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41 " Engineers want to produce something,” said Wallach. “I didn’t go to school for six years just to get a paycheck. I thought that if this is what engineering’s all about, the hell with it.” He went to night school, to get a master’s in business administration. “I was always looking for the buck. I’d get the M.B.A., go back to New York, and make some money,” he figured. But he didn’t really want to do that. He wanted to build computers. "
― Tracy Kidder , The Soul of a New Machine
42 " Yet it is a fact, not entirely lost on management consultants, that some people would rather work twelve hours a day of their own choosing than eight that are prescribed. Provided, of course, that the work is interesting. That was the main thing. "
43 " Among engineers generally, the most common form of ambition—the one made most socially acceptable—has been the desire to become a manager. If you don’t become one by a certain age, then in the eyes of many of your peers you become a failure. Among computer engineers, I think, the wish to manage must be a virtual instinct. "
44 " Trust is risk, and risk avoidance is the name of the game in business. ~ Tom West. 130-131 "
45 " Nothing every happens unless you push it. Ed Rasala. 111 "
46 " There really was, as [Tom] West had often said, more to building a computer than designing and debugging a Central Processing Unit. Someone had to dream up its general outlines in the first place. Someone had to make sure the computer worked compatibly with the company's existing line of peripheral equipment. Someone had to set goals of cost and performance and see that they could be met. 278 "
47 " The bigger game was "pinball." [Tom] West had coined the term and all the old hands used it. "You win one game you get to play another. You win with this machine you get to build the next." Pinball was what counted. It was the tacit promise behind signing up. 228 "
48 " Part of the fascination,” he said, “is just little boys who never grew up, playing with Erector sets. Engineers just don’t lose that, and if you do lose it, you just can’t be an engineer anymore. "
49 " Danger made life interesting, but anxiety gets tiring after a while. "
50 " A great deal has been written on the question of how to motivate industrial workers. Presumably such literature arises because so many jobs have been made so trivial that few people can find any meaning at all in them. "
51 " it really did seem as though the company didn’t want the project undertaken at all. "
52 " It was the sort of work that gave meaning to life. "
53 " I’ve gotta keep life and computers separate, or else I’m gonna go mad. "
54 " beating people up didn’t seem to get results anymore. "
55 " A great deal has been written on the question of how to motivate industrial workers. Presumably such literature arises because so many jobs have been made so trivial that few people can find any meaning at all in them. It may be that techniques of management alone can't cure the problem. But clearly, for even the most potentially interesting jobs to be meaningful, there must be managers who are willing to throw away the management handbooks and take some risks. "
56 " West once said, “An analyzer costs ten thousand dollars. Overtime for engineers is free. "
57 " There were Colorgraphics and Summagraphics; Altergo and C. Itoh; and Ball. “Hey, wait a minute. What’s Ball doing here? Aren’t they the mason jar people?” “Yeah, but they also make disk drives. "
58 " Look, I don’t have to get official recognition for anything I do. Ninety-eight percent of the thrill comes from knowing that the thing you designed works, and works almost the way you expected it would. If that happens, part of you is in that machine. "