War Stories: Travails in the life of an engineer

NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- The problem with trying to tell about a career in engineering is that most of the things that interest an engineer would bore the ears off of a brass donkey. The solution of difficult and complicated problems in science and mathematics is what makes engineering fun, but to the layman there is nothing of interest whatsoever.

Therefore it is the challenge of this blog to find personal stories from the world of engineering that the layman can find amusing and entertaining. Here goes:

Breaking the security barrier

When you have to extend your security clearance to new areas you must go through a process called “being read into the program." To be read in usually involves visiting a high security installation and either listening to a briefing or reading a briefing document and then signing a statement that you had read the document and understood it. At this point you are officially read into the top secret program.

When I started out in the business, I thought that I would learn all sorts of fascinating dark and interesting secrets. Much to my chagrin the deep dark secrets turned out to be as exciting as watching grass grow. Normally you were required to remember “code words” for certain things.

As a hypothetical example peekaboo might be the codeword for intelligence gained by peeking through keyholes and windows. On the day in question I arrived at one of Americas super secret facilities for my briefing and got an admission badge at the guard gate.

I was given an office number to report to and started down the corridor. Looking at the office number and the number on the doors I quickly realized that I was completely lost and asked for directions from one of the passers by. He obliged me by leading me through a sequence of passages and entryways and delivered me to the appropriate office.

I went into the office; reported to the desk and they gave me my top secret briefing document. I read the document several times, and memorized the code words and information as best as best I could. Across from me was a young fuzzy-cheeked sergeant reading his briefing document to read himself into some other area. It was hard to resist wondering if his document was as dull as my document.

It galled me that maybe he had something a lot more exciting than what I had been reading. I finished the briefing document signed that I had read it and turned to leave. At this point in time a security specialist came running up and asked: "What are you doing here? You don’t have any clearance your badge doesn’t give you any clearance. How did you get into this very secure area of the building?”

The poor guy looked very upset and I had to remember how I got there because I had passed through a number of security check points manned by armed guards and alarm systems.

I told the security man about the employee who had led me through all of the check points, guards and alarm systems. Evidently, my sponsor had neglected to put me down for the proper clearance and in fact had put me down for a badge which indicated no clearance level whatsoever.

The security guard asked for ID and a social security number. He said, “Don’t go anywhere I’ll be right back.” I offered to let him handcuff me to a railing but he said that wouldn’t be necessary. He had ascertained that I did in fact have the right level clearance. He said that what had kept him from a complete meltdown was that he remembered seeing me at my original briefing.

Much relieved, he led me back out of the building to make sure I was gone. As I got ready to leave, I looked at my watch and said to him, "I have about an hour before I have to be anywhere; are there any other security systems you need to have checked out?” He replied, "No, no you have done enough for one day.”

Scheming 'Deputy Dog'

Every engineering organization manages to hire one or more people who have no talent whatsoever for science and engineering.

At General Dynamics one such person was known to us as Deputy Dog. Now Deputy Dog managed to come up with at least one hair brained-scheme a day. It was just my luck that eventually he would come to me to evaluate his scheme.

The first few times this happened, I would take to time to point out the physical principles that doomed his scheme to failure. This could take a lot of valuable time as Deputy Dog didn’t have a lot of background in physical principles. He didn’t catch on quickly.

One day as Mr. Dog approached my office, I had an epiphany. Instead of going through the long process of analyzing his scheme to see why it couldn’t possibly work and then trying to explain it to him, I looked at it and said, “This looks interesting, build it up and see what happens.”

After that I never saw him again.

Years later, my colleague and business partner, Peter Halpern, confessed that Deputy Dog often came to him first and he would then send him to see me.

The Man Who could control electromagnetic waves

One of the greatest spoofs in engineering occurs when you can convince someone with scientific training that the basic laws of physics have been overturned. A man we will call John to protect his privacy was the victim of such a spoof. John was developing a telemetry system for hospital use. He had a transmitter and data generating system at one end of the lab and a receiver and data collection system at the other end. He was sending and receiving telemetry signals.

The guys in the lab decided to mess with John’s head.

They built a transmitter that would jam the telemetry signal to varying degrees and hid it in a corner of the lab along with the person controlling it. Having built and tested the jammer the stage was set to mess with John’s head. John came into the lab and turned in his telemetry system.

The received signal was distorted and could not be processed. After checking everything out, John could not find any problem in hid equipment so he said loudly, “I have a problem with my telemetry signal!” With this Roy (not his real name) stepped forward and said, “Let me take a look at it.

Roy looked at the receiver and the distorted signal on the oscilloscope and then said, "Let me try something.”

Roy stood in front of the receiver system and made several mysterious motions with his arms. He stood back and looked at the scope. The signal had improved somewhat. Roy then proceeded to repeat his actions. The signal became clearer. After several repetitions the signal was completely clear of any interference. John was in shock. He asked what was going on here.

Roy replied, “I have this strange power over electromagnetic radiation. Watch this."

Roy went back in front of the telemetry receiver and did his strange motions in reverse. The signal became distorted again. Roy explained to John that no one could explain this strange power that he had. Roy encouraged John to call Roy’s thesis adviser at the University of Central Florida to verify this.

The UCF  professor, who was in on the scam, verified that Roy really had this strange power over electromagnetic radiation. At this time everyone in the lab broke for lunch, leaving John alone with his telemetry receiving the jammed signals. T

he man controlling the jammer was still hiding in the back of the lab. John looked at his jammed signals on the scope, thought about it and then stood back and started to do the same mysterious movements he had seen Roy do.

At first nothing happened. After a number of repetitions, John saw an improvement in the signal quality. He repeated this procedure until the signal appeared “clean.” He then decided to go in the other direction first little happened then the signal got garbled again. John was sure he had something.

For the next hour he alternately cleaned up the signal and then got it jammed again. As he “practiced,” he got better and better at it till he felt he had the same power as Roy.

At this point the men returned from lunch.

John greeted them and said,” Look what I can do."

The men all gathered around to watch John’s demonstration with the jammed signal. John made the mysterious motions. Nothing happened. He repeated the motions several times and nothing happened.

Finally, he was aware of a room full of engineers having a good laugh at his expense.

He was introduced to the hidden tech in the corner and the jamming system. There is no record of what happened to John and his technical career.

Positive Identification

One bright day, my business partner, Peter Halpern, and I visited one of the country’s most secure facilities to discuss business prospects with some of Pete’s old buddies. As was the custom on such occasions, the first thing that we did was to get everyone a cup of coffee.

We hadn’t been there for more than a minute or two when Pete, being exceedingly clumsy, managed to spill his coffee in all directions. Some of it may have hit the walls and ceiling as well as the floor and table.

It took a while to clean it up. Knowing that these people were especially attentive to the identity of the people they let into their facility, I could not resist commenting, ”Now you know it is the real Pete Halpern and not an imposter.”

I was astonished as they broke into a round of uproarious and sustained laughter. I knew it was a good comment but it wasn’t that good. If all audiences were that easy being a stand up comedian would be easy.

After the meeting, Pete explained to me the reason I got such a good reception with that remark. He had visited these same people a week earlier and had had a similar performance with a mustard container. Evidently they had to clean up mustard from all parts of the room.

You spy, you die

In our small electronics business, Central Florida Technical Services, I had to double from time to time as the company security officer. One day, we were informed that we had to give our employees a special security briefing because of a recent problem that had come up. I collected all of our colleagues around the conference table and made the following announcement.

"The security people have asked me to do an important security briefing. It is short so I will repeat it several times so you can fully grasp it. Are you ready? Here it comes. You spy, you die. I repeat listen closely. If you spy, you die."

At this point, my young colleagues were looking at me with questioning glances as to ask what is this all about? I responded, "Here is the explanation for the “briefing.”

It seems that some of the defendants in recent espionage trials have been claiming that they did not know that it was wrong and illegal to spy for a foreign power. Worse yet, our idiot legal system seemed to take this claim seriously in some cases. Anyway, you have been put on alert that if you spy for a foreign power you are in a world of hurt.

The Intelligence Medal of Honor

Every year, the intelligence community awards the “Intelligence Medal of Honor” to that member who is considered to have made the greatest contribution to U. S. intelligence.

Needless to say this is quite an honor and one year a good friend of my business partner won the award. The citation for the award was hanging on the wall so I went over and stated to read it.

I got about half way through it when I realized that the citation contained nothing that even hinted at what he had done so I quit reading. Next my business partner, Pete Halpern, came over and read the citation. When Pete finished, our friend asked, "Can you tell what that is about?” Pete paused for a few seconds and then said, "Let me make an educated guess. You found a new way to circumvent the regulations and red tape so that we can use some of our resources and manpower to counter the bad guys rather our own bureaucracy.”

The “spook of the year” paused and then commented, “there is a lot of truth in your guess.” One moral to this story is that all government departments everywhere have a lot of similarity.

NSB News is a 24/7 Internet newspaper in New Smyrna Beach accessed through NSBNews.net and VolusiaNews.net, launched April 7, 2008, by award-winning breaking news and investigative reporter Henry Frederick and award-winning blogger Peter Mallory. It is the first fully-online newspaper in Florida and among the few in the nation with continuous editorial content picked up by Google News Directories.

Wendel Bradford