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March 2004 - Innovations Newsletter
Outsourcing
You’ve probably been
hearing about this and may or may not have a clue as to what is happening.
Thought I would add my two cents worth.
I mentioned in a previous
newsletter that I was in the Air Force in the early sixties. My first
assignment was overseas working with classified
communications circuits. I
was a “Tech Controller”. My job was to monitor and keep in operation special
classified teletype circuits that carried
sensitive and classified
message traffic around the world. This included messages that were delivered
directly to the President of the United States. It was an important job.
It was a chance happening
that got me into this job. At the time, only non-commissioned officers with
five years of line experience were allowed to retrain into Tech Control. There
was also a worldwide critical shortage of controllers.
I was attending school to
be a radio operator. By a quirk of Fate, my roommates were older
non-commissioned officers who were attending Tech Control school. I helped
them with their homework and decided that was the job I wanted.
I went to the Tech Control
school commandant and presented my case to him (shaking all the time I was
speaking!). Told him their was a critical shortage of controllers and I was
ready to take on the task. I was ham radio operator and after helping my
roommates knew this was the kind of job I should be doing.
A few days later I was
called into the office of the head of the school I was attending. He said they
had decided to try my suggestion. They were
taking the top students
from the next graduating class of my school and sending them through Tech
Control school. As a reward for my suggestion, if I could finish my last five
weeks of radio operator school in five days, I could go with them and be part
of the first experimental class. They did not expect any of us to complete the
course, but were going to give it a try anyway. I said Yes!!!
I finished radio school
and went on Christmas break. I returned and fourteen weeks later I graduated,
received a promotion and became a tech controller. My first assignment was
overseas on the island of Formosa (Taiwan). I had just turned 18.
I was assigned the
midnight shift. Since there were only two other controllers at my base their
was no one to train me. I was on my own. The
equipment we were using
was years ahead of anything else in the Air Force. (I didn’t realize this
until years later.) It was nothing like what I had
been trained to use in
school. But, I knew the theory and with a little help quickly learned what to
do.
I spent every night
learning and experimenting. Eventually I got pretty good at what I was doing.
By then we had one more controller assigned and we were immediately placed on
rotating shift work. I hated shift work! If you’ve ever done it (rotating
every two or three days) you know what I mean. If you haven’t, I would suggest
avoiding it. It’s bad for your health and murder on your family life!
One night I decided it was
time to do something about the shortage of controllers. I spoke with the shift
supervisor and asked him if I could
train one of his teletype
operators (they sent and received the classified message traffic) to be a tech
controller. Told him this would be to his
benefit in case I ever got
sick. He agreed, assigned me one of his operators, and I started my own
training program.
Beside me was a room full
of highly classified cryptographic equipment that took the plain text messages
we were sending, receiving and relaying and encrypted them so they couldn’t be
intercepted while enroute. If they weren’t working we couldn’t process our
traffic.
Teletype operators were in
charge of keeping the crypto equipment on line and in sync with the equipment
at the other end of our communications channels. They drove me crazy because
they had never been trained and really didn’t know what they were doing.
I spoke with the chief of
maintenance and got permission to have one of his maintenance people train me
on how to keep the crypto equipment running and how to do some basic
maintenance checks and simple repairs. He agreed as his staff was short handed
too! Once I was trained, I told the shift supervisor that I would do all the
crypto work from that point on in addition to my controller duties. It was a
lot easier that way and I had a trainee to help me. I would teach the
maintenance man on our shift as much as time permitted about my job. So, in
effect there were at least three of us on my shift that could do multiple
duties in an emergency.
I also briefed my boss to
keep him out of trouble.
Then I got caught. It was
about 3AM and all H--- broke loose. Circuits were crashing and everything was
falling apart. I was stressed! I saw out
of the corner of my eye my
trainee. I started barking orders and saw he was complying. We got everything
under control finally.
It was then, to my horror,
that I realized that it wasn’t my trainee following my orders, it was my
squadron commander! He simply asked if I was
all right and then
directed me to report to his office at the end of my shift. Good grief, I was
only 18 and I’d already ended my career!
I reported and he said he
was very impressed with how I had taken care of a very serious situation .
Then he quietly asked who I thought he was as he realized I didn’t know it was
him. (It was 3AM, he should have been in bed sleeping!) I told him, I thought
he was my trainee. “Trainee?” he said. “You don’t have a trainee.”
I explained the agreements
I had with the shift supervisor and with the chief of maintenance and that I
had briefed my supervisor on what I was
doing. He said fine, now
get some sleep. My next shift rotation was to the day shift and when the boss
arrived he called me aside and explained what happened. The commander liked my
idea and now each controller had his own trainee and I could also continue
doing crypto along with my controller duties.
A happy ending. I even got
a promotion when I left the island. I’m very thankful that I had a squadron
commander with a sense of humor and
understanding. When
I transferred to my next assignment in Texas, I didn’t need to do crypto.
Qualified operators did it. But, one afternoon, we were short handed and I
really needed a circuit. So, I went to the crypto area, opened a unit and
repaired it. That was when a Colonel walked up to me and asked who the … I
was. Told him and explained why I knew what to do.
He politely told me that I
was in the states now and if he ever saw me touch or open a crypto unit again
he would personally file charges against me. (Things were a lot looser
overseas.) I took the hint and never touched another crypto unit.
When I separated from the
Air Force I applied for a position as a crypto operator with NSA. I received a
GS-7 rating based on my one year of
experience in Taiwan. I
never took a job as a crypto operator, but I was happy that my on-the-job
experience was worth something.
Fast forward to today. For
the past 4 years I’ve worked with government agencies. The mindset is totally
different. In some places, away from
headquarters units, there
is a spirit of cooperation and everyone chips in to get the mission done.
I’ve been working in
headquarters units and it’s not fun.
Remember the movie about
the Green Beret that starred John Wayne? In that movie there is a scene where
an elite commando team introduces itself starting with it’s top officer and
working down to the non-coms. Each team member introduced himself and listed
his specialties. Each team member was trained in multiple specialties. You
could knock out a good part of the team and they could still accomplish their
mission.
I remember the first time
I asked a simple question of a Federal computer system administrator. (At the
time I was a certified Microsoft Systems
Engineer.) He bent over
his keyboard blocking my view so I wouldn’t see what he was doing. This was
not classified work, just a normal system
function. He was worried
that I was after his job. All I wanted was his knowledge, I wanted to learn,
not take his job away from him.
Since I’ve worked for the
government, on the Civil Service side, I’ve run into many people that refuse
to share their knowledge. They believe that
their job security comes
from being the only person capable of doing their job. It’s inefficient and
downright frustrating for employees that want to
learn and improve their
value to their employer (our government).
It’s worked up until now,
but times are changing. Government computer workers are being forced to
compete with civilian companies for their own jobs and in many cases they
aren’t prepared. They’ve avoided getting civilian credentials and by hoarding
their knowledge have
placed themselves in
positions where they know a lot about very little. With no one sharing
knowledge everyone suffers when it’s time to compete with others who have a
variety of knowledge and experience to offer.
In an emergency if “Joe”
of “Suzie” isn’t on duty or available things come to a halt until they are
found. In my humble opinion, that’s not a good way to run a department or an
organization. I feel sorry for some of them, but they’ve done it to
themselves.
Watch little kids when
they do things. Their not perfect, but they aren’t afraid to share their
knowledge and work together to reach a common goal. They like to compete and
competition is good when not taken to excess. We need to encourage our little
ones to try new things and experiment.
Sure, they will fail, but
that’s good. With every failure comes knowledge. Edison failed thousands
of times. Babe Ruth struck out lots of times, but in the end they succeeded
because they didn’t stop trying just because they failed. Out of every
100 ideas I have, I’m lucky if one is a winner. But that one makes all the
failures worth while and encourages me to keep trying and learning.
I hate working in places
where experimentation and risk taking is avoided or forbidden. Where everyone
plays it safe and never takes a chance. Where everyone does his or her little
job and makes sure no one else has a clue what they are doing.
We have to teach our
children not to be paranoid and to share not hoard their knowledge. We
are competing in a global world and unless we work together as a team we will
lose to others who do.
Outsourcing will be
painful in the short run. Good, hard working people have lost their jobs and
more will in the future. But, in the long run it
will make us stronger if
we embrace it and use it to our advantage. The more we work together to
improve our skills and efficiencies the stronger we become and the more
competitive we will be in our growing global economy.
One of my favorite movies
is “Galaxy Quest” which is a takeoff on Star Trek. Tim Allen, of all
people, does a great job as the Captain of the Starship “NSEA Protector.” He
has a line that I love – “Never Give Up, Never Surrender.” Good advice for
anyone. (PS: Even if you don’t like Star Trek, Galaxy Quest is a very funny
movie.)
And now for this months
sites:
Famous
Birthdays
Ever wonder who was born
on the same day you were? Here’s a site that will tell you.
http://famousbirthdays.com/
Leap year
Just in case your little
one asks about what a leap year is here’s a site that explains it.
http://www.timeanddate.com/date/leapyear.html/
Custom
License Plates
If you live in a state
that only requires one license plate on your car, here’s a neat product you
might have a use for.
http://www.autoplates.com/
Moms Break
This site offers a lot of
personalized items for Birthdays, Baby Showers, Holidays, Iron-on Transfers,
and special military items. Get a big cup of
coffee before going to
this site!
http://www.momsbreak.com/
Free Personalized Stories
Here’s a site that lets
you create stories and then print them on your computer. Stories include
colored pictures, or you can print them in black
and white and then color
them yourselves. All you have to do is answer a few questions and then click
“Submit”. Your story appears on your computer screen. Print it out and enjoy.
Includes lots of other free things to do.
http://www.searsportrait.com/storybook/storybook_storyindex.asp/
Publix
Preschool Pals
I do all my grocery
shopping in Publix. They are friendly and go out of their way to make me feel
at home. They’ve just added a website for
preschoolers and parents.
Here’s some information from their home page:
“We've developed an
exciting, and free, program for children ages two, three and four and parents
alike living in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama or Tennessee. It's
educational, but it's also entertaining. We call it Publix Preschool Pals.
Here's what you get:
information to help your children realize their full potential, access to an
information-rich Web site, a quarterly newsletter,
prizes, cards on their
birthdays, a very cool activity book for two-year-olds, and a one-of-a-kind CD
ROM when your children turn three.”
If you live in FL, GA, SC,
AL or TN please check it out.
http://www.publix.com/preschool/
CU in April
Ron Nixon
RWR Innovations
We Make Reading Fun Again!
Issue: 3/1//2004 ISSN #:
1543-9275
Note: The websites in this
newsletter are listed because I find them interesting and have value to
parents and children. They have not paid money or given me anything to be
mentioned.
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