The Primitive Pete

I don’t have the greatest recollection of my days in middle school but there is one thing that stands out in my mind, Industrial Art’s class. I don’t remember my instructors but I remember it was my first experience bending metal. We fabricated ash trays which we proudly brought home and presented to our parents. Aside from the interesting social commentary it was the first time I had actually produced a useful product with my hands. My dad, however was not too interested in my profession in the ash tray fabrication business. I remember him telling me on numerous occasions to get into a business where I could use my head... where I could think and get paid at the same time.

There is one more thing I remember.  I was introduced to a character who has lived with me ever since. His name was Primitive Pete. Primitive Pete had a staring role in an educational film produced in collaboration between General Motors and Walt Disney Productions known as the ABC’s of Hand Tools. A quick search on the Internet and you can view some of what remains of the Primitive Pete material. Pete was an interesting character; he of course was a caveman intent on using all the available hand tools he could find, in the wrong way. Using a screwdriver as a crowbar for instance and always, always using a hammer for just about every application. Now my memory of Pete is most likely flawed and having found the material on the Internet I intentionally did not go back and change my fond perception of him after 30 years – so please forgive me if there are some inaccuracies as I report him to you.

The important part of this topic is that there is a right way and a wrong way to use a tool. And there are certainly many tools available to the professional analyst. Tools, models, spreadsheets, simulations, programs, algorithms, heuristics, hierarchies, etc. all must be used correctly in order to have a remote chance of doing the job correctly. Unlike Primitive Pete however, if you use the wrong hand tool you will do a lousy job and even worse someone could loose an eye. For us, the use of a wrong tool will probably go unnoticed by most, and in the main no one will get hurt or killed in the process of doing the analysis. The end result will be the same, however, a bad job.

The bad job will manifest itself at some later time following the equally bad decision that could be made as a consequence of the influence. It’s certainly not inconceivable that someone could get hurt or die as a result of a bad decision – although this essay should not be so bleak as too suggest that product safety or sound engineering principles in the fabrication of a product wouldn’t be assumed – the other guys always to their job correctly. So we are professionals in are trade at the office, not shade tree mechanics or Norm Abram’s carpenter want-a-bees as we might be at home. Professional means we know what we are doing and we will do the job correctly with the right tools at our disposal.

So why do we fail? Typically it is because we use the tools that are in our toolbox just like Primitive Pete. If the tool is in there we will probably find a use for it. It saves us a trip to the hardware store. Also, our tools tend to be very expensive software applications – and it is difficult to retool the factory without a major investment. Another reason is training – we know how to use the tool that’s in the box – if there is another one, we may not know about it or may not know how to use it. In addition, even if the tool in the box is the correct tool for the application, very frequently we don’t use it correctly or we don’t bother to sharpen it, to draw yet another analogy with hand tools.

I’m fairly certain that an unsharpened tool is about the most dangerous one of them all. That’s the wood chisel that when sharpened will carve wood like soft clay but when dull you will invariably drive deep into the palm of your hand. So here are a few examples from our profession. Using a linear program to optimize a non-linear behavior. Using old data or data that has been prepared by another group that is not fully reviewed and understood in the context of your analysis. Adding too much complexity to a spreadsheet thereby loosing either the cause/effect traceability or fixating on a portion of the problem that is not the main concern. Or conversely, over simplifying a problem that requires more detail.

The list goes on and some of the right ways to approach problems will be addressed in further installments of this blog...please stay tuned.