Tales of low level management and a frustrated engineer

If you ever met me in person you would note that I am a quite guy.  I don't talk much but when I do it is usually with purpose.  But if you could hear my thoughts you would also note I never shut up.  I am always talking in my head and thinking of things. Today I got to thinking about the movie Interstellar.  Beside the last 15 minutes it was a really good movie.  But lets talk about that planet they went to, the one that some how safely orbits a black hole just outside the event horizon. Besides that, once an hour, wave what was wrong with that planet that we couldn't habitat there.  Even that wave, we can build a fix for that I am pretty sure. 1. They landed on something and were walking around on something.  That water was only knee deep.  You can totally shore up some dry land by digging down in some other areas. 2. We know how to disapate wave energy, we already do it.  A water wave on that scale isn't something we have ever dealt wi...

I had to be the mean boss last week.  I still am sprised someone tried to challenge me on something as simple as, "sit here all day and watch all the safety training videos."  Some how some one fell through the cracks on that and never completed the safety training we require.  He spent almost the entire shift giving me reason after reason why he didn't have to do and how he had all these safety certifications from another job that are endorsed by OSHA. I sure didn't want a wasted day of someone not getting things done because they missed their safety training during their hire on but when the tuber boss says do it, just do it.  I hated saying it but eventually I told him that I gave him permission to skip all his regular work so that he could focus on getting this done and out of the way but if he wasn't going to do it he could go home. What real kills me about it is that I really felt like this one of the guys on the team that understood what I am doing with o...