I Understand Now

Several months ago, a friend of mine (former fellow cubizen C) made the rather interesting observation that he and I are to our professional community what martial arts masters are to theirs.

What prompted this remark was the very long, painful session of "technical assistance" that he and I had just provided for a ship that had done nothing we had asked. We were both frustrated. Why, asked C, would anyone ask for help and then refuse to accept it?

Of course, anyone who has ever had a friend ask for advice after making an unwise choice in love knows why: When everything is as it should be, there's nothing to complain about.

I spent a rather unpleasant six hours trying to help a ship work through some of its technical... erm..deficiencies...today. It began with three simple questions:

1) Is the data communications path working?
2) Is your desktop computer configured correctly?
3) Is your fire control system configured correctly?

Naturally, I was not aboard this ship. I was in my extremely well air conditioned computer lab (read: it was f-ing freezing) in San Diego, and the ship was in Hawaii.

We were communicating by Chat.

I'd like to digress for a moment and say that I should have seen Chat coming. In 1997, I was aboard USS Coronado, chatting with a friend through the wonders of AOL, when a frustrated B-52 bombardier burst in and announced that he could not find any way to communicate with the bomber wing in Louisiana because the plethora of radios and telephones that the government had spent 348 gajillion dollars on had all simultaneously failed. He railed on for a moment about the impossibility of such a situation and suddenly stopped in mid rant.

"Is that AOL, Chief?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Oh, my GOD! Our duty officer is an AOL FREAK...he meets all his women on AOL. Please say you're not picking up women on AOL while we're at sea, Chief."

"Uh, okay, I won't. What's his screen name? Maybe he's online."

In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

Now, everyone in the military has Chat. Even Marines. In the field. Remember all those movies about commandos...John Wayne in a green beret pushing through the jungle with nothing but an M-14 and a bayonet clenched in his bared teeth? Even those guys have Chat now.

So, perhaps you've forgotten about those three questions I asked. (Perhaps you even ignored them. Wouldn't be the first time. Hell, it wouldn't be the first time today.) I needed answers to those three questions so that I could help the ship find out why they couldn't do their job.

After half an hour of more or less continuous chat about various technical subjects, none of which answered my original three questions, I asked again. And I waited again.

Gentle Reader, two and one half hours elapsed before I got an answer to my questions.

The answers led me to make certain assumptions, which led to more questions, and more waiting...and answers that did not make sense. Consider the following (fictitious but illustrative) conversation:

Q: "So, what's the weather like where you are?"

A: "I'm having a dish of ice cream."

One might infer that the weather is warm, but it's a tenuous connection at best. I can tell you from personal experience that system engineers abhor this kind of answer.

I spent much of this afternoon wanting to type, "JUST ANSWER MY FUCKING QUESTION!!!" into the chat room.

Five hours after we started, the ship came back with something like, "we've just framulgated the garglewhoofer, " and it made no sense in any context, much less the context of the entire afternoon's troubleshooting efforts, so I was completely lost. I had no idea what the ship had done. I only know they have not done what I asked them to. And I realized, quite painfully, that I still did not really have answers to my first three questions.

I was at a loss for words.

If you know me, you know just exactly how rare this is.

Military protocol left me only one response, and I typed it: "OK."

The ship was confused by my response, and they typed back, "Int OK?" (For those of you who do not understand military chat shorthand...who do not spreckedy lingidy, this translates directly to, "Interrogative OK?" or more precisely, "What do you mean, OK?")

I was polite: "I have no idea what your problem is and I recommend a local tech assist." Translation: You have worn out my patience and I've decided that you should be someone else's problem now.

The problem with all this is that helping ships work through basic configuration issues is not my job, it's someone else's. I do it because if I don't, then I don't get to do what I'm actually paid to do, but of course, by spending my time helping them with the basics, I don't have any time left over to do my real job. It is a classic self-licking ice cream cone.

Several years ago, when I first began to study martial arts, I was shocked and embarrassed when my instructor, a Sixth Degree, silenced a joking classmate by barking, "If you're not going to pay attention in my class, you're wasting my time and you're wasting your classmates' time. Give me your full attention, or leave and don't come back." The guy left...not embarrassed, but pissed off.

During my first Kendo class, our instructor announced that we would have the great honor of hosting the former World Kendo Champion, and that he would honor the club by teaching a class. The instructor went on to say that those of us who had been studying for less than two years would not be permitted to participate in the class, as we did not yet know enough and the champion's time was too valuable to be wasted on teaching mere basics.

I don't think we Americans hold mastery in high enough regard, and as a result, we miss a great many valuable lessons. Most people seem to regard the phrase "All men are created equal" (as in "we hold these Truths to be self-evident") to mean the same thing as "All men are equal". The first phrase is undoubtedly true; the second is most decidedly not.

For example, while I can catch a football, I cannot run forty yards in under five seconds. I can dance a two-step, but forget about a pas-de-deux. I can perform "Margaritaville" but don't ask me to do "Malaguena".

The people who can do these things have worked hard to be able to do them, and I am by no means an equal within their fields of expertise. There is nothing wrong with affording them the respect they've earned for the levels of excellence they've achieved.

I spoke with my military boss this evening about it, and I've proposed that whenever we encounter a ship that needs technical assistance, he allow me to put out the following before we begin:

I can help you, but remember that others may also need my help, and if you do not pay attention, I may decide they need my help more than you do.
I have been doing this longer than you have, and I know more than you do.
My way is not the only way, nor is it the right way, but it is a right way.
When I ask you a question, answer it promptly and directly.
When I instruct you to do something, do it immediately, and tell me the result.
If you do what I tell you, we will fix your problem and we will both learn.
If you do not do what I tell you, we may not fix your problem, and while I will still learn, you will not.