First job I got out of school was with a large DoD contractor. You have very likely heard of them. I was in the enhanced engineering department, up there with t

First job I got out of school was with a large DoD contractor. You have very likely heard of them. I was in the enhanced engineering department, up there with the rest of the smarties, not really knowing what they saw in me. There was one guy, Bill, who was an 'engineer emeritus' and an old Cold Warrior. The guy, no joke, was a genius. He was the only person in The West that knew about ablative nose-cone chemistry for ICBMs and the like. He's tell us junior engineers great stories. There was the one period of time where he'd get briefcases filled with empty steel bottles and was asked to analyze what was in them. No telling where they were from or if any of the stuff was radioactive or anything. He taught me a great lesson in engineering management. He technically had an email address, but it just auto responded that he never checked it, call him [0] or walk on over for a chat. I remember thinking: "What a proud, old, stupid man. How regressive!". How dare he say these things! You have to respond to emails. Well, just that little bit of friction was enough to stop all the nonsense in his product group. Just the act of having to dial in the numbers and wait, just the act of having to get up out of the seat and then go actually talk to Bill, it was enough to have most people sit and think about what they were going to ask him. Most of the time, they really didn't need to say anything at him. If it was actually important, then yes, you'd get up and talk to him or give him the files he needed or whatever. When it came to our DoD work, friction ended up being a good thing actually. It made you think just a half-step more about what you were doing, if it really was anything. [0] The phone number was for the bar down the street, where Bill spent many of his days. Honest to God. You'd call, a barback would answer, and then he'd yell at Bill to amble over and take the phone.