
week's ill fated thread. Martin made the comment that an engineer's job is
to deal with what ever crazy product specs get thrown at them. After
thinking about it, I guess if you work on a huge project, where your part of
the design is just one small box among hundreds, it's probably pointless to
argue about the specs you are given. Good luck finding the person who
created the specs. And you'd have even less luck convincing them to change
their minds because the specs they gave you are a results of specs someone
else gave them. Add to the fact that defense contractors have to work in
secrecy, you'll always be kept in the dark. In the end all you can do is
accept each assignment as a challenge to solve, and pray that someone in
upper management is more enlightened than you.

I guess those of us on smaller teams have the luxary of arguing over specs,
if we don't like what we hear. In fact it's our job to do a sanity check on
whatever we're told to do. But, it's probably not the right attitude to have
on a news group. It's not practical to expect a person to explain the entire
context of their question to our satisfaction. We just have to assume they
know what they are doing.

 

[Martin Euredjian]

Oh, boy... Vinh, you didn't need to apologize. But I do appreciate the
gesture. It's far too easy to get wires (messages, meaning, intent,
whatever) crossed over this form of communication.

I did not take offense to anything you said. Yeah, maybe it bugged me a
bit. But, when you are as busy as some of us are, you just can't let the
lack of fluidity and clarity in a non-real-time conversation medium get to
you or nothing gets done. I try to practice what I preach. The one thing
that I keep repeating is that there are very few failures of process and
that, if you dig deep enough, most failures are failures of design. And,
with that comes my deep belief that one must be humble in understanding
one's limitations, accepting criticism and evaluating other's opinions. I
could go on, but don't want to turn this into a huge philosophy thread.

So, I just thought it was funny that it seemed I couldn't explain myself out
of a paper bag. I kept saying "these are the specs" and you (and others)
would say "never mind the specs, this is the better way to do it". And
round-and-round in circles we went. No big deal.

But thanks, I appreciate it. I'll go ahead and take back all those bad
things I said about you as soon as my wife gets home. I promise.


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Martin Euredjian

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"Vinh Pham" <a@a.a> wrote in message
news:uR2fb.40556$5z.29015@twister.socal.rr.com...

Martin,

I owe you an apology for how I treated you during last week's thread.
Though
I disagreed with you, you didn't say anything that deserved being
insulted.
I rashly formed a negative, and inaccurate, image of the type of person
you
were and didn't treat you with respect. I failed miserably at being open
minded during my first few posts and ended up instead being condesending.
Naturally you were upset, but you handled things more graciously than I
did.

So a long overdue, "I'm sorry Martin."


Regards,
Vinh

Since I can't help myself, I'll comment on something I noticed during last
week's ill fated thread. Martin made the comment that an engineer's job is
to deal with what ever crazy product specs get thrown at them. After
thinking about it, I guess if you work on a huge project, where your part
of
the design is just one small box among hundreds, it's probably pointless
to
argue about the specs you are given. Good luck finding the person who
created the specs. And you'd have even less luck convincing them to change
their minds because the specs they gave you are a results of specs someone
else gave them. Add to the fact that defense contractors have to work in
secrecy, you'll always be kept in the dark. In the end all you can do is
accept each assignment as a challenge to solve, and pray that someone in
upper management is more enlightened than you.

I guess those of us on smaller teams have the luxary of arguing over
specs,
if we don't like what we hear. In fact it's our job to do a sanity check
on
whatever we're told to do. But, it's probably not the right attitude to
have
on a news group. It's not practical to expect a person to explain the
entire
context of their question to our satisfaction. We just have to assume they
know what they are doing.

 

[Vinh Pham]

Oh, boy... Vinh, you didn't need to apologize. But I do appreciate the

Yeah I did. There were two annoying voices in my head. "You should
apologize because..." "Screw that, you sholdn't apologize because..." I
was getting sick of hearing them arguing :_p

gesture. It's far too easy to get wires (messages, meaning, intent,
whatever) crossed over this form of communication.

Yes, it's difficult enough to communicate face to face, much harder when all
you have are smiley faces. And we're always too lazy to read or write
carefully. Another problem is it's too easy to forget there's a live person
on the other side of the screen. We forget our manners and tend to write
the first thing that comes to mind.

I could go on, but don't want to turn this into a huge philosophy thread.

Then you have far more self control than I ;_) I tend to write overly long
posts that most people never finish reading.

So, I just thought it was funny that it seemed I couldn't explain myself
out
of a paper bag. I kept saying "these are the specs" and you (and others)
would say "never mind the specs, this is the better way to do it". And
round-and-round in circles we went. No big deal.

Yeah a silly little cycle we got ourselves into. At some point things start
turning more emotional than intellectual. People's comments become overly
critical and we end up being defensive.

But thanks, I appreciate it. I'll go ahead and take back all those bad
things I said about you as soon as my wife gets home. I promise.

LOL. I bet your wife will roll her eyes. If you ever watched the movie
Swingers, there's a scene where a bunch of friends almost get into a violent
confrontation with another group of guys, a gun gets drawn. A few scenes
later, they're all hanging out together playing Nintendo like they were
highschool buddies.

Anyways, thanks for accepting the apology and not rubbing things in.


Regards,
Vinh