Made me think of Enzo

[nosaj]

Martin Rue

This seemed like a very good post and thought I'd share it.

nosaj

[Enzo]

That is a great post, I like it. Thanks for thinking of me, but those are words of wisdom. Grandpa sounds like a wise man.

Understanding IS important. That is why I dislike the Gerald Webber books. He never explains anything, he just says change this part and move that part.

[Tom Phillips]

Never just remember how to do something, understand how it works.

Yes. That's great advise. And when you understand how a few things work then you find that it leads to understanding how other things work. You can even figure out how things work that you never saw before and fix them when they are not working correctly.

[Mick Bailey]

A good point worth making, nosaj. I've built career out of it.

I had 27 staff working for me at one time in another life and another business, and I often had a queue of people at my desk with a variety of questions. People used to say "how do you remember all this stuff" and I used to say "I don't need to remember it, I understand it". My clients expected me to know as much as they did about their individual business areas, which were varied and complex, so memorising it all (and recalling it in context) was not possible.

Memorising a dictionary will not make you a literary genius.

[km6xz]

Knowing a wide range of subjects allows seeing how things work, any things, because all subjects are related. When looking for a new hire, I never cared about specialty education or a degree in the subject as much as life experience and the breadth of study. A tech with a broad interest in history and biology will usually be a better bet than one that has only studied electronics for example. All specialized topics of study rely on similar thinking processes to solve problems but each has some techniques that are unique to it and are useful in other fields. The more you know, the more you can see how everything is connected so the more you understand.

To that point, when looking for a manager of my studio, I bypassed a dozen people who were "experts" based on experience in studios but none seemed to be able to solve problems not seen before. I selected a young woman who had a masters in history from Stanford because she was very well rounded in a broad exploration including philosophy, economics, basic physics and chemistry, biology and math and art. After hiring her for the her first exposure to studios, and as head person in a busy place with large staff, I discovered her dad was head of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and her baby brother was the youngest phd from UCLA in CS. Being from a home where digging deeply into things, anything, really showed in results, problem solving and social skills. Smart curious households produce interested, curious, children who beget effective agile adult minds.
Most of the key people that made a difference in my projects were those who were chance meetings, not applicants. This girl was sitting next to me on a flight to JFK and our conversation was extended due to being frozen out of the east coast and diverted to overnight in Denver. She was not looking for a job and certainly not in the music industry. Soon it became apparent that she was a very effective and well liked asset.

Aspiring recording engineers or techs often came to me to ask what courses to take to be successful in those fields. I would tell them studying art, history, philosophy, archaeology, and anything else I could think of that seemed unrelated to their goal. They might laugh but it was serious. I never met a recording engineer who made a difference or was successful who went to recording school. In the 90's 100,000 a year graduated from those schools and I never remember one who got a real job or who did significant work. Those who did make it and make a difference usually had a varied range of interests and had already studied all that was available as young kids so waiting to start learning a craft by going to school at age 18-24 was too late. The motivated ones had devoured everything they could find years before and were a decade ahead of those who expected a school to teach them to be resourceful and creative. By waiting that long, it was solid evidence that they lacked the drive to be one of the exceptions who were successful.

The best trainee techs and beginning engineers who eventually became successful, were also not looking for such work, nor had the formal training, but had the breadth of knowledge to understand how things worked on a general level. The main difference between most fields is terminology and jargon. The vast majority of work tasks could be performed by anyone with on the job training, from legal, medical, to business and accounting.....the bulk is routine and not requiring an advanced degree. The small fraction of problems that ojt will not handle requires the most advanced skills/knowledge. The most rare of tasks require creating a novel solution and that is best done by people who have a broad knowledge more than highly specialized knowledge. Really creative solutions come from a thinking style more than specific subject knowledge.

I always stressed a simple concept, when troubleshooting: never make a measurement until after you have an expectation as to what you expect the results to be.
By thinking about the node and what influences the reading means something and if a measurement is taken without knowing approximately what it should be, it means you do not know enough about how the circuit works.
Random probing around is the "repair by accident" approach that often leads to wasted time, higher cost to the customer, high return rate and lots of needlessly replaced parts.
Rough head calculations of what a node ought to be do not have to be very precise, just in the ballpark to be useful and give confidence that you know how the thing works well enough to not do more harm than good.
Most of the population, even among techs do not have the curiosity or patience to build a solid framework of understanding of the principles to become any more than electronics mechanics. That is fine, they can still do 80% of the routine work. But to be successful in the remaining portion of non-routine work, requires luck or better diagnostics that is a thinking skill that appears not to be very common.
Taking a set of appropriate values and symptoms will lead a good diagnostician to the single cause that could accounts for all observed anomalies. If a proposed solution does not explain all the symptoms it is wrong. Why something failed is more important than what failed. Electronic mechanics can find bad parts and replace them but without understanding the mechanism of fault, the process that created the symptom parts failures, the repair is not going to be reliable or long lasting.

In my own hobbies and interests, flying, backpacking, travel, electronics, Quarter horses, study of cultural anthropology, science in general, collecting and restoring old GTs, photography, dance, art etc, have a lot in common. Diagnosing a problem with my plane was no different than diagnosing a problem with the toaster or helping a injured horse, terms are different but the thinking and skills in one area enhance the others. People have gotten used to asking me to fix things, anything from a small business plan to their web site to their car or air conditioning and almost always it is done because they are all related and the same visualization and diagnostic thinking applies.

[Brian Swatton]

You won't find me arguing with anything here, however I would add something to this :

Taking a set of appropriate values and symptoms will lead a good diagnostician to the single cause that could accounts for all observed anomalies. If a proposed solution does not explain all the symptoms it is wrong.

Having multiple faults together, related or not, can really complicate this, I'd recommend that possibility is borne in mind when making this judgement.

[Mick Bailey]

The Tektronix scope maintenance and repair manual stresses establishing what the likely cause of the problem may be before even taking off the cover. It refers to 'milking' the controls for information and describes the approaches which seperate a good technician from an average one.

I'm in complete agreement that there's a lot to be said about the philosophy of fault diagnosis, rather than focussing on the detailed underlying technology; the ability to stand back and seperate the diagnostic process from the fault itself gives independence and a broader scope for troubleshooting, whatever the situation or subject matter. Jack Darr refers to The Art of Electronics Servicing in his old book 'New ways to diagnose electronic troubles' and describes problem analysis based on methods that apply to all electronics equipment - using logic to deal with problems. That book is dated 1968 and the techniqes still hold true with modern equipment.

[Joe L]

"But my amp goes to 11"

[km6xz]

In a shop, the most important test instrument is ears, listening to answers of questions posed to the customer. How did they reproduce the problem, questions about when how and what was done to isolate the problem to the unit they brought in. How many times have clean bills of health been given to a piece of equipment when it was named as the cause, only to find out it was a system problem with many elements, and this unit was just picked since it was the lightest or easiest to remove from the rack?
3 or 4 questions that hone in on the real problem are usually enough to separate the owners assumptions from reality and get to the heart of the problem.

[Joe L]

Since I'm and in-house tech for a power company (at least until June 1st!!!), I have to put up with a lot of "it". I can't "fire" a customer but with one phone call he can get me fired.

Situations:

Dispatcher says "everything is out". I start to ask him for info and he tells me he is too busy, just fix it.

A truck broke and antenna hitting a tree. A couple of weeks later he breaks the mic cord. A month later, the data system in the truck (my design - saved 4 mil for the company) started loosing range. The supervisor ordered me to change out the whole system in the truck because it was have too many problems. It took me 15 mins to find that the modulation was too high on the radio modem and 8 more hours to change the whole system in the truck.

Dispatcher was getting interference and said to fix it. I could easily hear that we had a band opening causing skip from other states. I told him nicely that it was not a problem that could be fixed. As soon as I left the room he called my supervisor and complained and my new orders were to listen, go get a cup of coffee, have lunch then come back and tell them what I found.

I get a call from a lead level that the computer in the truck is drawing too much from the battery and is causing the engine to kill. I explain what the fuse is for and tell him the problem is from data transmissions - RF interfering with the computer. He gets a manager to call me and order me to go fix the truck immediately. I had a meeting with two other companies on a new fiber equipment install that I was to maintain but had to go check out the truck instead. Two years later, after much work, Ford changed out the electrical harness at $4000 which finally fixed the problem.

I could go on, but the best thing about retiring is I won't have to put up with ignorant people telling me how to do my job.

[J M Fahey]

Ouch!!

Can feel your pain.

[Mick Bailey]

In a shop, the most important test instrument is ears, listening to answers of questions posed to the customer. How did they reproduce the problem, questions about when how and what was done to isolate the problem to the unit they brought in. How many times have clean bills of health been given to a piece of equipment when it was named as the cause, only to find out it was a system problem with many elements, and this unit was just picked since it was the lightest or easiest to remove from the rack?
3 or 4 questions that hone in on the real problem are usually enough to separate the owners assumptions from reality and get to the heart of the problem.

Plus, a calibrated eyeball and BS detector set to maximum.

[km6xz]

Joe, that reminds me again why I never have had a job. Since 13, my first commercial repair shop doing phonographs/hi-fi and ham radio gear in a small rented office behind the library, open only from after school to dinner time and on weekends, I have never had a job nor could imagine having one. Too busy working to think of a "job" but even if I had one I doubt I would end up having any better opinion of supervisors than you do.

[J M Fahey]

I never ever had "a job" either.
Closest was when I was 16, wanted to practice, and offered a Music Shop owner that if he bought necessary test equipment (which I couldn't afford) and lent me a back room, I'd repair his stuff for a low price, no salary or work schedule involved.
I went there 2 or 3 times a week, charged him when and if he needed something , and the rest of the time I spent experimenting and doing my own stuff.
Musicians (kids like me) started knowing and trusting me, until I made enough customers so that I could have my own shop at home .... while at the same time I was studying Engineering at the University so I didn't have free time to work anyway.

[Joe L]

Joe, that reminds me again why I never have had a job. Since 13, my first commercial repair shop doing phonographs/hi-fi and ham radio gear in a small rented office behind the library, open only from after school to dinner time and on weekends, I have never had a job nor could imagine having one. Too busy working to think of a "job" but even if I had one I doubt I would end up having any better opinion of supervisors than you do.

Stan, it is hilarious. Our department is going to be outsourced next year so of course, they won't be hiring anyone to take my place. And none of my coworkers wants to move to my area just because of the way the people here have treated me. With hurricane season starting June 1st, they are going to be in bad shape because without communications, nothing moves.

The eye of Katrina passed over the east side of my area just north of Lake Pontchartrain on a Monday morning. By Monday at midnight we had a temporary crank up tower for local mobile radio trunking. We had phones, data and statewide mobile communications up on Tuesday evening. On Thursday, the National Guard heard we had phones and a sergeant came by and asked if we could help get them connected with a company that had satellite phones.

We have a statewide telcomm department of 10 techs with an average of about 25 years experience. Think about how that scenerio would have played out with contractors instead.

Ok, enough b****ing. I retire in 7 days!