A bunch of years ago, my boss asked me to train some users on a product called Results. Results is an end user reporting tool. It’s roughly analogous to SQL Server Reporting Service or Crystal. At the time, it was designed to run on green tubes (e.g. Wyse 50 terminal) connected to a Unix box via telnet.

My default answer to any question that starts with "Can you … " is "Yes" and that’s where all the trouble started.

The client was a chemical company out in southern California and had just about wrapped up a major ERP implementation based on QAD’s MFG/PRO. The implementation plan now called for training power end users on the Results product.

I wasn’t a big user of this tool and had certainly never trained anyone before. Hala eta guztiz ere, I had conducted a number of other training classes and was quick on my feet, so I was not too worried. Dennis, the real full-time Results instructor, had given me his training material. Atzera begira orain, it’s really quite absurd. I didn’t know the product well, had never been formally trained on it and had certainly never taught it. What business did I have training anyone on it?

To complicate things logistically, I was asked to go and meet someone in Chicago as part of a pre-sales engagement along the way. The plan was to fly out of New Jersey, go to Chicago, meet for an hour with prospect and then continue on to California.

Beno, I got to Chicago and the sales guy on my team had made some mistake and never confirmed the meeting. Beraz,, I showed up and the prospect wasn’t there. Awesome. I pack up and leave and continue on to CA. Somewhere during this process, I find out that the client is learning less than 24 hours before my arrival that "Paul Galvin" is teaching the class, not Dennis. The client loves Dennis. They want to know "who is this Paul Galvin person?" "Why should we trust him?" "Why should we pay for him?" Dennis obviously didn’t subscribe to my "albiste txarra eman hasieran" philosophy. Awesome.

I arrive at the airport and for some incredibly stupid reason, I had checked my luggage. I made it to LAX but my luggage did not. Niretzat, losing luggage is a lot like going through the seven stages of grief. Eventually I make it to the hotel, with no luggage, tired, hungry and wearing my (by now, very crumpled) business suit. It takes a long time to travel from Newark — to O’Hare — to a client — back to O’Hare — and finally to LAX.

I finally find myself sitting in the hotel room, munching on a snickers bar, exhausted and trying to drum up the energy to scan through the training material again so that I won’t look like a complete ass in front of the class. This was a bit of a low point for me at the time.

I woke up the next day, did my best to smooth out my suit so that I didn’t look like Willy Loman on a bad day and headed on over to the client. As is so often the case, in person she was nice, polite and very pleasant. This stood in stark contrast to her extremely angry emails/voicemails from the previous day. She leads me about 3 miles through building after building to a sectioned off area in a giant chemical warehouse where we will conduct the class for the next three days. The 15 edo 20 students slowly assemble, most them still expecting Dennis.

I always start off my training classes by introducing myself, giving some background and writing my contact information on the white board. As I’m saying, "Good morning, my name is Paul Galvin", I write my name, email and phone number up on the white board in big letters so that everyone can see it clearly. I address the fact that I’m replacing Dennis and I assure them that I am a suitable replacement, etc. I have everyone briefly tell me their name and what they want to achieve out of the class so that I can tailor things to their specific requirements as I go along. The usual stuff.

We wrap that up and fire up the projector. I go to erase my contact info and … I had written it in permanent marker. I was so embarrassed. In my mind’s eye, it looked like this: There is this "Paul Galvin" person, last minute replacement for our beloved Dennis. He’s wearing a crumpled up business suit and unshaven. He has just written his name huge letters on our white board in permanent marker. What a sight!

It all ended happily, Hala ere,. This was a chemical company, azken finean. A grizzled veteran employee pulled something off the shelf and, probably in violation of EPA regulations, cleared the board. I managed to stay 1/2 day ahead of the class throughout the course and they gave me a good review in the end. This cemented my "pinch hitter" reputation at my company. My luggage arrived the first day, so I was much more presentable days two and three.

As I was taking the red eye back home, I was contemplating "lessons learned". There was plenty to contemplate. Communication is key. Tell clients about changes in plan. Don’t ever check your luggage at the airport if you can possibly avoid it. Bring spare "stuff" in case you do check your luggage and it doens’t make it. I think the most important lesson I learned, Hala ere,, was this: always test a marker in the lower left-hand corner of a white board before writing, in huge letters, "Paul Galvin".

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Due to some oddball United Airlines flights I took in the mid 90’s, I somehow ended up with an offer to transform "unused miles" into about a dozen free magazine subscriptions. That is how I ended up subscribing to Scientific American magazine.

Software gisa / aholkularitza pertsona, we encounter many difficult business requirements in our career. Most the time, eskakizun horiek bilera-maite dugu, eta hain zuzen ere,, it’s probably why we think this career is the best in the world. I occasionally wonder just what in the world would I have done with myself if I had been born at any other time in history. How terrible would it be to miss out on the kinds of work I get to do now, Une honetan, eta munduan historian at? Uste dut: nahiko terrible.

Urteetan zehar, some of the requirements I’ve faced have been extremely challenging to meet. Complex SharePoint stuff, Eraikin web prozesatzeko ez-web-friendly teknologian oinarritutako marko, complex BizTalk orchestrations and the like. We can all (Zorionez) itxura harro gure ibilbidean, eta esan, "yeah, duten gogor bat ebatzi zen, baina azkenean I pwned sumbitch duten!" Hobeto oraindik, are gehiago interesgarri eta dibertigarriak erronka zain.

Pertsonalki, uste dut nire curriculuma duten, Zentzu honetan, nahiko sakona da eta nahiko harro nago (nahiz eta jakin nuen, nire emazteak ez du inoiz ulertzen da 1/20th). But this week, Buruzko artikulu bat irakurtzen ari nintzen Partikula handiak Collider in my Scientific American magazine and had one of those rare humbling moments where I realized that despite my "giant" zirkulu jakin batean edo egoera nola sakona uste dut nire esperientzia ondo, there are real giants in completely different worlds.

The people on the LHC team have some really thorny issues to manage. Consider the Moon. I don’t really think much about the Moon (izan naiz, nahiz eta oso susmagarria buruz ikasi dut geroztik Lurraren errotazio da motelduz, horrek ezin digu Gizakiak gauza ona izan daiteke epe luzera). Baina, the LHC team does have to worry. LHC’s measuring devices are so sensitive that they are affected by the Moon’s (Lurraren errotazio-moteltzea eta, azkenean, hil-guztiak-bizitza) gravity. That’s a heck of a requirement to meet — ekoizteko zuzena Neurketak Moon horrek interferentziak arren.

Alea izan zen I pondering denean esaldi hau irakurri nuen: "The first level will receive and analyze data from only a subset of all the detector’s components, from which it can pick out promising events based on isolated factors such as whether an energetic muon was spotted flying out at a large angle from the beam axis." Really … ? I don’t play in that kind of sandbox and never will.

Hurrengo denbora nago lagun batekin, Topa biltzeko eta LHC lanean jende ona izan dut, hope they don’t successfully weigh the Higgs boson particle and curse the Moon. I suggest you do the same. It will be quite the toast 🙂

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