Conundrums

Some management guru once wrote, "When you're on the right track, you'll know it, but until you get there, you have to believe you're on the right track."  Interesting little conundrum.

I've witnessed this a lot over my career -- especially in tracking down equipment problems.   Both of my current jobs involve equipment that is networked together by miles and miles of cables and connections.  When something isn't operating correctly, where do you start?

The other day I watched three guys scratching their heads and asking themselves the same question.  If it heard it once, I heard it 5,280 times, "I bet it's... !"

Then one would say, "No, if it were (that), then (this) would be occurring."

"I bet it's . . . "  Repeat!

Conundrums.

To complicate the problem, the voice from the ivory tower was yelling, "I don't care what it costs, but fix it now!  Just don't spend too much money!" 

So, they were faced with two avenues to the solution.
1.  All the easy, quick fixes -- even those were the least likely.
2.  A couple of hard, time-consuming fixes -- even though they were the most probable.

Time - Quality - $

Seems to be a conundrum right there.   If you want it done fast, chances are you're going to have to pay an "urgency" fee and possible sacrifice quality.  If you want it high-quality, then you might have to spend more money and more time on it.  If you want it cheap, it might end up taking more time.

It's rare that you can have it all.  

By the way, when left after the second day, the problem had been temporarily fixed.  Leaving another conundrum:  "Do we take the time and money to fix it right so it doesn't happen again or do we save the money and gamble that it doesn't break down again?"

Conundrums.

Carpe diem Life,
David Kuhn