What do you do when fellow engineer wants to crash project? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Faringdon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 06:34:23 pm
content: What do you do when a fellow employee wants to sabotage, or crash a project?I was working for a co who had a high temp SMPS sent in for fixing….a “guy” (research fellow in power electronics) was working on it for a week…..he coudlnt fix it and couldn’t say what was wrong. So Then they sent me in to fix it…….i fixed it in a day…..it was easy……the “guy” , when I realised the inductors were too low value, told me “don’t bother fixing it” (kind of whispering it to me, like tempting me to crash the project)….but I told him I would…he then ran to his desk and brought the correct inductor calc…I thought…”howcome you never told the boss this last week”. …..You told me not to fix the inductor….then when I start fixing it…you then immediately show the correct calc that fixes it….but you withheld this from the company last week…only when you saw I was fixing It did you start coming forward with the solutions…What do you do?

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 06:54:47 pm
content: Ask them why and what is going on?If they have been working at that place, for a lot longer than you. They may know lots of things, you don't.Dealing with management, is NOT always, 100% straight forward. If a number of workers, suggestcare, with some/a managers/projects/stuff, there could be good reasons, for what is going on.Some things, could be best left alone (poisoned chalice).https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/poisoned-chaliceExample:You work for Elon Musk, and acompletely crazynew big project comes up. Which, by the sound of it, sounds totally impossible/implausible and impractical. It is probably best to steer clear of that new project, if you can. E.g. A new Hyper-space time machine, made out of hot-air and hyper-nuts juice.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 04, 2022, 11:51:16 pm
content: Quote from: MK14 on October 04, 2022, 06:54:47 pmThe guy who started Tesla and made electric vehicles go high end and mainstream? Or the guy who introduced Artificial Intelligence to self-driving cars? Or the guy who started SpaceX and has a pretty good track record compared to his competitors (there are at least 10 with little recognition). PayPal is involved here somehow...I would jump on any project he comes up with. Win, lose or draw, it would be a hell of a ride.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 12:17:56 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 04, 2022, 11:51:16 pmSome people think he is GREAT, others, NOT so much. What we call in the UK, Marmite (Love or Hate it).The Thunderf00t video channel, doesn't seem to think too highly of him.But you are right. True visionaries (without getting into a debate, as to, if he is one or not). Sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail, on a per project basis. Which doesn't stop them from being true visionaries.The point I was trying to make, was that time-machines are generally considered to be impossible projects. So joining such a project, might not be too worthwhile. Depending on ones aims in life.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 12:20:22 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 04, 2022, 11:51:16 pm??https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tesla-Motors

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 07:58:02 am
content: Quote from: Faringdon on October 04, 2022, 06:34:23 pmWhere do you people work??? I've seen too many posts like this lately, and it sounds like the employees, or management, or culture, or perhaps all, is completely poisonous. When a company exhibits or even tolerates this kind of behavior I quit as soon as possible. Even if it's just one isolated co-worker, if management is so oblivious that they can't see the problem then I figure that the company is going downhill and I just don't want to be a part of it.You sometimes see a trend where good people start bailing out, and the mediocre ones stay behind. This happens for a reason, and this is a death-spiral. You have no obligation to stay behind, thinking you can somehow keep the ship from sinking. Don't go down with the ship, preserve your sanity and save your career.But of course use your judgement. If it's just one bad employee and the (personnel) problem gets quickly fixed, then that's a different story.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:32:48 am
content: Quote from: fourfathom on October 05, 2022, 07:58:02 amSometimes subtracting words is better than adding words.

author: fourfathom
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:49:44 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on October 05, 2022, 09:32:48 amMore words: I wasn't really trying to answer the OPs question, I was wondering if there's a pattern or common issue with all the horror stories I am seeing here. And sometimes we need a little outside perspective to recognize when we're trapped in that death-spiral.

author: Kasper
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 05:42:19 pm
content: I would ask the supposed saboteur. Perhaps he's hesitant to fix it because he knows of 10 other problems with it and has a better solution but the boss insists on using it and told him to stop complaining about it. Or maybe he realized his mistake after it was built and is trying to avoid taking the blame.I'm not saying either of these are reasonable excuses. They are just my guesses at explanations for the strange behavior.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 06:06:24 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on October 05, 2022, 12:20:22 amMusk provided much of the funding although the company was started by others. He put his money on the table to make Tesla a good competitor for Detroit as well as expanding market penetration for EVs. I'm a huge fan of EVs and have been driving a Chevy Spark EV for 3 years followed by a Chevy Bolt for the last 5 years. I'm a huge fan - especially when there is a rice rocket in the next lane and the light turns green.Musk has put his money into a number of ventures from rockets to digging holes. When he sees an opportunity, he jumps all in.QuoteQuoteI do believe that Elon Musk follows the precepts of Tom Watson.As to time travel, well, I'm not signing up for 'impossible'. I understand why everybody thinks it's impossible but there was a time before 'spooky action at a distance' was a real thing too. Einstein wasn't a fan but from experiments, we can transmit information at 3 trillion meters per second, a LOT faster than the speed of light.https://futurism.com/chinese-physicists-measure-speed-of-quantum-entanglement-2https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/explorers-of-quantum-entanglement-win-2022-nobel-prize-in-physics1/I might sign up for 'impossible at this time' which is kind of spooky itself.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 08:44:09 pm
content: Quote from: fourfathom on October 05, 2022, 07:58:02 amYou do know who OP is right?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 09:36:29 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 04, 2022, 11:51:16 pmIf you want to become an overworkedengineerslave, then yes. BTW: Mr Musk started none of those companies AFAIK. He is just clever with money and creating hype.

author: Bud
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 05, 2022, 11:40:20 pm
content: I am still waiting for my ticket to go to the Moon since 2018. When I get it I might consider working for him. Until then he is full if sh!t.

author: newbrain
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 08:21:25 am
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 05, 2022, 06:06:24 pmUnfortunately, no,wecannot - unless I grossly misunderstood the whole thing (always a possibility) - the universe, in a way, does and that was the spooky part Einstein did non like.There is no way we can use the entanglement totransmitinformation of our choice, we can only measure that entangled particles are, in fact, entangled (they have one single state for the couple, not one each).E.g.: we cannot force the spin of one particle to be up when we measure it, so forcing the distant one to be measured as down, effectively transmitting our piece of information faster than light.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 09:43:29 am
content: Another treez/Faringdon post where I think the OP may be projecting a bit hard.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 06, 2022, 10:17:03 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 06, 2022, 09:43:29 amYou might think that; i could not possibly comment.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 09:41:02 am
content: Quote from: newbrain on October 06, 2022, 08:21:25 amYep, these quantum effects are in a sense, "action at a distance", but it's non-causal and cannot transmit information.And speaking of faster-than-light, in fact there are many interesting phenomenon that give such an illusion. The experiment result I'm most impressed is that some exotic non-linear materials can have a phase velocity and a group velocity,bothfaster than c. This is known as anomalous dispersion. If you transmit a Gaussian impulse and measure "delay" between the rise edge / peak of the input and output impulses, the "delay" is "faster than light". It has been demonstrated that you can even run the experiment in both air/vacuum and the non-linear material simultaneously, and non-linear material is always "faster" than the air/vacuum, the results are as consistent as it can be. Better, this apparent delay can even be negative.The simplest explanation is when the pulse shape is distorted by the medium: no magic here, the location of the edge or the peak of the impulse was shifted, giving a misleading propagation delay measurement. But experiments showed that in some cases, the effect is still possible without wave shape distortion. I still can't wrap my head around it, but all we need to know is that if you define the "speed" as "the time interval between the moment the ON button of the transmitter is pushed, and the moment that the receiver detects a signal", this propagation delay is always slower than or equal to c. Here's an introduction to these phenomenon:https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/u.osu.edu/dist/7/38882/files/2016/09/PhotonicsSpectraFastLightSlowLight2007-1gb2tao.pdfI read that similar experiments exist using microwave waveguides below cut-off. Sometimes the phase shift of the evanescent wave can appear faster-than-light, but it's not even a traveling wave, just a stray field, and there's no signaling.Regardless of how exotic the material, it's basically a variation of this idea: you can build linear circuit (an opamp active filter) with a negative group delay, but it's only because the signal is bandwidth limited, and the active filter is essentially an analog computer that predicts and recreates the expected output in advance.https://www.dsprelated.com/showarticle/54.php

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 09:56:12 am
content: Things travelling faster than light is trivial. A couple of examples...Take a laser, point it at the moon, move it. The spot can easily move sideways faster than light. Or there are several real astronomical examples such ashttps://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap031205.htmlIf you insist on it being "particles" rather than "photons", this is what the result looks likeDon't bother to enlightenmewith the limitations of those examples; I'm already enlightened.

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 10:37:57 am
content: Quote from: tggzzz on October 10, 2022, 09:56:12 amIt was claimed that you can even see this effect from the CRT beam on a Tektronix 7000 scope.https://web.archive.org/web/20111029020818/https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2011/09/a_tektronix_oscilloscope_that.htmlAt the fastest time base, Tek 7104 sweeps "faster than light". Though I never saw a screenshot to show it. TekWiki has a screenshot but the beam moves "only" at 95% of c.TekWiki says:Faster-than-light beam on 7104? Using a 067-0587-02 calibration fixture at maximum amplitude produces this trace spanning 1.2 Div horizontally at 200 ps/Div and 8 Div vertically. Trace length is (1.2² + 8²)½ × 8.5 mm = 68.8 mm, travelled in 1.2 × 200 ps = 240 ps. Apparent speed is therefore 68.8×10-3 / 240×10-12 m/s or 2.86×108 m/s. 95.6% c0 - a very near miss ...

author: Geoff-AU
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 11:59:01 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 06, 2022, 09:43:29 amAll I know is I'm bloody confused by this thread

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 01:04:41 pm
content: Quote from: Geoff-AU on October 10, 2022, 11:59:01 amThe guy is endlessly posting about how someone or something is conspiring against his employment/projects/job prospects etc., how the UK economy is going down the shitter and how he's trying to save it if only someone would listen. It's probably best to not rationalise it.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 01:20:01 pm
content: Quote from: Geoff-AU on October 10, 2022, 11:59:01 amDon't worry aboutanythingin a thread by treez/faringdon, except where bystanders might be hurt. The guy hasHistory.Here's a recentcompletebarely literate OP from faringdon, "Totem pole gate drivers on the web are poor". It needs decyphering before responding.Quote from: Faringdon on October 09, 2022, 01:27:45 am

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 02:54:23 pm
content: Quote from: niconiconi on October 10, 2022, 10:37:57 amPhase velocity, not group velocity.The same as saying, you can spin a flashlight and claim the beam goes "superluminal" at whatever great distance, where the flashlight is presumably still visible (and for suitable laser-based value of "flashlight", that's easy enough to test). Clearly the beam, no matter how you're shaking it around, still travels at the speed of light as it goes. The variation in amplitude travels at the speed of light; the correlation with nearby points in space is irrelevant. I could just as well flick the switch on and off and claim that, because the wavefront changes at all points (at some given distance) simultaneously, the (phase) velocity is infinite.Tim

author: niconiconi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 07:13:00 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on October 10, 2022, 02:54:23 pmYes, normally it's the case and is the correct answer to common paradoxes. For the purpose of radio engineering, the signal velocity of guided waves is the group velocity, which is understood as the speed of the entire packets of modulation, while the phase velocity can be faster than c, but it's inside a packet of modulation, thus not the actual traveling signal.But in those exotic experiments I linked earlier above, using special materials with negative index of refraction (and sometimes even in waveguides below cut-off), this definition of "signal velocity" also breaks down, the apparent group velocity is also faster than c. A better way to phrase that is anomalous dispersion makes the definition of "group velocity" meaningless. Expectedly, this generated huge confusions among an army of engineers and even physicists, and there was a big debate on how to define signal velocity in these settings in the late 90s and early 00s.The consensus is that the only reliable definition of the true signal velocity that always "works" 100% of the time is Sommerfeld precursor (or frontrunner), an esoteric concept from theoretical E&M. Sommerfeld basically showed, at the instant a signal is transmitted, theoretically there's a suddenly change of E&M field with an extremely tiny magnitude that immediately travels across the medium at c0, this sets the real upper limit of signal velocity under all circumstances - which is the speed of light in vacuum. So there's no FTL signaling even with faster-than-light group velocity, as expected. This can also be seen as a mathematical formalism of "at the moment you push the ON button of the signal generator". It's predicted by Maxwell's equations while practically undetectable (which is the answer to the paradox that "if the precursor always travels at c0, you can just ignore the dielectric constant of the medium, but in practice you can't, why?").It was quite a rabbit hole to read through the literature. More links for anyone who wants to waste time on this useless theoretical problem with no practicality.Abnormal Wave Propagation in Passive Media(this experiment shows time domain and VNA measurements, the group velocity is convincing demonstrated to be faster than light, though there's still no FTL signaling).https://moscow.sci-hub.se/1435/ac20c3f7657cf7b91e8026d62a1be63f/mojahedi2003.pdf?download=trueSuperluminal signals: an engineer’s perspective (and 5 more papers from the same debate).https://www.ate.uni-duisburg-essen.de/data/postgraduate_lecture/Cologne_Counterposition.pdf

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 07:58:59 pm
content: Quote from: rstofer on October 04, 2022, 11:51:16 pmYep.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 08:06:48 pm
content: Quote from: Faringdon on October 04, 2022, 06:34:23 pmAs others have said, you need to figure out his motives. There may be a rationale that is not just "sabotaging" the company.But also, as you describe it, do not necessarily assume that the guy had actually found a fix while he was working on it. Maybe he just did not. And then the fact you were commissioned to take over may have just motivated him to work harder on it just to avoid passing as a lame engineer compared to you. And possibly he did find the fix thanks to a few hints you mau have told him when you started working on it. Sounds very plausible to me.So all in all, I'd say either indeed he knows things about this project you don't and has a reason for "crashing it" or at least making it linger, or it's just a matter of competition between coworkers. Without more info, I'd be tempted to think it's the latter. I've seen this kind of stuff happen quite a few times. Not many people like to be shown inadequate for a task while a coworker gets it done quickly.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 08:45:29 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on October 10, 2022, 08:06:48 pmThe latter sounds plausible. I've also seen people suddenly move faster when I got their task handed to me.

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 09:01:40 pm
content: I have one simple question: who on that project is, or has, the design authority?Just stop pissinn around and call a meeting with that person/s to figure a way forward. And move forward under their authority. It's how engineering teams have been dealing with conflicting ideas for decades.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 10, 2022, 09:16:04 pm
content: treez / Faringdon uses 'I' and 'we' interchangeably - you can never tell whether it's another pet project that he's trying to push to some Chinese company or whether he's managed to add yet another 'employer' to the dozens on his CV [Ed: as a contractor].