A kind of Patience

Patience is of virtue and as I age it is a trait that is actually becoming more common in my day-to-day dealings. I’ve always been a curmudgeon in ways much more advanced than my age. And it’s not the usual things. It’s been awhile since I realized that the music produced when I was in high school and college is much better than anything now. Due to my dislike of being out in public coupled with a dislike of being around disgusting surroundings I’d rather watch movies at home than in a theatre. I also dislike having to explain the same thing many times over to the same people or group. However, because I am effectively a consulting engineer it is necessary to have patience with those who can’t bother to pay attention.

A meeting this afternoon was a special kind of head slapper. I was presenting a model of a complex system as a certain kind of diagram. I have met in person with this group twice and in teleconference meetings with the aid of screen sharing programs dozens of times since late last summer. Important to this kind of diagram is the understanding that it is not the same as a circuit diagram. That it is not the same as a flow diagram. Explaining the diagrams begins with describing its basic structure and how that structure is used to determine the kinds of meaningful information that can be gained from it.

Every meeting, I begin by giving a short overview of the process and the basic structure of the diagram type then proceed to describe the application to the system being analyzed and the result. Most of these diagrams are at least several months old with only slight modifications to distinguish from one meeting to the next. Of course, each meeting is a repeat of the last. Shortly after a brief overview of the process, questions that should have been answered by that overview are brought up when the result is presented.

It should not take too long to describe the process again and I acquiesce and answer the question in an attempt to move forward but it’s never good enough. No matter how many times I explain that this kind of diagram is not a flow diagram and that the logic of this particular type of diagram dictates the layout I am inundated with more questions that should have been previously answered.

When I was a younger engineer, I could not effectively deal with this kind of interaction. When interacting with other technical staff one assumes that there would be some kind of basic competency. There should be the assumption that there is some kind of retention the group has and that they can grasp concepts and require nothing more than a refresher. That’s wrong though and truth is you can’t assume anything about the technical competency of anyone you deal with in a business sense. It’s rather cynical but the best way to deal with it is to smile, nod and wait out the meeting. Much of the issues I experience are tangential to the actual deliverable and there is no point in letting these things drag the project down. This is a kind of patience that I have learned and I am a better engineer for it.