Episode Transcript:
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Abby:
Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of What's the Word. I'm your host, Abby, and today we have a special guest for you. Today we're joined with Jeff Bloom. And Jeff, why don't you give us a little bit of background about yourself?
Jeff:
I'm a 1988 graduate from the Prescott campus of BS in computer science. And I've since retired from working and moved to live in Houston and moved to Silver City, New Mexico.
Abby:
Awesome, awesome. And while you were at Riddle, did you have a favorite memory you'd like to share?
Jeff:
There's two things. One of them was, is, unlike the October West is back in the 80s, it was just wrapped around what, what they were doing was Casino Night. But it was really a fun time, because they had a full casino set up in the gym with the blackjack tables and roulette tables and craps tables, and the faculty and the students and folks from town would just come out, dress up and have a great time. It was great. And another one is, is after I first moved out there, the first freshman year in November, no rain the whole time, and then there was a massive flood that came through there. Storm came through for a couple of hours and just flooded out buildings and all kinds of stuff. And that was, I've never seen a flood that bad before. And it was an impressive hike to see, and the cleanup was a mess. But those two things stand out, other than the environment itself. I love the environment out there, and that's because I came from Houston flat ground.
Abby:
Right, right. It's definitely a change moving out from flat Texas, where there's droughts and everything, out to Embry Riddle, where mountains and monsoons and everything takes place.
Jeff:
Yes, and it left an impression with the environment itself, the whole environment out there. It left a big impression on me, and it's what drove me to Silver City. Actually, I was trying to drive me back to Prescott after I retired, but ended up in Silver City, New Mexico.
Abby:
That's awesome, very, very fun. Those are really good memories to have. And so what was your job right before you retired? What did you do?
Jeff:
So, I worked over as a contractor at NASA, over at mission control, as a software engineer. So, and I worked supporting the systems, supporting the missions. I started in software configuration management, controlling application software source code and building the deliverable products. And my last job was basically was working in a group that was responsible for the application configurations used in Mission Control, for the flight control rooms, the support rooms them, the offices, even from home, and we were responsible basically for installing hundreds of applications, getting them configured, and making sure the flight control teams get what they needed when they needed, and being the first point of troubleshooting front time issues with the applications.
Abby:
Wow, that's awesome. And were you able to take a lot of what you learned from your major and apply it to that job?
Jeff:
My first job was yes, because I was, I actually went out and actually coded. I went in as a coder, and I would be doing directly what I was from my degree. Got the job over at NASA. It was a different perspective, because I wasn't writing code, but I was taking the responsibility of controlling what other engineer developers were producing. I was able to transition based on the knowledge I gained in being able to figure out how to learn more stuff, where to go, look for more information, how to that kind of support. So, I went directly from the university my degree, doing exactly what I got the degree for, and then moved into a different location, and had been there basically ever since. And it was what I learned in the university at the in the degree helped me on the to make that transition from a different perspective, from just coding to managing.
Abby:
Awesome, very cool. I bet that was a nice transition, very smooth.
Jeff:
Yes, it was the first job actually put me in that position, as I was a coder and moved into testing and then and I saw what was going on, and then that was what got me the job at NASA. Is the experience I was able to get that first job for the two years right out of college, and my goal was to get to NASA, and I got there.
Abby:
Well, congratulations. That's awesome. And do you have a favorite part of your job that you had?
Jeff:
Just in the general context of I wanted to work at NASA, and I wanted to be involved in some way with the space program, and so I got to do what I wanted to do while I was even when I was in college. That's what I wanted to do. But the bigger one is, is I just loved working with the engineers that were developing the software and the engineers that were working the flight control teams, keeping the customers happy, making sure they got what they. Needed when they needed, fixing what was broken and helping make their task easier, if I could.
Abby:
Okay. Very cool. And now, what did a typical day look like at work?
Jeff:
The whole job was basically ad hoc, and in the sense that I knew what my job would entail, the application management, working with the developers, the engineers, the flight control team, but you would have a plan to do stuff for the day, when you left the night before and you'd come back in the next morning, go do your normal work, check to see what the systems are doing, see if everything's running, checking any status reports, checking what anybody is requesting, any work request, and then you would plant out the rest of your day based of based on those kind of things. So, we would build software, we would install software, we would test. We would work with the developers to make sure that their new applications are going to fit into the system, or how they would fit into the system, and then work with the users afterwards to make sure we get it installed in a way and configured in a way that the users, end users, would see and have what they need when they were on console.
Abby:
And so, were you able to tie writing into your day-to-day work?
Jeff:
A lot going into that. One is, is, yes, it was the emails. You have to do a lot of response. The bigger one, the day to day, ongoing activities were almost always attributed to emails. People would send you, requests you would, or you would do stuff you would have to document what was done for whatever reasons. If there was a problem with an application, what was done to correct the application and getting it set up and running again. So, most of the communications on a day-to-day activity were basically emails, but you always had projects to work on that were working on the side. So statusing reports that you would have to produce weekly, or for the projects presentations we would have to build up. There was something that was a major task that needed to be presented out to how it was progressing. Those three things were taking up most of the time. The emails, of course, was the primary communication. And then we would do process and procedure documents that we would always have to policies, procedures, processes that we would have to write up an update on a regular basis, but day to day, the majority of it was communications through emails.
Abby:
Okay. And did you find that with the more emails you sent, that word choice played more of a role?
Jeff:
I always had a problem with that I wrote from a technical and logical perspective. So, I always wrote too much detail, and it was always too long. And over time, I had learned that I would write up a response if sometimes it's a very simple response to an email, and you can come up with something, but if things were not going right, or if it was a new project, even through an email, I would write way too much in too much detail for the majority of the people that wanted to. So, the biggest thing I had is trying to figure out how to compartmentalize the information and come up with an executive summary of, so to speak, to put it in the emails. And a lot of times what I ended up doing is, is I would spend time writing up a big response, and whatever I put is the last section of summary, or whatever I could take that, put it at the top of the list, the top of the email, and put a little bit of transition in, and I could actually have everything I needed for the management, for the customer, for the coworkers, and I can slice and dice what I needed to get to each one of the groups without having to rewrite everything. I knew everything was based on the same logical flow, but my biggest one was the words were too many. The word choice is important because it's hard put in writing in a way that somebody doesn't read between the lines, doesn't see something that you don't see. And that happens all the time. When you write an email, something short, that you say something in the email, and it leaves an open question. It was the worst thing to put something out and then immediately start getting all these responses back. Did you mean or did you What about this? What about that? And it always frustrated me when I would put something out that left too many open questions in what I was sending out. And I probably spent a lot more time trying to come up with the responses to emails than I probably should have, but it was always I never did, like the open ended getting a bunch of stuff back because I didn't answer the question, or I left too many open issues in the email. If I knew that there was going to be open questions, to at least put those open questions in there to say that these still have to be answered, or we haven't gotten there yet. Type of scenario, because I never liked getting a barrage of emails back that says, Well, what about this same thing in if you get past the emails, the status reports and stuff like that, that that if you're giving a status report, that it was good, especially for management, to know that there was more still to do and what those high level things were to do.
Abby:
Right, right. Yes, very important, especially when you're talking to management.
Jeff:
And coworkers, generally knew what was left to do and what was still open. But it was the management always, didn't always necessarily know that, because they had so much other stuff going on, other responsibilities. So, it was to add in at the end of what you were giving a status or responding to that if there was anything open left to be done.
Abby:
Well, you know that leads me right into my last question for you today. Do you have any advice for our current Eagles?
Jeff:
Take advantage to as many out of class activities that you can handle, and they don't have to actually be directly related to your degree. When I was there, either because of me or because of whatever was going on back in the 80s, I wasn't that much involved outside of the classroom. But I think the university now there's an abundance of opportunities, and I think that is a that builds on your foundation and tying it into the writing element. And I got this from two perspectives, is work with the philanthropy Council, and a lesson learned from some of those teams was, if they had to produce documentation, it would show its immaturity. If you wait to the last minute to work on your documentation, it shows that you waited to the last minute to work on your documentation because you're going to rush the stuff out. So, while you're performing whatever task you're performing, as you're progressing along, don't leave it to the last so start out a template of whatever your documentation that you have to produce, test reports, procedures, processes, and drop notes as you move along the process, so you're not leaving the documentation. Whatever your writing element requirement would be, don't wait to the last minute to do it, because if you do it will show its immaturity. It will show that it wasn't thoughtfully it wasn't thoughtfully produced, because you rushed to put it out in a lot of cases. And I saw that in several the presentations from the teams working with the Flansbury Council, when they doing their presentations, that some of the teams had actually pointed out that they waited too long to work on the documentation, and it showed in the final product. And the other one that helped me a lot as I moved through my career was to keep a journal of the work you perform, and that way you can at the time that you produce something you do, something that you've got notes of things that didn't go as expected, the things that you've done right, the things that have failed, lessons learned, so that you have a basis to go back on and look at when you have to produce, whatever you have to produce, you have to do status reports, so that way you know, if your status reports what happened two weeks ago, when you don't remember what happened. I don't remember what happened two weeks ago, necessarily. It's nice to be able to go back to a journal and see what little notes, just tidbits and notes that you write down, could help you produce a better status report, better procedure report. If you're a procedure, if you make a note that something didn't go as expected, how do I better document the procedure to help with the expected output, or what would come out, not necessarily come out correctly, that it could possibly mess up. And this is the kinds of things that happen. So those notes that you take in your journal could be useful for future things that you need to write, status reports, procedure reports, and possibly, if there's a review of a past event, you could have your notes as to what went, what you saw and what you did.
Abby:
Perfect. And that is great advice. Thank you so much, Jeff. And that wraps up this week's episode of What's the Word we want to give Jeff another big thank you for being on with us this week. We loved having you on Jeff. If you're new to our podcast, be sure to stay tuned for more. You can always find us on Apple podcasts Spotify or YouTube.
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Amelia:
This podcast is supported by the Department of Humanities and Communication at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. Our hosts are Abigail Bradberry and Owen Smith. Matthew Haslam is the Department Chair, and I'm Amelia Chesley, Assistant Professor of Professional Writing. Many thanks to the Prescott campus Writing and Design Lab for hosting our transcripts. The intro and outro music is Wanderer by Aylex. You can find. Find us where most podcasts are found, and please do reach out if you are a Prescott campus alumnus, we'd love to feature you in a future episode.
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