About Me

Wake Forest, NC, United States
My life has had its normal ups and downs. I cooked professionally for years and was a breakfast, lunch, and a dinner cook. I was a saucier, a sous chef and a chef. I was an actor in a made for TV movie entitled "The Secret Life of John Chapman". For years I pit crewed on an A Production Corvette and traveled to races all over the Northwest. I ran computers at Boeing to test 737 and 747 development. I was responsible for and ran computers at Cape Canaveral for the early Apollo flights and on an atoll in the South Pacific (Kwajalein) for early star wars testing. I've developed and maintained computer applications for years and was part of a team of 9 or so tasked with developing and maintaining the processes used across EDS to manage projects and develop software. I developed and maintain a website for people who are caregivers of people with Parkinson's Disease. For fun I exercise regularly, read, and play with new programming languages. My wife blesses me tremendously. She is truly my Beloved. The progeny are source of pride and wonderment.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Freudian Slip

I've never much liked peer reviews.  It's not that I can't profit from input; it's that I figured that if I was doing something wrong or could do something better, it was worth finding out right away and not some time in the future.  I had a manager who loved them.  I called him Tim the Manager.  Most people thought that it was because there was a programmer named Tim.  They couldn't have been more wrong.  I called him Tim the Manager because, in my view, he had the same middle name and managerial capabilities as Winnie the Pooh. 

Tim wanted people to pledge allegiance to him.  I wasn't very good at that.  He was in his element when he had a room full of people to listen to him spew forth "pearls of wisdom".  During one meeting he started speaking about our new regional manager, a guy named Steve.  Tim the Manager said, and I'm quoting, "Steve's a good guy, I deal with him every day."  The room was quiet.  That's when I made the following, unplanned statement, "Tim, I wonder if your Freudian slip is showing when you say that Steve's a good guy and yet you deal with him every day."  Tim was speechless as laughter welled up throughout the room.

This may have been the reason for my favorite peer review statement of all time.  It was, "Likes to give Tim flack."  Tim was a nice enough guy but not well loved by experienced analysts and coders.

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