I learned the hardest way possible that it is a poor idea to get caught up in somebody else’s doings. It was at Texas Instruments (TI), the Sherman, TX facility where I was hired yet again, but this time as design support to the Inductive Devices Division. Tom Bradley, Line Supervisor beyond compare, was overseeing the manufacture of the close-wound coil that enhanced many TI inductive products.
Close-wound coil at TI is formed like a garage door spring, but made of copper rather than steel. For this application spring tension is immaterial; it is the unique shape and composition of the copper, an excellent electrical conductor, which is of import. It is flexible like a slithery snake and easy to shape to suit whatever application without breaking or deforming.
Mr. Bradley (I called him Tom) had settled on an approach to winding that spun the wire onto a rotating spindle to form an endless coil. It was an efficacious concept, though still too labor intensive. My assignment was to take Tom’s approach and automate it.
This was a task where big dreams could fly. Money was not a problem. We’re talking military spending here. Copper wire was fed automatically onto a motorized rotating spindle where it coiled round and round sliding off the pin as a continuous wrap formed. From there, a rotating array of 8 troughs accepted 18” long coils, one at a time, and deposited each one neatly into a receptacle for storage. The troughs were milled into the entire length of a 20” long, 4” diameter, Delrin (polyoxymethylene) rod. Don’t ask me what that massive hunk of engineering grade plastic cost. I did the design, not the accounting.
A photocell monitored the coil as it in turn advanced down the length of each trough. When the coil attained the required length, the photocell actuated a solenoid circuit that rotated a cutting blade. Whap! That provided for discrete pre-measured lengths of precision coiled wire. The Delrin rod with eight milled troughs at 45 degree intervals around its periphery was a designer’s wet dream. A 45 degree stepper motor, eg. precisely rotating an eighth turn with every actuation, presented the troughs at precisely the right time and place to accept the next coil as it slid into the next track.
So if it all went together so nicely, what was the problem?
There was no problem. The machine worked like a dream. I had taken Tom’s little motor and spindle and morphed it into a whiz-bang gadget for the ages. Not only did it work beautifully, but it was beautiful. My husband, Larry, a man I admired—actually adored—for his engineering savvy, had taught me how to achieve a shadowbox effect with metal enclosures. Such subtleties made the Worm Winder look like a piece of professional industrial equipment, not some mechanical monster kluged together in a greasy machine shop.
The ends of the enclosure were 12” squares of 3/4” thick solid 6061-T6 aluminum plate with ½” R corners and painted flat black. 1/8” thick 2024-T3 aluminum sheet formed the entire front, back, top, and bottom. The top and bottom were shaped with 1” R edges that provided stiffness and the effect of professional looking design. The top lid attached to the back along the entire length with a 3 ft. long piano hinge, with two rows of blind rivets hiding the attachment points. All the sheet metal was painted flat industrial beige, which contrasted nicely with the black end plates.
The “little machine that could” would sit and spin out close-wound pre-cut coils, 120 an hour, ‘til the cows came home. But in this case, the cows did come home. Tom didn’t like it. Worm Winder would run for entire shifts in the design lab, but as soon as it hit the manufacturing floor, everything went awry. It was never clear what, exactly, had gone wrong. But by shift end, Tom’s prototype motor and spindle were again operating in rescue mode, two employees attending to its quirky maintenance. A design lab tech would go out and re-start the Worm Winder. All would be humming happily, but the problem would repeat itself again, and again, and yet again.
Finally management had to acquiesce. The Worm Winder was certified as officially a failure. Tom Bradley, after all, didn’t like it. Management had to decide: replace the machine or replace the man. It was a classic decision; the machine must go. My failure was in not engaging the man as artfully as I did the design task. It was doomed from inception.
My last memory of my beautiful Worm Winder was visiting it at shift-end, standing in a quiet assembly bay, one hand caressing each square end plate, as I watched the tears of my body fall onto the lovely sweep of the piano-hinged lid. It was my baby. I loved it. The prettiest machine I ever built was a failure, not because of any technical defect, but because I didn’t have the basic understanding of how to play well with others in order to build something wonderful—together.
I did enjoy the lovely task of preparing the usual Patent Disclosure, wherein I got to praise the WW to the skies and describe in drawings and descriptions all the wonders of the little beast. It made me feel better, and who knows, given that complete definition it may someday be reconstituted at a time and in a place where Tom Bradley doesn’t know it has been hatched yet again. Jurassic Park perhaps? Then it may fly!
Our time at TI Sherman was complicated. It was there that at thirty-four I decided to have yet another baby, working until only a week before onset of labor. Another case of divided loyalty! I wanted to be Super-engineer; I also wanted to be Super-mom. Having lost my daughter to a half-blind superannuated driver, I wanted to do something to repair the deficit.
Once the baby arrived, we needed a caregiver. My husband’s Engineering Group Leader’s wife, Izzy, agreed to baby-sit. Once baby Kurt was happily ensconced in their household’s porta-crib, the question of religious affiliation arose. Larry’s boss Connor and Izzy suggested that we should make a visit to their church.
“What kind of church,” I asked.
“Pentecostal,” he replied without skipping a beat.
I gulped and cast about for a reply. “Maybe, someday.”
“Someday soon?”
“Well, just as soon as I get life sorted out at home.”
Weeks went by. Every time I encountered Connor, he asked, “When are you going to come and visit our church?”
Putting him off worked for only so long. Larry cautioned me that Connor was an assertive proselytizer and would not be deterred. We decided that a visit would be a small price to pay for Larry’s job security, perhaps even for mine. We considered in retrospect the foolishness of taking jobs in the same cost center. Larry’s boss and mine, though different people, worked for the same Department Manager. We were vulnerable indeed.
The worship service handled no snakes, but featured every other wild and wooly item we had heard and read about connected with the sect. On cue every person but Larry and I began speaking in tongues along with some who rolled on the floor in carefully chosen spots that offered adequate space for frenzied gesticulations. Another cue from the pastor, and everybody instantly came to their senses, returned to their pews, and readjusted their composure. We were aghast. When asked after the service to consider joining the congregation, we demurred, too terrified to make political excuses as we fumbled with the door locks of our car.
We high-tailed it home, hired another babysitter, and kept on doing our level best. The very next month, in spite of two excellent performance reviews, both Larry and I were caught in the same RIF (reduction in force). I guess we had been pulled in too many directions. My heart was definitely not pure.
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Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish theologian and philosopher, suggests that a mind divided is a mind unable to be at peace with itself. When we desire contradictory ends there is no chance for the mind to find harmony; always there is inner strife, conflict, and confusion. When the mind pulls in two directions at once we inevitably suffer; we are forever restless, dissatisfied, and second-guessing ourselves.
(Wild Mind Meditation)
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