Do you like your job and/or career?

[vorlon13]

I like running the farm these days, and while I don't really miss the defense contractor stint, it was interesting.  I accidentally put a constraint on a space shuttle launch, once.

Odd feeling walking into the department manager's office and informing him the company might be on the evening news.  (we weren't, but I didn't know that at the time).  

That sort of thing never happens in a field of soybeans . . . .

Yyyyeah. I'm gonna have to go ahead and ask you to elaborate on what appears to be a very interesting story here. (if you can).

The company I worked for made quite a few different items for aerospace applications.  Equipment for the space shuttle too.

When NASA returns an item for repair (if they think it is broken) or refurbishment (if it has a certain number of hours or flights on it) it will usually be subjected to an incoming inspection and testing. 

Then it would be disassembled, gone over thoroughly, worn/broken items replaced, put back together, tested some more, and shipped back to the cape.

I handled some of the paperwork (I rarely saw the equipment, and only ever touched a space flown item once) and for the most part, translated the 'engineering lingo' into verbiage the shuttle program managers could deal with.  (hard to imagine, but many engineers are functionally illiterate, got me a job however, as I'm fluent in both worlds).

Anyhow, on one occasion, an item was reported to NASA for failing testing after refurbishment rather than as a newly returned item, as was the actual case.  The paperwork passed through my hands, and I had no way of discerning the discrepancy. 

Anyhow, as luck would have it, a launch was imminent, and having a device fail unexpectedly at our facility while an identical unit was in the butt end of Atlantis while it was on the launch pad led to considerable excitement at the cape when my report got there.

I received a phone call, (quite soon after faxing the 'bad' paperwork out) and was informed our company was now a constraint for the next launch.

Even before I crapped my pants, I dashed over to the managers office and gave him the bad news.  Figured he might as well experience brown trousers time with me too.

Fortunately, once I called the engineer that had reported the incorrect testing info to me, we were able to append the original report, resubmit, and get off the launch constraint list. Only took several hours of sweating and teeth gnashing.

Always struck me funny, if we needed to fax something to a customer, REGARDLESS of the circumstances, we still had to follow company policy for sending faxes.  I had to have the original and a copy in my file, and I had to send 2 copies to the fax department (via interoffice mailer if not urgent, or walk it down myself a 1/4 mile to the fax room) so they could keep a copy for their files, and send one back to me with their paperwork for sending the fax.  There was also some paperwork I did not see, a charge sheet would go back to my managers secretary as our department would have to keep track of the charges for sending the fax as faxing was a budget item there.  There was probably other paperwork involved (probably copies of everything to corporate, and more copies to legal).

Anyhow,  Atlantis launched on time, and all was well.