Chalk X

The background for the name of the site comes from a story I learned when getting my MBA. 

In the early 1900s a large factory making engine parts suddenly started to make parts out of specification. The factory manager brought in several people to figure out what was wrong. No matter how often they changed or reconfigured the machines they just couldn’t get it right, and no part from that line could be sold. Finally they tracked down the engineer who had originally designed the factory line and hired him to fix it. He walked up and down the line while all the machines were running, until he stopped in front of one machine. From his pocket he pulled a piece of chalk and put a large X on the machine. The factory workers pulled that machine out of the line and replaced it, and suddenly everything was working perfectly. The  factory manager was thrilled until he received the engineer’s bill, which was $10,000. He was furious because the guy was only there for 15 minutes and he asked for an itemized invoice. A few weeks later he received an invoice in the mail:

The reason I gravitate towards this story is that too often knowledge-work is equated to piece work or hourly work. Finding the right answer efficiently as possible has always been my goal. This is true whether writing lines of code or text. Being paid by the word may have worked for Charles Dickens , but I would most likely go broke in that pay scheme.

My background is engineering, a field which isn’t known for a love of superfluousness. As such I will try to make sure anything posted here: to the point, useful, and based on experience. In doing so I hope to put a Chalk X, metaphorically, on things where I feel a machine needs to be replaced.