Vindication!

Ok, I admit it. I hold on to things too long. Call them grudges if you will, I think of them more as emotional equivalents of the occupied west bank. Little fortresses built of ire.

In one particular instance I have been very good. I have been very nice. I have not made disparraging comments. I have not passed judgement. Not once.

Background: Last year I was asked to fill a temproary role as the Director of Program Management - while they looked for a real candidate of course...

Nevermind I was/am the most experienced in the division, regulary sought out as a resource by others in the organization and I know the business to boot... no, we needed a change.

We needed... someone new, someone with an outsiders perspective, someone with an english accent!

This morning I had the pleasure of really seeing my replacement in action. He's been on the job for 9 months. Here are some of the gems from a Project Phase exit he was holding.

"Is that very technical?"
(in response to a heat exchanger modeling tool used to appropriately size the heat exchanger - nah, any midly intelligent monkey can do it)

(while looking at two graphs - one showing the change in temperature over time)
"So the one on top is varying from zero to 650c and the one on the bottom is going from -900 to +500"
"Yes."
"Why is that?"
"Because its the derivative of the one on top."
(confused silence)
(I'll spare you the doomed attempt by one of the project engineers to explain what a derivative is)


"So how much is that going to cost to do that?"
(after reviewing the incremental costs necessary to improve the reliability of the product, line by line with the total summed at the bottom, in bold and labeled "Total cost to implement")


They were right - I was WAAAYYYYY over qualified for that job.