Seeing is Believing
Silence may be golden, but it’s terrible customer service.
Somebody owed us money for a project we performed in October and November 2025. They needed x-rays – instantaneous, naturally – to validate a project for a large, anonymous commercial spaceflight company with a fondness for overwrought usage of the letter X. Something about qualifying a Cu-Ag braze alloy sandwiched between an alumina inner cylinder and a Kovar outer cylinder. Danger lurks within. Our job: find it.
Time in the industry does not slow you down; it sharpens your ability to spot what actually matters.
What’s your exit strategy?
Why are you still doing this? How long do you intend to keep doing this?
What are you doing here?
Thoughts?
A holiday-season scramble exposes how “always on” offshore manufacturing ideals collide with real-world AXI limits.
A Yuletide surprise, courtesy of The Anthill. The same Anthill that wouldn’t answer emails, phone calls, texts or carrier pigeons the other 332 days of 2025. Things change, and snubs become embraces overnight when year-end revenue is threatened. Lucky us. Their AXI machine was down indefinitely; ours was definitely up. Meanwhile, an impossibly unrealistic, unreasonable, irrational name-brand tech superstar du jour was expecting results, no excuses, to fulfill a product launch.
How sourcing new, complex equipment becomes a long-term support problem.
One week of factory training on PCBA capital equipment isn’t enough. Equipment suppliers tailor their training to the lowest common denominator. There, I said it.
I repeat: one week doesn’t cut it.
To think otherwise is delusional.
Are you listening, equipment suppliers?
Or how to follow the No Outburst in the Face of Idiocy rule.
The dearly beloved, firm believers and associated hangers-on were reverently assembled to begin a Teams meeting or, rather, an inquisition.
Amid forced pleasantries, while we captives killed time awaiting latecomers, they appeared. Like viruses. One after the other, after the other: The Swarm. Blackened screens with names, resembling any college lecture, with the students doing their utmost to remain inconspicuous. Except the disembodied names on the screens concealed adults, not camera-shy undergrads. One said Ted’s AI Notetaker. The second said Claire’s AI Notetaker. Then Evan’s. Then Irene’s. And Muhammad’s. Plus Sanjay’s. And Chin’s. Then Dylan’s. Always a Dylan in 2025. We live in accursed times.
All that the Swarm lacked was a soundtrack blaring “Flight of the Valkyries.”
Proof that the real short circuits happen in customer communication.
People are funny. The older I get, the greater the source of amusement they become. No sense letting silliness make one angry in older age. Be entertained: laugh, forgive, move on and enjoy the ride. Savor the irony life and one’s chosen profession present.
