2nd Generation

Oh this is gonna be a short one, but i couldn't resist to share.

Last week I walked pass Juan's room, he shouted with enthusiasm "Hey Ken, you got a sec?".

Juan is this Engineering manager with only one engineering team lead by Enrique (nice hierarchy huh), he's quiet unique in the sense that I think he's the only MANAGER in the firm with one man under him. Effectively Enrique manages more staff than Juan. (DONT ASK ME WHY)

"I got this exciting new project, the client is asking for our help to produce a slightly enhanced incremental version (V1.5) of their existing mechanical component."

"Good news" I said. "But what's the catch?"

"We are already working with their team, but some aspects still not within specs"

"Errrr, so?"

"They are keen on having us to develop for them, and within 2 - 3 years, they will retire V1.5 and replace with a even better V2.0 which would last for another 10 years"

Puzzled, I asked: "What is the planned development timeframe plus qualification? And what's their Annual Usage?"

Juan started mumbling cuz he doesn't know shit.

"hmm... hmm... around 9 months to qualify and then ramp up for production, first year maybe < 50K and then maybe <100K"

"Are we second source? What's the component life usage for the past 7-8 years" starting to loose my patience.

"Yes, and probably around > 10 million"

"WTF?" I shouted. "The component is approaching end of life and you are asking us to devote resource on it? Why don't we just start on the 2nd Generation (or V2)"

"Because V1.5 is easier"

He said, with a nice smile on his face. Like the kind of face when your children think they give the right answer.

"Fu@k you and we will go back and tell the client we will work on V1.5 if we are also given V2.0, or simply ask them to switch to V2.0 earlier"

"But..."

Don't want to listen to any more of his crap, I interrupt him and said

"Juan, listen to me, you will lose your job if you ONLY work on V1.5, go home, have a good sleep, and tell me why we should work on V2 tomorrow or you will retire with V1.5."