My "Office Space" Moment

Those of you who have seen and love the movie "Office Space" will relate to this experience I had over the past couple weeks.

In my lab class (which is ridiculously work and time intensive, but nonetheless a good experience) we routinely have to take mass amounts of data and present it all in a written report. One report of our choosing, however, can be done orally.

For one part of this particular lab, I was running out of time but knew that the data I was taking should graph to be in the form of a sine wave. Since the measurement was time consuming, I measured the two extrema of the wave (since those were the important values) and then just a few in between. I then had to repeat the measurement to show repeatability. When I finished taking this data set and had already moved onto the next part of the lab, the TA came in and commented on my data that I should probably take more data points to make the graph look like a sine wave. I then explained to him that I was running out of time and that I took the necessary points and that the sine shape could be visually extrapolated from the points I did take. He then commented that he saw my point, but that I should go back and take more data if I can. I then said that I would if I have time.



This is a graph of the data. Yes, it is obviously not a perfect sinusoid but you get the picture...it goes down and up. If you curve the lines to connect the points, you get a sine wave...not too difficult to visualize. Anyway, I used this image as part of my presentation. When showing it, I specifically explained to the committee of three teachers (one of which was the aforementioned TA) that I realize that it's not a prefect sinusoid, but that I didn't have time to take more data so I made sure to get the relevant points and to do it twice for repeatability. I then instructed them to visualize a sinusoidal fit to the points and the sine wave would be pretty clear.

After my presentation they had an opportunity to ask questions of me. One of the first was "That graph should look like a sine wave but it doesn't. How do you explain that?" I then again explained the lack of time and how the important points...yadda yadda. He then told me that I probably should have taken more data points to which I responded that I would have had I more time, but the class is timed and that I can only get so much done in that short amount of time (It's important to keep in mind that everyone else in the class is working in groups of two, but my partner left at the beginning of the year so I'm working by myself and thus have to do twice as much work as everyone else in the same amount of time).

I then waited outside the room while they decided on a grade for my presentation. The head instructor came out and told me I got an 80%, which he said was a pretty good grade since no one really did that great of a job. I asked what I could have done better and the main thing he said was "You should get more data next time. Your graphs would look more like they should if you get more data. Also you should take more than one data set to show repeatability."

"Did you get the memo about the TPS reports?" -- Bill Lumburgh in Office Space