An Epitaph
I was perusing past posts and found this:
IN a sense, to share/resurrect some of the past. Oh, aNd to pick on the "kids".
I grew up in a period of engineering when you were expected to KNOW how to solve problems. I had whitewall haircut, pocket liner, slide rule carrying bosses who put you thru an inquisition when it came to design reviews. The better you were prepared before you asked a "stupid questjion", which they had no hesitation in pointing out to you, the less you'd feel the wrath of the managing "gods".
Survived it and got GOOD raises as long as the hard asses were there. Came to the point I thrived in it. When they passed on, literally, some new "kindlyier and friendlier" bosses cam along and the old didn't meld with the new.
I never did lose the old ways - they serve me too well and actually forced me to mvoe on where I thrived even more. Poor bedside manner but the stuff I engineered WORKED.
However one evening, many jobs later, I got the ultimate compliment in my life over my old school ways of teaching and demanding performance from my "students'.
We're at a Christmas dinner and this one kid who I really picked on, came up and thanked me. He thanked me for being an a$$hole to him during the various traning semindars I put on that he attended. Slightly amazed I asked "why?"
"simple, because iirate customers are worse than you ever are/were. WHen that sort of things happened, I'd ask myself 'what would NC do/ask/say?' and it would usually calm the guy down and we could then reason things out".
I was never so humbled in my life.
SO to the newbies I often rant off on, take it for what it is, a voice/personality out of the past just trying to get you to think and reason for yourself. My students have pretey much always rose to the occasion when push came to shove and even thrived under pressure. IT was usually less than I put them thru....GRIN.
I almost died last January, Had that happened, my legacy would have been my well intended rants on the Zone.
Many of you will guess the author, this post was in Why do you visit CNCzone.
He was correct, his legacy is his rants here; RIP, NC Cams.
An open mind is a virtue...so long as all the common sense has not leaked out.