The Sunday post has also been prepared.
It was 2005, a time when I had not yet finished night school, yes, despite my age I was still a student (you will understand later why I made this note), but I will tell you about that in the future. I had started to work for what was at the time one of the ten largest co-operatives in Italy in the global services and construction sectors. My boss (Giorgio Contini), who later became a good friend, told me that as a result of winning a new contract, which later became THE project of joy and tears, it was necessary to connect the second site we had, just over 1 km away, with a more powerful instrument than the ISND.
After some research, I was convinced that installing a laser bridge would be much better than a radio link. As the two buildings to be connected were within sight of each other, we started the project by purchasing the equipment (in early May). Of course, it had to be full-duplex to guarantee a higher bandwidth. Giorgio was never 100% convinced, but allowed me to proceed without too many constraints, perhaps the enthusiasm of the 'young' students convinced him that it could be a good solution. Immediately after the installation, we started the calibration phase. In practice, the circle generated by the laser had to hit the receptor 1 km away and vice versa. This was an activity that we carried out in the evening hours to make it easier.
Given the urgency, we informed our colleagues that it was possible to use it, and they were able to appreciate the performance right away. As I said, it was May... As every year, May is when the hot weather starts, and this year was no different. Unfortunately, as the season progressed, the heat only increased... and with it... our problems. In fact, the 'laser bridge' stopped working at certain times of the day. At first we thought the sunlight was interfering with the laser signal...but it wasn't...then we blamed an industry in the middle of the two buildings that used steam for its own industry, and when it released steam into the atmosphere at certain times, it created 'clouds' of steam...this back and forth lasted several weeks. To make matters worse, we had to use a trap door in the general manager's office to get to the roof of one of the buildings where we had installed one of the two units. This brought the problem directly to the attention of the 'big boss'... I leave it to you to guess the difficulty, a director who, despite the fact that we were working in a cooperative, every time he arrived at the company he would shout from the stairwell a resounding 'we will never give up'.
I don't want to bore you any longer, the problem was solved by dismantling the whole thing and activating the fiber optic cable that had arrived in the area (there was none at the beginning)... Oh, I forgot... the problem was caused by the thermal expansion of the buildings. In one of the meeting, while discussing the problem with colleagues, we discovered that the expansion of the concrete over a distance of 1 km was enough to cause the two devices to be out of position.
I described the fact not so much because of the technical aspect, but because of the mistake as such.
Yes, my boss gave me the opportunity (consciously or not) to make mistakes, and I was not aware at the time how lucky I was. And the luck continued in the following years, because even those who became my bosses let me make mistakes, not without criticism, of course, but never with negative judgements
It is only in recent years, when I have had the good fortune to lead groups of very young people, that I have realized how lucky I was back then. That is why I think it is right to let things go wrong, to criticize in good time and to put the criticism into an objective context.
In so many years of work I have made many mistakes, but I have always been lucky to have bosses like Gianluca, Stefano and Giorgio who have given me the chance to make mistakes. For my part, I hope that the guys I have worked with, who I am working with and who I will be working with can feel the same willingness.
In order to better explain the concept I have tried to express, I leave you with the link to some videos by the great Julio Velasco. I am sure that he will be able to explain the concept much better than I can (it doesn't take much).
I'd like to end by thanking the many people I've met in my professional life, not least my parents, for the freedom they've given me.
Never be afraid to be wrong!
Doing nothing is far worse than failing!!
How to manage errors (Spanish with subtitle): https://fb.watch/j2_C_BJEL_/
The ability to critique and not judge (Italian with youtube subtitle): https://youtu.be/IWP4hyLo6gc
Full lesson: https://youtu.be/zlq2N0DAyh8
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