The Bob Pease show

[G7PSK]

Not sure if this has already been linked before but I have just stumbled upon this, The Bob Pease show from National Semiconductor.

[free_electron]

There is a whole series on youtube of the bob pease show !

[Smokey]

Those shows always make me want to show up to a design review with a bunch of hand drawn, cut up transparencies and a projector and start presenting.

My favorite programming language is Python...... But my second favorite programming language is solder

[Macbeth]

Not sure if this has already been linked before but I have just stumbled upon this, The Bob Pease show from National Semiconductor.

An absolute legend in analog circuitry. Solder is his programming language. Sadly missed.

Now if you think you have an untidy desk...

[Rigby]

I know that he and Jim Williams were true geniuses, but it is really, really hard to respect someone with a workspace like those guys had.  Mostly because it makes younger, greener folks think it's OK to be completely disorganized and have $3,000 worth of $0.001 parts tied up in half-built (or even fully built) test circuits that get used once and forgotten.

If it weren't for the mind-blowing amount of stuff these guys created and improved, they would not have been allowed to have desks like those.

I'm not against an untidy desk.  I'm not trying to promote some stupid clean=better point of view, but these guys didn't respect their own workspaces, for some reason.  They didn't see a need for themselves to even shove boards into boxes and stack them up.  They finish a test on a board, set it down somewhere, and it wouldn't move for 30 years.  I can't put my finger on what it is about that, but it's not a thing that is common among mentally healthy people.

I didn't get to meet either of them, but I'm sure this stupid opinion of mine would have changed had I met either of them.  They had a great trait that is very, very rare today - the willingness to teach others, and to take the time necessary to do it properly.

[T3sl4co1l]

"Mentally healthy people"

Well, considering you've already excluded that attribute from the sample group, it goes without saying.

Tim

[mtdoc]

I'm not against an untidy desk.  I'm not trying to promote some stupid clean=better point of view, but these guys didn't respect their own workspaces, for some reason.  They didn't see a need for themselves to even shove boards into boxes and stack them up.  They finish a test on a board, set it down somewhere, and it wouldn't move for 30 years.  I can't put my finger on what it is about that, but it's not a thing that is common among mentally healthy people.

I don't think it is that simple. I have seen similar traits in the biological sciences when I was in academia.   It's not uncommon for creative geniuses to be very disorganized and unable to keep personal space (and lives) tidy and organized.    I think it may have something to do with their brains functioning in a massively parallel fashion.  It takes a certain amount of serial cognition to keep an organized desk. 

Think of the other extreme - the obsessive compulsive "neat freaK" whose desk is extremely tidy and organized but who never entertains an original thought.

Most people probably function somewhere between these extremes....

[jancumps]

Let's not forget they might have found it funny and creative to grow a desk like that - it takes some effort. Or maybe they showed off the exceptional status they had in the company by proving that they could get away with it.

Or something else

I love it.

[Jon86]

it is really, really hard to respect someone with a workspace like those guys had.

Oh come on, don't be so stuck up. At the end of the day it's their workspace not anyone elses, personally I like having an area somewhere between the two extremes, enough stuff out so I don't have to keep digging things out of drawers, but not so much that I don't have any space to do anything. It's just personal preference really.

[G7PSK]

I have found that when I am working hard at something, there is not any time to tidy up, the time is better spent on doing the work at hand. I find that when I Finnish one job another comes along so I only clear the decks enough for that. I do however give the workshop a good clean out at Christmas.
So I can understand how they came to have a desk like that, they just never found the time to do mundane things like tidy up, after a time one tends to remember where every thing is and if it gets tidied you can no longer find it,

[Dave Turner]

Different times different strokes.

If this was indeed Bob's workspace; I'll bet that he knew within an inch (maybe 6) where to find anything. What I wouldn't give to look through that lot, not that I'd understand it.

Just because today's perception is for the clean shaven, clean desk policy doesn't mean that that is the best way. I seriously wonder how much companies lose by being too anal. Bob Pease had earned his right to be eccentric in the best way - by results.

[jancumps]

.... Bob Pease had earned his right to be eccentric in the best way - by results.

That is true. If he would just have been Joe Doe with a messy desk, he'd be long forgotten.

In the end it's the great legacy of knowledge and inventiveness he left. And the desk adds colour to that.

[JoeO]

If a cluttered desk is a sign of an cluttered mind, what is the sign of an empty desk?

[Rigby]

If a cluttered desk is a sign of an cluttered mind, what is the sign of an empty desk?

A cluttered desk is usually the sign of either a very, very organized mind, or a very, very disorganized mind (in the case of hoarders, which I don't think Bob Pease was.)  If you can remember where things are, there is very little point to visible organization.

My father was a bit like Bob, in terms of organization.  Everything had its place, only he knew what that place was, and that thing's proper place changed every time he touched it.  He remembered where every little thing was, he didn't have a discernable system, and it was clear to me (remember that I am talking about my father here, not Mr. Pease) that he didn't want anyone near his stuff.  It was my father's way of keeping everyone away.

[Excavatoree]

That reminds me of a story I heard about Mr. Pease.  Someone walked into his office, and asked for a catalog.  Bob, without looking, told him "You're standing on it."   Bob had thrown the catalog over toward the entry and I believe he planned to move it, later.  He knew right where it was.

In contrast, my dad, and I get disorganized and forget what we did with it.  I get messy when I'm in the middle of something, but afterward, if I don't step back and take some time to organize, I won't be able to find anything.

My dad is a terrible hoarder, but seeing how bad his place has gotten (think about a two story workshop about 75 sq meters total that looks like Mr. Pease's desk, then there's his "basement rooms" which are just as bad) forces me to throw things away, and not end up like that. 

[JoeO]

People in electronics, who I respect, all have offices and work areas just like this, me included.  I think it stems from the fact that when I am building, I want the information or parts right at hand.  I don't want to have to go out and buy them or wait for them in the mail.
However, with the all the technical information available on the internet and the purchase of a $400 scanner, my paper problems have gone away.

[Rigby]

One can have all the parts at hand while still avoiding complete chaos.

[JoeO]

If you have a large enough area and unlimited resources.

[T3sl4co1l]

If you're the kind of person whose working memory is poor, then organization while working will help you, at the expense of some time and bother to do it.

If instead you're the kind of person who can keep a lot of things in mind at once, you don't care because you can just pull it from memory.  Meanwhile, this speeds up your work, and since your memory is good, you can probably concentrate on a lot of things at once.  So you do more work faster.

The type of work matters.  You're costing yourself time and money if you aren't organized when doing assembly.  But I don't think Pease was much of an assembly worker, so that's hardly a problem.

Tim

[mtdoc]

If instead you're the kind of person who can keep a lot of things in mind at once, you don't care because you can just pull it from memory.  Meanwhile, this speeds up your work, and since your memory is good, you can probably concentrate on a lot of things at once. 

This is what I was alluding to before. The proclivity to do lots of  parallel cognition! (but sometimes at the expense of tasks requiring serial cognition!).

So you do more work faster.

It depends on the kind of  work.

People who excel at this kind of thinking tend to be better at creating - though make poor assembly line workers...

[Smokey]

I'm not sure if this is the #1 rule of management, but it's pretty high up there.....

***If someone is getting their job done well and isn't negatively effecting anyone else...... Leave Them Alone!

[Rigby]

I'm not sure if this is the #1 rule of management, but it's pretty high up there.....

***If someone is getting their job done well and isn't negatively effecting anyone else...... Leave Them Alone!

What if you see that they could be even more effective in another position?  Do you offer it to them or do you leave them alone?  What if you've been waiting a long time for someone with this level of expertise to come around for a long time and you want them to work on a key project for the company?  Do you offer, or do you leave them alone?

There is no way that people who do their job well and do it without impeding anyone else will be left alone.

[free_electron]

the floor is simply the largest shelf i have ....

[c4757p]

Why would you have to argue about some other dude's desk? Who cares if he "respsected his workspace" or whatever? If he were being paid to "respect a workspace" his title would be "janitor".

[Rigby]

Why would you have to argue about some other dude's desk? Who cares if he "respsected his workspace" or whatever? If he were being paid to "respect a workspace" his title would be "janitor".

Well, sorry.  I didn't realize I had to run my commentary past you, first.  And I didn't ask you to take my side, I only said that it's weird and that maybe he didn't respect himself a whole lot.  One can be extremely talented AND be self-loathing... It's actually pretty common. 

If you don't like what I say that's fine, but I don't understand why you felt the need to comment on that, of all things.  I was done with this topic until you posted that.