Frustration, Frustration Frustration

As work on the quality control committee progressed, I became more and more
disenchanted. I was working hard at learning all I could about the product processes so changes could be made. Darth would verbally support all of the groups recommendations, but nothing was done. One day in early November, I was preparing for a meeting, when I sat back and reflected on the situation. Every couple of weeks we would meet in Darth's office, discuss our findings, recommend actions that should be taken, get Darth's support and approval and then nothing would happen.

At the next meeting I was going to address the lack of progress. I took my notes from the previous meeting and made up a list of seventeen actions which was supposed to have occurred in the intervening two weeks. I also noted the person who was responsible for implementing the change. I wanted to find out why nothing was being done.

I started the next quality control meeting by saying I wanted to go over what had been done since the last time. Darth tried to steer the meeting in another direction, but I was insistent. I took out my list, and one by one I addressed the expected actions and the person responsible. The answer was always the same; the people responsible had done nothing and they acted like they could care less. Finally, when I had completed the list, Darth turned to me and said, “Russ, how may items were you responsible for?”

“Three,” I replied.

“Well you only did two of them. See you didn't do all you were suppose to.”

I sat there in disbelief. No one else in the room had done anything, and Jordan was reprimanding me. He said nothing more to the other people. Once again I was wrong. Then we went on to business as usual.

I left the meeting feeling frustrated and with little enthusiasm for the quality control work. Darth was suppose to be all-powerful in the company and he was verbally supporting all of our recommendations, yet he said and did nothing when no actions were being taken. The feeling of frustration and failure was further enforced by the actions of another committee which had been formed at about the same time as our quality control committee. That group was responsible for identifying cost problems in production and then taking corrective actions. Ralph Sampson was a group member and he dutifully kept me abreast of their work. In direct contrast to our group, their group was being successful in carrying out corrective actions and they were achieving results. I was baffled by the difference in the results of the two groups.

My work in the laboratory was going well, and I had solved the major problem of not having adequate analytical facilities at Gamma Supplies by gaining access to equipment at the University of Wisconsin, Blackwater. In a stroke of luck, I had learned that my former office partner from the University of Florida was now a professor at the U. of Wisc., Blackwater. I quickly contacted him and gained permission to use the equipment there. Not only did it make my work easier, but there was no cost to Gamma Supplies which resulted in a savings of several thousand dollars in analytical fees. The analytical data was absolutely essential to support our technical position in the legal battle against Tenneland. Despite
all the other activity, winning the lawsuit was still the major objective of my work.