I am/was a longtime experienced Automation and Controls Engineer by profession, since 1979. Before that, was in NASA training/college and worked with SONY Corporation USA as a 'worst-case-failure' repair tech. I've long been sought for designing/'fixing'/creating/'re-engineering' some of the more complex electronics and automation equipment made, often for, umm...products that get VERY big, VERY quickly...and loudly...where literally, 'failure is NOT an option' and every fault analysis must be handled with the control systems, one way or another.
There's not a lot of 'us' out there.
I last found myself working for a company who thinks they are the cat's meow of automation. I have worked for places that WERE that good: these guys, though, misunderstand which end of the cat this comes from, and they are not puting out the 'meow', but...something more pungent...and whenever I tried to explain that they were WAY behind the 'curve' and did not understand what is needed to make top-shelf, first-class, utterly-reliable automation, I was met with something like, "No, but we have a better idea. Do it THIS way." - Which I refused to do, because it was both stupid and potentially dangerous for their customers to use, aside from being almost impossible for their customers to debug or modify.
Then one day, while perusing their company's server for some software update I was trying to install on my company laptop, I discovered their Customer List database. In a 5-minute review of it, I suddenly realized why they were struggling to stay in business, and it wasn't because of economic downturn nor Covid issues: they had a long list (over 110) of customers, each with just 1 machine built for them. Here's a hint: in the world of automation, particularly high-stakes automation, if you build a good machine or production line for a customer, they knock your door down for another, and another...and you end up with a short list of customers, all clamoring for more equipment from you. This outfit was/is a bleak failure at automation.
Then, after the government's Covid payments to them ran out, they had no more income, nor work to do, and they let me go, as I was also the last one they had recently hired. So, I packed all that I had left in my office in a box just 16" square (with room to spare) as I was already contemplating letting them stew in their own juices, and now didn't have to come up with any excuse about why I decided to retire. I left smiling, and enrolled as an employee at my local gun range (because they wanted me, too) after I finished my flagstone patio.
No more high-pressure work for me! Life is good. Now I just fix other's SOHC4 rides.
