When I was an engineering co-op in college I had a job working with the standby power group of a Cummins distributor. We had a big job putting a 1MW genset in a data center. Awesome unit with a quad turbo, 50L, V16 diesel engine spinning the generator. We get a call from the project electricians explaining how there was a "goof" and one of their guys "accidentally" attached a 440v line to the low voltage (12v) annunciator wiring. The damage was limited to the annunciator board and swapping it out wasn't a huge deal but they are all custom built. We wouldn't get a custom unit in time for the contract deadline and missing the deadline would costs thousands of dollars each day until it was met. I looked at the old board and how the standard panels were and told my boss, "I can make the standard one work for us. Get me one." He trusted this co-op student with the task, had a new, non-custom panel delivered the next day and with a borrowed soldering iron I was able to salvage enough of the old board to replicate the customizations on the new board. This worked perfect and allowed us to meet the deadline with no penalties. It was eventually replaced with a newly built custom unit but I am positive mine would have worked just as well. When I left to go back to school I was presented with the award shown in the picture made from the panel I modified. While I felt the repair was kind of basic I saw how much it helped the people in my company and I am still proud every time I look at it.

I have worked in those big companies where missing a deadline is costly because of the ripple effect. If it was only that one project then maybe the cost can be minimized. Most projects use shared resources that rely on schedules for their availability. Missing deadlines hits the current project but also any other project that may rely on the share resource.

Your contribution may appear small but I can see why in that project and possibly others it was immense. On my team in addition to the award, you would have gotten a free lunch on my dime and the scenario documented on company letterhead for you to use at a job interview.

If you ever have the interview question "describe an experience where you contribution made a difference to a project outcome." Your answer can downplay your involvement but any interviewer worth their salt should know, holy crap, you stepped up and it was a big deal.

Great share BG.

I have worked in those big companies where missing a deadline is costly because of the ripple effect. If it was only that one project then maybe the cost can be minimized. Most projects use shared resources that rely on schedules for their availability. Missing deadlines hits the current project but also any other project that may rely on the share resource.

Your contribution may appear small but I can see why in that project and possibly others it was immense. On my team in addition to the award, you would have gotten a free lunch on my dime and the scenario documented on company letterhead for you to use at a job interview.

If you ever have the interview question "describe an experience where you contribution made a difference to a project outcome." Your answer can downplay your involvement but any interviewer worth their salt should know, holy crap, you stepped up and it was a big deal.

Great share BG.