Have you been drinking your water?

“Our records indicate that you have not taken a break in six hours and have not used your access card to access the water dispenser. Are you ill? Would you like me to schedule a visit with the nurse on call? At DCQAI Universal, we care about you.” came the monotonous and yet sickeningly sweet voice that had been deemed the most pleasing by the staff during a survey. The cloying voice had become like nails on a chalkboard. I would have rather preferred a grizzled voice, someone who with good authority had some reason to have an opinion on my health and welfare; perhaps a voice belonging to someone who made some mistakes of his or her own.

“No, I brought my own drink from home. Thank you.” I sighed.

I returned to my typing. I was almost finished with developing the critical path in my new Project schedule and all of its dependencies. This was something best done methodically and not interrupted.  

My fingers flew across my keyboard on its tray on my ergonomically correct desk. The lighting slowly cycled through varying degrees of brightness as if clouds were moving across the sky. Everything was designed for optimal performance. I knew these things mattered, but they never mattered as much as the people you worked for and with. I wasn’t disillusioned, but the people I needed had just made themselves unreachable through levels of bureaucracy that even I, a true veteran of jumping hoops, had difficulty navigating these days. If I didn’t just show up on someone’s doorstep, they would simply have no idea that anything was wrong. Lately, things had been going wrong, despite the pleasing assurances from AI that we were tracking deadlines for our project and I HAD interrupted a few family dinners.

“Screeee……” 

My hands flew to my ears and I jumped out of my chair nearly involuntarily. What in the hell? An alarm of some sort pealed across the room. I saw heads pop up over dividing walls, most people had fingers in their ears because the noise was definitely meant to interrupt everything that was going on. I am sure they had optimized the sound to be the most irritating noise possible so that it simply could not be ignored.

“Employee deviations are causing inefficiencies. Unit 6LA will be scheduled for a management intervention at 0800 tomorrow morning.” Still in that same cloying voice.

I saw panic on some faces. My only experience with negative feedback was with the water tracking, but it was simply brought up in meetings and then disregarded as we were allowed to bring our own water. But there had been rumors of cuts. No one wanted to lose their job because they didn’t check efficiency boxes or do their daily stretching. It seemed unreasonable and yet, I do remember reading a case study in program management training about Los Alamos, Sandia, or one of the other national laboratories. That lab had managed to micromanage its brilliance into utter apathy and despair. Sometimes those type of people simply need to be asked what they needed to do their jobs in an environment in which they believed their requests would be considered and not used as ammunition against them.  

As the meeting wasn’t until tomorrow, I sat back down with the intent of going back to my 

work. My screen had locked as soon as I got out of my chair. The week in which the sensitivity sensors were installed was a week of complete inefficiency as every time I moved in my chair the screen locked. It took a whole week to get permissions to access our own individual sensitivity controls.

---------------------------

Carnegie Mellon:

Each year, the $2.5 billion tech giant Sandia National Laboratories challenges America’s elite engineering schools to submit novel and educational ideas that push the thinking of its MicroElectroMechanical Systems division. The MEMS lab conducts research and development for advancements in microfluidics—a discipline that combines principles from engineering, physics, chemistry, microtechnology, and biotechnology.

Practically speaking, advancements in microfluidics—developing tiny mechanical devices—enable a number of commercial applications, from the development of the ink-jet printer to anti-cancer drugs that can be tactically introduced into malignant cells of terminal patients.

This year, the team of Vitali Brand (E’11), Henry Kung (E’11), Sam Powers (E’11), and Emrecan Soylemez (E’11) were awarded first place for their micro-machine submission in the Educational Design category. One of the team members, Powers, works at Sandia now, where he continues his MEMS devices research.

—Chris Faught (TPR’09)

Article added to bump up word count so I could publish until I can revisit

Each year, the $2.5 billion tech giant Sandia National Laboratories challenges America’s elite engineering schools to submit novel and educational ideas that push the thinking of its MicroElectroMechanical Systems division. The MEMS lab conducts research and development for advancements in microfluidics—a discipline that combines principles from engineering, physics, chemistry, microtechnology, and biotechnology.

Practically speaking, advancements in microfluidics—developing tiny mechanical devices—enable a number of commercial applications, from the development of the ink-jet printer to anti-cancer drugs that can be tactically introduced into malignant cells of terminal patients.

This year, the team of Vitali Brand (E’11), Henry Kung (E’11), Sam Powers (E’11), and Emrecan Soylemez (E’11) were awarded first place for their micro-machine submission in the Educational Design category. One of the team members, Powers, works at Sandia now, where he continues his MEMS devices research.

—Chris Faught (TPR’09)

Each year, the $2.5 billion tech giant Sandia National Laboratories challenges America’s elite engineering schools to submit novel and educational ideas that push the thinking of its MicroElectroMechanical Systems division. The MEMS lab conducts research and development for advancements in microfluidics—a discipline that combines principles from engineering, physics, chemistry, microtechnology, and biotechnology.

Practically speaking, advancements in microfluidics—developing tiny mechanical devices—enable a number of commercial applications, from the development of the ink-jet printer to anti-cancer drugs that can be tactically introduced into malignant cells of terminal patients.

This year, the team of Vitali Brand (E’11), Henry Kung (E’11), Sam Powers (E’11), and Emrecan Soylemez (E’11) were awarded first place for their micro-machine submission in the Educational Design category. One of the team members, Powers, works at Sandia now, where he continues his MEMS devices research.

—Chris Faught (TPR’09)