Day 4

Going home later today.. yay

Each time I go on a business trip, there's always a person that fits certain annoying roles. There's always gotta be a guy with an inferiority complex who is apparently compelled to have the answer to every question, plus answers to questions not even asked. It doesn't matter if the answer is correct or not, this person thinks they are the class teacher.

On this trip.. the person playing the roll of the know-it-all asshole is Jacques.. His name is Jack, but apparently thinks the French pronunciation is more exotic.

Jacques is in his early 50's.. and is not an engineer, but one of the "support" people that I generally disdain. It's not enough for him to simply interject himself into conversations.. but he has to lecture. It's not a conversation, it's an instructional period. It's annoying as fuck.

I'm the laid back smart geeky type.. and I generally don't have much to say.. nor do I feel the need to correct people (contrary to how it may appear from reading my blog). I usually save my criticism of them for later with a different audience. However, we were on the River Walk.. and the conversation got to famous rivers.. and the Colorado River came up. Jacques proudly lectured that the Colorado comes down from Nevada, goes through Arizona, through New Mexico and down to Mexico.

And I'm standing there wondering what god I pissed off to find myself standing on the River Walk in San Antonio with a bunch of, what are ultimately, strangers... several of which are annoying me.

So.. ya.. I grew up in Arizona.. and since it's always funny to see the "know-it-all" make it sound like the truth of the matter is what he meant.. I corrected him that one time... just to see how he would spin it.

I've noticed that the bright people generally don't have much to say, until they're in a small group of other smart people.. and then it's okay to have a conversation.

As I'm writing this.. there are about 15 people in this room looking at a new pharmacy software package that was created by a private contractor for the federal government. So far, it has cost 42 million dollars. You could get 3 or 4 smart 22 year old geeks to code the exact same thing in about a month - at the most.

This company is stickelers for "documented requirements". In other words, the fed tells this company what each and every piece of the software is supposed to do. For example, let's say the system has a Drug Name field. A Drug Name could be something like Acetaminophen. One of the requirements from the fed is that the Drug Name must be unique and not allow duplicates. During testing, they were able to enter acetaminophen and ACETAMINOPHEN and Acetaminophen. Duh.. The duplicate checking is not case insensitive. They are obviously duplicates.

Now.. when you are developing software "in house", the developer just says.. "Doh.. I'll go fix that.. take me about 15 minutes or so".. The contractor that's doing this software package says "that's not what the requirement you gave me says.. we'll create a new requirement".. and they get paid an additional fee for new requirements.

That's how "cost over-runs" happen in the government. This contractor knows how to work the contracts and get more money.. because the fed already has 42 million invested in the work so far, so then they are held hostage to the nickle and diming.. over and over and over.

Ultimately, this problem is two fold. The fed should be doing this "in house". Their existing system is amazing.. elegant.. and functional.. and it was built by government engineers. The underlying technology is free to the public because it was created via tax payer money.. and so there are companies world-wide using the platform. Now.. dumb people in the government want to "out source" the work.. and they think costs are static.

Fortunately, the fed is required to use an American contractor, unless none are available. If that were not the case, Apu & Mohammed would be developing all the IT resources for the government.

The second problem is that the government has dumb people (otherwise known as "analysts") give the contractors the requirements. They don't know how to express complex functions in order to remove ambiguity.

And now I'm sitting in this room, with a bunch of these "analysts" who are acting indignant because the functionality that they wanted is not what they are seeing.. because this contractor took them quite literally.

They got what they asked for - and in the same way that they were stupid up front, they are now saying stupid things about how to "fix it"... and the 3 or 4 smart people in the room are typing away on their lap tops, and not really paying attention.

Are you still reading? Amazing..

Because this is an analogy... which is EXACTLY how the whole Iraq debacle has unfolded... and continues to this day. The MSM has people on, offering opinion about how to "fix" things.. and they are the same exact people that fucked it up in the first place.

There are people on countless blogs writing their opinions about the war.. and how they have suddenly had a change of heart.. and think now we should do "something different".

And the smart people, who knew exactly what was going to happen, and who were never asked up-front for their view, smirk and think.. it's going to cost more and more and more.. and all I can do is carve out my piece.

Holy crap.. some new people just came into the room and one of them is super cute.

So anyway.. I worked on a project for the fed that ultimately cost $500,000,000.00. Ya.. that's 500 million.. or a half-billion dollars. It followed the exact methodologies that I described. It was eventually determined to be completely unusuable and the project was cancelled.. even though it was Congressionally mandated.

That project paid for my Infiniti, and part of my house. Nothing at all was accomplished.

The moral of the story is.. stupid people rule the world.. and it's not likely to change... but individual smart people can carve out their little piece of it, and just go with the flow.

The contractor's software just caused a BSOD (blue screen of death).. in all it's glory as it's projected onto a big wall.. and you can see 3 or 4 people with their heads in their lap-tops.. typing away.. some without even noticing it.

.. one of the contractors that came into the room a few minutes ago is blind.. and has a guide dog. I've never seen that at an IT meeting before. I'm not sure what she does, but I doubt it's coding. The dog looks like a golden retriever.. just a super pretty dog, and obviously exceptionally well behaved.

I think Gorak sent this person as a reminder that I'm lucky to be in this geek-hell.. reasonably healthy and sane..