Are you an Egghead?

Having something of a sick interest in the meaning of words, origin of words and their use had me wondering this morning where the word Egghead came from and what the history of it's use would be.

Turning to the Internet source of all random knowledge: Wikipedia, I asked. Egghead has origins starting in the 1950s and is a slang anti-intellectual epithet directed at people considered to be out of touch with reality due to their own intellectual interests. What fun.

It was even used by Richard Nixon in the 1952 presidential campaign to describe his opponent. So it also has a political connotation to it. No real originating source was quoted. The article also mentions a potential start of the description of an Egg shaped head referring to a Bald head. (something near and dear to my heart) Also no mention of Egghead software who changed to newegg some time ago though apparently now egghead.com goes off to Amazon. Not that this is completely relevant but it's my random chain of thought.

Ain't the Internet cool?

Having forgotten my phone today and not having constant access to email made me remember an article I ran into and had to share. Several key things contribute to burn out but one of the major ones of today's business world is email. So here is a fun little exercise.

1. Think about the number of emails that you receive in a day...


2. Now think about your average response time to those emails...


3. Now think about how many of those emails are really critical, high value things that need immediate responses...

Scary isn't it? Recent findings even shown how the level of access provided by things like Blackberry's and other email devices actually make you dumber by as much as 10 IQ points with close to drug addiction levels.

To address this immediate brain drain one of the things suggested is to set aside specific times to answer emails. Don't let your email be a task list. There are emails that are urgent and there are ones that can wait. Prioritize.

My trip to the post office

I have been asked before where my inspiration for blog posts comes from. Sometimes its from things I read, other times it's from events that I am a part of. As a little window into why I blog what I blog I thought I would share one of my "triggers". A recent trip to the post office caused the trigger for my recent post on Process Engineering. Now... on to my rant.

First, a bit of passport news. The US Government recently decided that no matter where you go you need a passport to travel and come back. Not really that big of a deal other than that it hadn't been a requirement for Mexico or Canada, popular destinations for many people. This (of course to those who actually think) caused a spike in demand for Passports. (I found it hilarious that the website for passports had initially stated that due to unanticipated demand for passports there was a delay in processing. Now corrected to simply state processing times have increased due to high volumes. If you change the law to state everyone needs one... demand will increase. duh.)

I recently went to the post office to get passports for my family and renew mine since it expired this year. For my own there is a nice improved process where you can mail your existing passport, a form and the money required and they will ship it back to you. No lines, no muss, no fuss. (Although the page states you must apply in person or by mail, if you go in they will tell you to mail the form... what a great way to waste an hour in line.) You can also fill out the forms ahead of time to simply hand them in and make it fast.

However... if you do not have a passport here is the current process.

1. Go to the post office. There are a limited number of post offices that do this so check first. (This was the least stressful step in the process)
   [10 minutes - Post Office is close, easy drive]


2. Stand in the Passport line. It is important to note that you will need a photo of your head. These can be purchased for cheap at Costco etc or $15 at the post office. (How convenient. Of course photo or not you all stand in the same line.)
   [60 minutes - 3 people ahead of my family. 5-7 photos taken, Forms filled out for each person, 1 line, 1 person doing everything]


3. Talk to the Passport person. One passport handled at a time, stapled Birth Certificate (actual certificate) to form along with check for Passport.
   [10 Minutes - 5 minutes per person w/ 2 kids]


4. Hold up right hand and swear that the form is truthful. (Humans are apparently unable to lie with their right hand up. Practice in the mirror)
   [2 Minutes - 1 minute per person w/ 2 kids]


5. Receive ticket to pay post office for service
   [1 minute - Only one ticket for the group, process has been "optimized"]


6. Stand in Post Office line to pay Passport ticket. This is the same line as people buying stamps, weighing packages and otherwise wishing they were elsewhere. (Most of the articles have long since archived out but if you remember back to early this year some 3700 post offices improved their turn around times on lines by removing the clocks from the walls. Really.)
   [2 hours - really it was just 45 minutes but I have a caveat. Based on the rate of line movement for the people who were in the "passport room" ahead of us in the passport line, they waited 2 hours to pay. However, it was nearly closing time and 3 extra people miraculously appeared and chewed through the line so they could go home on time.]


7. Return proof of payment to the Passport Office. Receipt for payment needed to be shown before the paperwork would be put in the "to be sent" pile. Now, at this point most people are fed up enough that they just walk in the door and show the Passport person the stub and don't wait in the line so I guess you could say this was "efficient".
   [5 minutes - Had to wait to get attention for the drop as the Passport person was taking photos]

All totaled this accounts for (10+60+10+2+1+45) 128 minutes of my actual time. Just over 2 hours. Considering that we had everything filled out, ready to hand in and walk away without additional photo time and we had an accellerated exit because the "pay line" wanted to go home this is truly disturbing. The people who were in the Passport office when we got there were there for at least 4 hours. If this was a private entity they would be pushed out of business.

Opportunities for improvement abound.

• Have two lines - One for photos and one for completed forms with pictures. This would have cut out at least 60 minutes.
• Have a machine take the photos with the cost of credit card freeing the person to just deal with forms. If people can't get it right they can do it again.
• Transmit automated digitals taken since the Passport office is printing them anyway just attach that.
• Give People the forms to fill out and they don't get in the line until they are done. This keeps people will filled out forms from waiting for people to remember where their mothers were born.
• Insist on pre-filled forms. They are available on the internet. A terminal could be set up for filling out and printing.
• Pay in one place. Let the Passport office collect all of the fees. This would cut out at least half of the time for most requestors.

If these suggestions were put in place my 2 hour passport ordeal would have been a 5 to 10 minute paperwork drop. I would have nice things to say about the easy nature of the excessive instead of wanting to post about Process Engineering and needs for improvements.

RANT DONE.

Friday Link Day 2007-04-27

My favorite link of the week is the discovery of a new "potentially inhabitable" planet. It is believed to have water! If you start now by the time that your children's, children's... heck a lot of them are born, its just shy of 21 light years away, you can have an address that ends in Planet 581c!

Software Engineers can go to space too. I wonder if they ran any parts of flight control and operations on the Excel or Word... and if he knew they were if he still would have gone.

Do you hate putting your phone or iPod on the ground. Then you need the Electronics Hammock... yes, it's really a product.

If you hate your BlackBerry (like me) but enjoy the abuse and want to put the interface on a Windows Mobile 6.0 phone BlackBerry would like to help you out. They are apparently releasing BlackBerry functionality on Windows Mobile with ATT first and moving from there.

A quick snip on testing

I have recently had two different offline topics end up with the same point so I figured I would pass it on here as well. Testing and why it is important to test to failure and not just test. To stick to the intuitive reason, it is because then you know when your system will break and what will happen when it does. It is naive to believe that your system will be 100% problem free, it is a far more realistic expectation to accept that you just don't know when.

One of the fundamental race conditions of the universe is that as soon as you build a better, more idiot-proof system, the world will build a better idiot. Similarly in a system which is successful and experiencing growth, you will eventually hit a point that exposes problems that didn't show themselves under lesser pressure or lesser load. In aircraft they X-Ray and image things like propellers not because they want to ensure that it is perfect, but so that they know what quality it is. Under the right conditions a very tiny bubble can cause a propeller to literally fly apart. Better to know these things up front.

My Jana RSS feed recently (inside joke) recently came across with these two links, one for example, one for humor that are relevant to this topic. Check out this Ultimate Failure test... and fly with a little better feeling in your heart because you know that they care enough to do this. Then check out Monkey Testing at it's best. (I am trying very hard to resist the 1000 monkeys and Shakespeare sonnet reference... darn... I failed.)

In conclusion remember, it's ALWAYS better that you know where things will blow up than for someone else to tell you.