Bruce Hamilton recently wrote about his former colleague Manny S., whom he referred to as a “Lesser God.” The article reminded me of my former colleague Jose P., who trained me in my first quality job after college. By that time I had read W. Edwards Deming and Philip Crosby and had learned some basic theory in college, but had never worked in the field of quality.

Jose P. was the day-shift quality technician, and I was the night-shift quality technician. Our shifts overlapped enough so he could spend some time showing me the ropes. I’m hesitant to use the word “training”; this was not sitting in a classroom and learning theory. It was pure on-the-job training, and Jose knew the job of quality technician better than anybody else in the company.

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