Carly Fiorina SuperPAC Gives Big F- You to Deniers of “Secretary to CEO” Life Story
How’s that for a “fact check?”
Back in early September, CARLY for America circulated buzz on an upcoming documentary about dark horse presidential candidate Carly Fiorina. They knew that, in spite of a favorable image with the oft-polled American public, more people needed to hear the story of the only female Republican presidential candidate.
They released a trailer, and it made a splash in the conservative media. Before September’s CNN debate, Carly Fiorina was an enigma; we’d seen her before, but we’d never seen her perform the way she did in the Fox News “undercard” debate.
In the wake of her breakout performance in the CNN debate, even conservatives who felt loyalty for another candidate had to admit that Carly was earning the attention given to her by the national media. Her “secretary to CEO” story was resonating—and that presented an opening for critics to hack away at it.
A recent WaPo “fact check” on the “secretary to CEO” narrative appeared so slanted to readers it earned backlash warranting an explainer/walk-back from the columnist as well as the Post’s editors. The article hurt (as all major outlet articles can do) but it also teed up a perfect opportunity for Fiorina’s backers to release the full-length documentary on the candidate’s life.
Today, the full “Citizen Carly” documentary was released—and it’s great:
Citizen Carly (2015) – Final from CARLY for America on Vimeo.
I have a soft spot for campaigns and PACs who excel at storytelling, and CARLY for America has earned a gold star rating from me for this video spot. It answers questions voters have about Carly (Why was she fired from HP? for example) but also offers a ton of quotes, testimonials, and other tidbits that actually invite fact checkers to dig further. It also serves as a strong rebuttal against a narrative that the media has become particularly attached to.
“The liberal media have been desperately trying to paint a false narrative of Carly’s life and leadership experiences,” said CARLY for America Communications Director Katie Hughes in a statement to Legal Insurrection. “What’s clear is these pundits don’t know Carly. We are setting the record straight by telling the true and full story. I encourage everyone to watch this film to see why we need Carly in the White House.”
Overall, “Citizen Carly” is a confident production that invites voters and the media alike to take a second, third, or 15th look at Carly Fiorina’s candidacy—which is exactly what Carly’s backers need to happen at this stage in the cycle.
Follow Amy on Twitter @ThatAmyMiller
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Carly Fiorina, by not elaborating, made it sound like it was all in the same company.
Sammy Finkelman, by not watching the video before commenting on it, once again proves Mark Twain’s famous aphorism to be true.
The video very clearly states, at the very beginning of the segment introducing her career, that she was a secretary at a small real estate firm.
Yes the video says, but until she got called on it her campaign was describing her career as secretary-to-CEO making it seem like some rags to riches story. Even now the Washington Post sticks by it’s three pinocchio rating of the tale. Read the links in the story.
She starting out a rich brat whose father paid her way through college, with the understanding that she would go to law school. That’s why she majored in medieval studies.
Then when she discovered that she didn’t like law school, she dumped that and got a secretarial job. Of course there is another lie in the film. She didn’t mind getting an entry level job with a Bachelors in Medieval History from Stanford. Like she could find anything else with a Bachelors in Medieval History from Stanford.
Until she found some fool to marry her, then she went to teaching.
The new story is that being a secretary gave her a taste for business. Of course that doesn’t explain why she took a break from it.
You’re really unhinged about her, aren’t you Hinckley?
“They always tell us who they fear.”
Fiorina? I don’t think so:
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/08/19/conservatives-defend-carly-fiorina-from-post-911-speech-attacks/
And was secretary her first job?
Maybe she could say babysitter to CEO.
And other CEOs could say things like dishwasher to CEO.
The current CEO of Walmart International started in the warehouse
Which, depending on WHERE in the warehouse he started, is hardly surprising.
WalMart logistics innovations are studied by people all over the world.
The only people who hate Carly more than the Liberals do are the Trumpians.
Actually the HP/Compaq employees probably hate her the most.
So hate her more? THe ex-employees or the stockholders?
Lucent employees and stockholders don’t like her much either.
Good point I keep forgetting Lucent I guess because her role at HP was so much more prominent.
What are trumpians?
Forgive me, I forgot that they prefer to self-identify as “Trumpeteers”.
Based on the graphic above she cherry picks the same phony statistics to claim success at HP. The only thing you have to know about Fiorina’s record at HP is the one testimonial this ad does not show vecause it never happened. Where is the testimonial from the board of directors of another fortune 500 company that hired her post HP firing talking about what a great job she did as CEO of that company?
The fact that in 10 years no fortune 500 comoany has offered her a top executive position tells you the collective business world evaluation of her performance at HP. It appears that evaluation is she should go back to being a secretary. Instead she wants to be president.
Back to that same old BS.
Prove that she’s never turned down an offer.
It’s up to her to prove that she was offered jobs that she turned down. That should be part of her campaign.
Top level jobs at Fortune 500 companys are widely discussed in Forbes, WSJ, Bloomberg, and Fortune to name a few. Top level job offers are mentioned at board meetings which are generally public. If she was offered a job of any significant company we would hear.
What do you know of the business world? Yes, if she had a direct job offer, we would know. But if she rebuffed initial inquiries, we would not. By the time candidates’ names are publicly floated or presented to boardrooms, they have been vetted and expressed strong interest in the job.
When it sits in the head of Tom Perkins. Come to think of it, Perkins has to be sitting on four or five boards. KPCB probably has seats on the boards of every high tech firm in Silicon Valley. You mean to tell me that the guy who thinks she “saved HP” can’t find her another job at one of those places? Good question for him.
Hell, Ellen Pao was fired from KPCB after filing a sexual harrassment suit . She got a job 6 months later at Redit and became CEO less then one year after she was fired.
When Steve Balmer was fired there was a list of replacements out the same day. Why wasn’t she on it? The list went so far as to include people like Alan Mulally CEO of Ford, Stephan Elop the guy who worked hard to wrest the title of “worst CEO” from carly for his work at Nokia. Hell even Mark Hurd was on the list. The guy who replaced her was on the list but not her. Hmmm.
When a person is more then a passing fancy for a job in those circles it makes the news.
“Hell, Ellen Pao was fired from KPCB after filing a sexual harrassment suit . She got a job 6 months later at Redit and became CEO less then one year after she was fired.”
Bet she’s not a self-identified conservative, is she, ya moron?
Hmmm… Wonder if THAT has any role to play in the tech community…
Really. Poor Mouse.
Poor poor Rags,
Do you really think that Larry Ellison cares much about the politics of the CEO of his company? As long as he makes him money? How about IBM? Microsoft? AT&T Yes there is Mozilla, but Mozilla, as well as Google and a few new age tech companies are particularly susceptible to public pressure. Older companies are not.
That also includes nontech companies.
Nice to see that you are practicing becoming a Democrat.
Great way to move goal posts. You know. “Yes Carly had jobs after HP.” until you realize those jobs aren’t important for career advancement. Then it became “We don”t know if Carly got job offers.” Until it was proven that we do. Then it became “No one gives a job to a conservative.”. Keep going maybe you get those posts in the right place.
Mouse, you’re drunk. Go home.
Mouse, you’re a business idiot!
There’s a whole world of business outside the 500, and most of the 500 have nothing to do with tech!
There are up-and-comers and start-ups, and you’ll never hear word one from them unless they put it out on the street.
That’s JUST in the US.
Hot dog carts don’t count.
Your handle should be DogTheLuckyMouse because you’re like a dog on a bone with this topic.
How do you know that Fiorina even wants/wanted another CEO job? We know she was active in politics a few years after she left HP. I’m sure she walked away with tens of millions, and we know she was active with other endeavors besides her budding political life. Many successful people, when faced with being unemployed, take their time figuring out what they want to do next. For all YOU know SHE made the decision that being a CEO was a “been there done that” thing and she was ready to move on to greener pastures. Prove it’s not so.
See there? The premise of your argument doesn’t hold water. Let it go before you develop a blood pressure problem.
Wrong Paul, Someone fired and humiliated in such a public way as was Fiorina would absolutely accept another CEO position at a top company if one were ever offered to have a chance to redeem her reputation. If by the very minimal chance that she had a CEO position offered to her and decided she never wanted to be a CEO again she would have made sure the offer and her decline of same were made very public.
Finally, how do we prove it. This fact highlighting how bad a CEO she was is not just a topic of blog posts. Its is a factual allegation made by several people including Jeffrey Sonnenfeld from Yale Business School in national publications. Trump brought up Sonnenfeld in the debates. You can be damn sure she would be doing videos and ads and campaign speeches bringing out the testimonials from the Company’s Board of Directors that thought so well of her that they offered her a fortune 500 CEO job and she decided to turn it down.
The absence of such claims by her that she was offered a CEO job at fortune 500 company after HP and the absence of a claim by her that she was offered a post HP CEO job in her video and testimonials in this most recent ad prove conclusively IT NEVER HAPPENED.
In 10 years since being fired from HP it is conclusively established for anyone with two neurons to rub together by all the available circumstantial evidence that no fortune 500 company has ever offered her a CEO job. And that speaks volumes about the collective business world judgment about her abilities as an executive and CEO.
It really is JUST THAT SIMPLE !
You realize that you sound delusional about this, right?
You purport to know what she thinks and what motivates her. Yet everyone knows that you do not.
You laughingly assert that being fired from a CEO position is some scarlet letter in the business world. You do realize that there have been thousands of fired CEOs re-hired by others and that failure is sometimes seen as a virtue in the business world, right?
I could use your “we haven’t heard about it in the records of public companies argument” against you by asking if you’re claiming that she has never even been CONSIDERED for a CEO position. Because if she had we would have heard about how she got shot down in the board room discussions, right? Except we haven’t heard that. Hmmmm….. I wonder why not.
Why would she make claims about job offers if she never looked for another CEO job? Why would she look for a CEO job, a 5+ year life commitment, at minimum, if she was planning on starting a political career?
And finally, why would someone whose thinking is so completely devoid of logic, and who has such abysmal debate skills repeatedly show his ass on a blog site frequented by people who argue for a living? Please stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
Well as I had pointed out before Carly and Hillary are the same kind of person. Lot’s of hype, no accomplishments, running for president. In fact carly is the business version of Hillary. Worse. At least Hillary finished law school and practiced for a while.
Can yhou imagine LI stopping it’s criticism of Hillary? No. Well I won’t stop my criticism of Carly.
How do you know that Fiorina even wants/wanted another CEO job?
Well the guy she admires so much Steve Jobs. The guy who told her when no one else could hear that she was a great CEO. not only founded NeXT Computers when he left, but then he went and founded/bought Pixar. So he went for not one, but two companies.
No CEO likes to have the last thing on their resume “fired from XYZ”. It doesn’t look good for future endeavors and they want to prove the board was wrong for firing them.
On top of it all, the basic premise that you make, that she just took the firing quietly makes for an unpalatable candidate.
Do you want a president who, when challenged, just gave up?
@Paul
“You purport to know what she thinks and what motivates her.”
What she thinks and what motivates her is knowable from her actions and speeches. Its knowable from this video where it is obvious that its very important to her to try and shine the best light possible on her firing. Therefore, it is highly reasonable inference that if she had proof to controvert what Sonnenfeld and Trump and others say about her and her never being offered another CEO job she would put it in the video and her speeches.
You are free to ignore the evidence in front of everyone, but claiming these things are unknowable just make you look obtuse or worse disingenuous.
“You laughingly assert that being fired from a CEO position is some scarlet letter in the business world.”
No go back a re-read my posts but this time for comprehension. Its not the being fired its the not ever being hired as a CEO by some other company over 10 year period that is the scarlet letter.
“You do realize that there have been thousands of fired CEOs re-hired by others”
This statement shows your failure to comprehend because it answers your prior questions by negative inference. Yes there are many others that have been fired, AND AS YOU ASSERT THEY WERE RE-HIRED by others. This is NOT what happened with Fiorina which has been my point, you just don’t comprehend the plain words in my posts.
“I could use your “we haven’t heard about it in the records of public companies argument” against you by asking if you’re claiming that she has never even been CONSIDERED for a CEO position.”
You could ask that but it would just reveal that you have a tendency to fall into the irrelevant when trying to win a losing argument.
“Except we haven’t heard that. Hmmmm….. I wonder why not.”
Maybe because being considered for a job and then it not being offered is just another form of FIORINA HAS NEVER BEEN OFFERED A CEO JOB AFTER HP. In your obvious confusion you are supporting my assertion not yours.
“Why would she make claims about job offers if she never looked for another CEO job? Why would she look for a CEO job.”
Asked and answered in my prior posts which you obviously have problems retaining their content while at the keyboard. Because like all people who make it to a CEO job she has a giant ego. That giant ego was humiliated when she was so nastily and unanimously fired by the HP Board. The chance to redeem her reputation would be more important that anything (not to mention more financially rewarding then going to work for the RNC which is what she did after being fired from HP).
And finally, why would a person like yourself whose reading comprehension and memory retention are so pitiful and who lacks the cognitive abilities to even recognize when he has begun making arguments that support the other parties position, then in a complete showing of no self-awareness cast derisive remarks about another person.
I may just be a country lawyer, but I don’t need a harvard education to handle the poor rhetorical skills of someone like you.
If she had “given up” you wouldn’t be obsessing over her. BOD appointments, government appointments, running for Senate and then running for POTUS = “giving up”…LOL! That’s rich.
She got fired, wrote her biography and then started making her political moves.
Why don’t you focus on her policies if you despise her so much? Those arguments could be much more meaningful, if you had any.
@Gary Britt. Good Lord, I won’t waste any more time on that crap response. You don’t even realize how dumb you sound, do you?
Even more than your verbal diarrhea on this blog, your piss-poor customer ratings online speak volumes about your ignorance and inability to argue effectively.
The 6.5/10 rating that you have as an attorney must be embarrassing. Maybe if you spent more time working instead of obsessing over a politician online you’d be doing better for yourself. 65% is a failing grade boy. Now put your dunce cap on, go sit in the corner and STFU! LOL!
@Paul Like Ragzinni you mistake name calling and ad hominem attacks for persuasion. Then when your bullsh*t is responded to you run away like the little child you are. You are a typical online coward and trying to pretend to know things that you clearly don’t. Since you are unable to deal with discussions in a civilized manner you should avoid posting until you are older and have actually accomplushed something in your life.
@paul. BTW it is no wonder you can’t comprehend posts and have to resort to name calling you can’t even read AVVO listings. Those are not customer ratings you were looking at. Assuming you were even looking at the correct listing.
@paul writing a Biography is what someone whose been fired and has no other prospects does to fill the void left in their lives by getting fired from HP. As Fiorina likes to say writing ones own biography is not an accomplishment it is an activity.
Poor little gary slings insults around and then cries ‘ad hominem’ when they come back his way.
Now I understand your fixation on the ‘humiliation’ Fiorina supposedly suffered by being fired. In typical prog drone fashion, you’re projecting your own emotions on others.
30+ years toiling away as a back room pencil pusher for a big firm, never making partner. That must have burned. But not nearly as much as getting fired as you were approaching retirement age.
Why haven’t you been hired again by another big firm? Is that the measure of your career?
@Paul Now you are just making things up. I’ve never been a pencil pusher for a big firm for 30 years. I have been a partner in a firm among other things over the last 30 years, and my career and accompl8shments are just fine with me. I would put them up against the accomplishments of an arse like you any day. If you think you have something on me post a link I have nothing to hide. I didn’t hurl anything your way until you started hurling insults my way and even then took the time to provide you a detailed response which apparently exposed your bullshit for what it is as you were unable to make any response other than name calling.
No doubt you have been trying to research me for hours and you’ve found nothing. If you have something post the links. Then tell us your real name and all about YOUR accomplishments in life.
I’m not afraid of anything a little internet troll lime you can do. Step up or shut up.
@gary You’re really funny. Hours researching? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Gary+Britt
Partner at a firm? I don’t think that really counts when it’s your own one-man firm that you run out of the apartment you live in. You should at least bill yourself as the “CEO”, that way you could be like Carly! Now seriously, for your own good, go get some counseling about this anger you’re feeling at being fired by that one big firm you dedicated your best years to.
Here is the best link it is my complete resume. http://www.texasbusinesslawyer.biz/attorneys/gary-l-britt-cpa-j-d/
I’m an attorney and CPA, I’ve worked for two of the largest CPA firms in the world in my early years after graduating magna cum laude from DePaul University in Chicago. I passed the CPA exam on my first attempt placing in the top 4% of the country that year. Later I supported myself and paid my way through law school while running my own solo CPA practice. I then became a partner in small law firm in Houston. After 10 years of doing that a client I had won 2 million dollars for in a breach of contract dispute against fortune 500 company Tenneco recruited me to become VP and General Counsel for his group of companies. I did that for 6 years and then left become General Counsel for for a larger and better paying company. Then left them to get back to a bigger city and worked as general counsel for two Atlanta based companies. After 4 years left that to run my own solo law firm in Atlanta. Then came back to Texas to work for small law firm in Austin. Then left that firm and took with me several clients to run my own solo practice. I’ve never worked for a large law firm and never been fired from one. Not sure why you are making that up other than the fact you can’t find anything truthful to say. And yes after 30 years of experience and being a business lawyer and CPA I can have the luxury of running my practice from my home office. Life is good. Many people would love to have the qualifications and experience to make that happen in their own lives. I’ve been very lucky and blessed in my life with many things. The most important of which is my wife of 36 years.
Trumpian – (n) – Those who with the clarity of a trumpet call, proudly stand and sound out the need to “Make America Great Again!”. By the final concert act, they are generally joined by important brass instruments including trombones, coronets, tubas, and Fiorinas.
My word, that’s as inaccurate as saying that those who defend Trump “hate” Fiorina.
I see no difference between rabid trumpites and rabid fiorinas
It’s odd. There are Cruz people, Trump people, Fiorina people, Carson people, a Bush person, etc., and every one of them is correct in their choice.
“…and every one of them is correct in their choice”
No, the bush person is wrong.
LOL. Good’n Eeyore.
Hey, if she doesn’t have the words “community organizer” in her résumé, she’s good in my book.
Well, that video was worthwhile. Of course, the close-minded sort will never click on the button and watch.
Well thanks for pointing how close minded all those people who have never watched a “Bush caused 9/11” video are for never watching one.
BTW what was the model of that magic printer that Carly built in the HP gargage?
Pretty slickly packaged. I’d like to hear from other board members besides Perkins. Mark Hurd would be a great recommendation. Mike Capellas would also be helpful.
A few days ago I came across this lecture by Steve Wozniak
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WBX6SACViI
One thing that sort of sticks out is how easy it was at the time to get jobs ( no pun intended ) at HP. The most prominent was before his junior year of college when he took a year off to earn money.
Not only that but also the way Wozniak was able to interact with HP.
Woz was just the most notable such person. The fact is that Silicon Valley as a region owes it’s existence to HP, but more importantly The HP Way , which said that engineers were as important as managers. ( Hell the only microcomputer making company to survive to modern times is Apple. What happened at Apple? They had a great engineer in Woz and a person who understood the engineering but brought business acumen. )
That is what Carly killed.
Well skimed through the whole thing. One thing I notice I notice. Why is there cut of Jobs making a generic statement about “people who dream” but not one of Jobs saying what what a great CEO Carly was?
Another Carly Lie.
And still no one answers: how is she going to deal with Germany after what happened at the Deutsche Bank?
Amy why are you lying for Carly?
A recent WaPo “fact check” on the “secretary to CEO” narrative appeared so slanted to readers it earned backlash warranting an explainer/walk-back from the columnist as well as the Post’s editors.
Yes they spent time explaining, but they did not walk-back in the slightest. To quote from the article: At this point, we do not see a reason to change the rating. We are comfortable with the analytic process we used to reach the final result.
Bob Knowling. “not a cloud in the sky. Then out of the blue she was asked to leave.”
Except that when the Compaq merger happened she had to cajole, bribe and extort her way to just barely getting the stockholders to approve it. That sounds pretty tumultuous nad like a pretty big cloud to me.
Another Carly Lie.
What I said.
Just look at that face
Would you buy a used car from Carly. the person with that face?
She makes Joe Izuzu look trustworthy.
What it sounds like is what every change-agent EVAH has to deal with.
And we NEED a change agent!
Poor Mouse.
Ragzini you argue with yourself. If you want a change agent then you can’t support an open borders, amnesty loving, big government, down the line GOPe Bush and RNC former employee like Carly Firorina
Put up a link where I say I will support her, liar.
I WILL defend her…like a do pretty much anyone…from bullshitters like you.
Any. Time. Because I hate a liar, liar.
Ragzini, I don’t think you hate liars. I think you love the sound you tongue makes when wagging it furiously about nothing.
You don’t support Carly, but when you see her unfairly challenged you have to defend her?
So you must think that every challenge of Trump is fair. Or is there some place that you defended him?
In fact not only can you defend Carly but not be a Carly supporter, people can’t defend Trump and not be Trump supporters. Am I right?
Mouse, basta! I’m not a huge fan of Fiorina’s either but I’d take her over that blowhard gasbag you’re head over heels with. Your obsession with that gawd-awful Trump has reached the compulsive disorder level. Get your cheese and scurry back to your hole. You need a break from this stuff. Seriously. Nobody is listening to you. You sound like a ranting moron about anybody who isn’t Trump.
I’d give you a 100 thumbs up for this comment if I could. What a bore!
Poor Mouse…
There are indications of bad wiring here.
Billions of dollars of worth = nada? blowhard? gawd awful?
Or envy? jealousy?
At some point, this hurling-of-insults at Trump becomes a referendum on the person doing the hurling.
Billions of $$$ of net worth = fascist economics in many cases.
See Electric, General.
See also T-rump, Donald. He’s an ADMITTED crony capitalist.
If all you want are a rich man’s boots to lick, you may as well go for Buffett or Soros. Both are far richer than little Donald.
Jack the illiterate!
I keep writing over and over, you people keep igonring it.
I could vote for Trump. I could vote against Trump.
In certain circumstances, ie, Trump vs Jeb I would probably vote for Trump.
In other circumstances, ie, Trump vs Cruz, I would probably vote for Cruz.
I understand why people support Trump, because I would like to understand such a thing. So I’m not surprised when something happens that people think ends it for him and his polls go up. I try to explain this to people, but am probably stupid for trying to explain something to people too stupid to understand it. Pearls before swine.
Hell understanding why people vote for Trump has been something that Rush has been doing. Is he a Trump supporter?
As for Carly, I was watching when she was hired. HP had the equivalent of a cold. During her tenure she gave HP the equivalent cancer. Other then casual acquaintances ( eg at conventions ) I didn’t know anyone that worked there, but I heard the stories from them, and I knew that a healthy HP was good for tech in general and an unhealthy HP was bad for tech in general. I was happy to see her go, and never expected to see her again, except as a laugh.
GOP feminists must really be desperate to see a woman candidate to be scraping her off the bottom of the barrel.
I have a soft spot for campaigns and PACs who excel at storytelling
It shows.
Fortunately, now that you’ve identified a major perceptual weakness, you should be able to compensate for it.
Hmm. Watching the video I see how Carly changed the culture at HP. Virtually from the video: instead of the engineer building something then sales selling it, sales first sold the thing then engineering would make it.
There is a great comic describing Carly’s HP tenure:
https://books.google.com/books?id=SPwqg7qpFWUC&pg=PA210&dq=dilbert+good+salesman+engineer+night&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIh8nA24WsyAIVxlc-Ch03_gKW#v=onepage&q=dilbert%20good%20salesman%20engineer%20night&f=false
Just substitute Carly for Stan.
Oh there was a Doris Day/Rock Hudson movie about the same thing: selling something then building it ( it was an accident then ) called “Lover Come Back”.
Poor Mouse. You are SUCH an engineer, and such a business idiot.
You can engineer a world-beater product. If you don’t market it SUCCESSFULLY, you will starve to death while you work at Starbucks.
BTW, Mouse (you poor, twisted thing), ONE of the functions of upper management is to LEARN what CONSUMERS want/need in the over-the-horizon future. NOT what their slub engineers WANT the consumers to WANT.
(I know this confuses you.)
Which is well and good except for three things.
1) HP went from two guys in a garage to a Fortue 500 company and one of the two top tech firms in the US by doing it the other way.
2) Most salesmen that I have encountered do not try to sell a person what they want or need. They try to sell them what they have excess stock of, or what they make the most commision out of or other reasons that benefit them.
3) In meetings it seems always the managers and salesmen who are the ones most reluctant to give the customers what they want.
Of course not all engineers are that attentive, but I’ve seen engineers who suggested a feature that they though would be real helpful to the customer get told no. He managers and sales people even refused to suggest it to the customer.
You know what else happened? I’ve had customers ask me why we didn’t build a those feature!
I’ve also discovered that customers asked managers for changes that I knew would be trivial to do and have the managers tell the customer it was impossible without ever asking the engineer.
Most engineers are aware that the customer eventually pays their salary. Most managers and salesmen are more into empire building.
Hey Rags, I am an engineer and am most assuredly NOT a slub. I have taken projects from specification to production/test etc. and they have performed superbly. This is the case with most engineers that I know.
Not to be too specific (because of sensitivity) but one of my specification (which I wrote) to production/installation is protecting weapons of mass destruction owned by a former enemy turned friend turned foe, from being pilfered by the bad guys.
I understand the whole sales/specification/design/test/production cycle. Everyone has their part.
I’m hoping you were just kidding by referring to engineers as “slubs”.
Certainly not an all-inclusive sobriquet. Not any more than when people here speak of lawyers as snakes, crooks, shysters, etc.
But there are slub engineers. Do you deny it?
And there are not a few engineers who ONLY comprehend engineering, and not human behavior. Do you deny it?
One of my best friends years ago was a Licensed Professional Mechanical Engineer with a PhD who did research at Texas A&M. He used to call me for fixes when he needed something to work that wasn’t working.
Together, we invented a system that would have all but eliminated gas flaring in developmental oil fields. It was freaking brilliant, and off-the-shelf practical. Never went anywhere, though we had some interest. Markets… Go figure.
Ragzini, there are also slub sales people who can’t cut it as top level executives, that is Carly Fiorina. She is a sales person, and produces slick videos and debate performances as a result. Problem is that the Presidency is a MANAGEMENT position at that is the kind of job Carly failed at miserably and was FIRED from.
But here is an idea for Carly. She hates planned parenthood (rightfully so) and many of us want to see Planned Parenthood go bye bye. So we could kill two birds with one stone. Let’s get Carly the CEO job at Planned Parenthood and it will be on the verge of bankruptcy in no time.
I do not deny it. I have been embarrassed by many an engineer who seemed to not have any common type knowledge about why things are not working the way the book said they should.
I’ve taught several engineers the value of the “power-off/power-on reset” technique.