Thursday, December 9

The 50% review (in-process review, or IPR) of Brew's IETM was coming up.

In six weeks, he had:

• Combined three incomplete organizational, intermediate, and depot-level maintenance manuals into one operation and maintenance manual, with maintenance procedures in separate work packages, by maintenance level, and with an Illustrated Parts Breakdown (IPB).
• Used existing line art where available and digital photographs where not.
• Used digital photographs for panoramic shots.
• Verified all step-by-step operating procedures by actual use.
• Verified all step-by-step maintenance procedures against detailed drawings, with callouts, from drawings in the IPB and from engineering drawings.
• Formatted the book according to the TMCR and referenced specifications, mil standards, etc.
• Used hypertext links to headings and topics within work packages.
• Included a contents section, with links, in a column on the first page of each work package.

His manager was hoping the book would be approved at 95%, and they would have a short list of minor changes to correct, and then deliver the final IETM on CD-ROM.

Brew was confident that's what he had.

His word processor, Dom, was not so positive.

She said at the IPR, the reviewer would have changed a semicolon to a colon and a colon to a dash, or vice versa, arbitrarily.

He would have changed the punctuation of list items in ordered and unordered lists to a complete sentence with a period at the end to a sentence fragment followed by a comma with a period after the last item only. With or without initial caps for each list item.

He would have changed active voice to passive voice, or vice versa, and in some cases past tense to present tense. Or vice versa.

He reworded Warnings, Cautions, and Notes.

If the manual didn't have one, he would ask for a summary of Warnings, Cautions, and Notes in the Introductory work package, and if it did, he would say it was redundant, and ask it be removed.

Synonyms that did not change the meaning of the sentence would be suggested to improve the flow. The readability. Big words would be replaced with small words. Sometimes small words would be replaced with big words.

If abbreviations were used they should be spelled out, and if they were spelled out they should be abbreviated.

But overall, he would have some sweeping universal change he wanted that would require extensive revisions, and another line-by-line review.

Like replacing all line art with photographs, or all photographs with line art.

He would have a reason.

Hearing his reason would make you madder than hearing what he wanted.

He wanted to fuck with your head.

He wanted to make you kiss his ass.

You couldn't argue with him, you couldn't look at him like he was a piece of shit, you couldn't appeal his decisions in writing. All you could do was try to stay on his good side when you were seething inside.

The two biggest lies in the world are when the Inspector General (IG) comes.

"We're only here to help you," and "We're glad to see you."

Two Full Days

The review took two full days.

The first day, Traci knew they were in trouble.

Rhino, who hosted the meeting, knew.

Lucy Diamond knew.

Brew knew.

Besides the reviewer, there as a man from Base Contracting, who sided with the reviewer, two maintenance men from East and West Coast AMCM squadrons, who didn't give a shit, but thought the book was much improved, and couldn't wait to get it, and the engineer in charge of the rewind machine, at depot, who was a civilian technician acting as the engineer. He argued with the reviewer about maintenance philosophy: who would be allowed to do what repairs, at squadron level. These were the questions the higher-ups could not agree on.

These two men were both assholes. And Actaeon was in the middle.

One side would win. The manual would be delivered. Then the other side would have the manual rewritten, after they got rid of the man who prevailed the first time, in their stead.

This was work for contractors, civil servants, double-dippers, triple-dippers.

The Navy runs on red tape.

Did you hear about the battleship at the dock that went aground on coffee grounds? They throw them over the side, you see.

After the first day, Rhino took Brew aside. To reassure him.

"These are all nit-picky," he said. We have made them commit to a finite list of changes. A punch list of action items we agree on. Dom can do some of the formatting changes without any input from you."

"That how I see it," Brew said.

"Why didn't you use photographs throughout?" he said. "Didn't Traci tell you to?"

"She did," Brew said. "I thought I'd used enough. I thought I was saving the company money, by using AutoCAD files we already had. It's my fault. She told me, and I didn't hear. I said yes and didn't do what she told me to."

"Well, it's water under the bridge, now," Rhino said. "Can you fix it in two weeks?"

"I can do my part in two weeks," Brew said. "But you'll need more like a month. Most of the actual work is Dom's, and she's already busy. I can mark up printouts of pictures I take, but she'll have to insert the pictures in the file, add callouts, and proof her work."

"You get it written and I'll get it word-processed and proofed. Do you need any help?"

"Two men can't tune a piano any faster than one man. I'll get it written."

Rhino told Brew he thought (1) they had been sandbagged, and (2) things could be fixed.

However, they'd spent all the money for the manual.

Dickless Traci would find the money somewhere but she would not like it.

She might rig a high sling for Brew's ass.

Shit don't run uphill.

Traci called Brew into his office.

"I'm disappointed," she said.

"Rhino told me what happened.

"I thought you understood what was required.

"I thought if you didn't, you'd come to me and ask."

"It went right over my head," Brew said. "In one ear and out the other. I assumed I knew. I thought I was going to get an Attaboy.

"No, no Attaboy."

Brew was dismissed.

On the way out the door, Traci said, "Do you know what to do?"

Brew said he did.

"Do it," she said.