Face forward - even if not moving forward

...everything's a nail. So goes the old adage about people who perceive the world from only one perspective - their own. I had an opportunity this week for my ego and pride to be slammed at work. Hard.

It all started with a special order of radios with which we had to drill a hole in the front portion at a specific place. I knew we had a jig around the office somewhere and when I set it up I noticed most everything about it was welded together - because the person who designed it and built it was a welder. He knew of few other ways to put something together. But there was a problem: some radio fronts had speakers in them, rendering this jig useless because one support was right at the spot where the speaker should be. I sniggered at first and then had a great idea to create my own jig.

I would design a custom jig in the CAD (computer assisted design) software and then make it out of hard nylon with the CNC (computer numerical control) machine we have. We had hundreds of them to drill, in my estimation. I feverishly worked all afternoon to design this jig. It was beautiful.

One fellow at work saw what I was doing and then suggested clamping a couple of simple stops on the drill press since it was only going to be a few hundred pieces. I rejected that suggestion by telling him it was for alignment of the part and safety for the operator, whoever that was going to be. I kept working on it and when I was finished, I sent it up to the head of R&D so he could create the CNC code and then - BAM! - my work of computer-assisted art would be done and all would be impressed at my idea.

Wrong.

The head R&D guy came to my desk and looked over my proposal and then suggested clamping a couple of simple stops on the drill press since it was only going to be a few hundred pieces.

I cannot describe the crushing feeling of hurt and disappointment at realizing that he was right. And the other fellow too. And the amount of time I wasted trying to impress others at work. And the realization that my "hammer" is the use of computer software to do what really was a simple short-term project. When I began drilling the case fronts the next day (since we were short staffed and we needed to get these done), it seems only about 20 case fronts on the top layer of the box had speakers, not the rest of them. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.

It doesn't feel so bad now. I'm glad I didn't follow through with my original plan. But I do have to be careful.