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40 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2022 1. Narcissist (Oxford Def ): a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of them- selves. "Narcissists think the world revolves around them." Older PCB designers from the aerospace industry will surely remember the ficti- tious MIL-TFP-41 spec (Make It Like the Freakin' Print for Once), which was a com- mon expression of frustration by un-empa- thetic engineers regarding the status of their partially built or incorrectly-built designs. Sadly, missing a target condition on a run of printed circuit boards is a two-way street. Root causes may show a breakdown of process on the part of the supplier, but all too oen perceived fab or assembly failure is due to missing or fuzzy design specification, abnor- mally tight tolerancing or warped expecta- tions borne from prototyping in the lab using "unobtainium," which is unavailable to pro- duction suppliers. Without a doubt, arrogant workplace atti- tudes have existed in this industry over the decades. Hopefully, as a profession, PCB designers are moving forward and accept- ing the fresh, positive signals from the many training leader s and trade organizations e m p h a s i z i n g t h e importance of stake- h o l d e r a w a r e n e s s . ese visionary cham- pions are conveying the message that we are better off when we look out for all our imp or tant indu str y stakeholders' functions collectively, as we per- form within our per- sonal areas of exper- tise. N o w m o r e t h a n e v e r , e l e c t r o n i c s industr y profession- a l s — e s p e c ia l l y o u r newly graduated PCB design engineers—are learning the impor- Happier in a Vacuum: The Design Narcissist Target Condition Feature Column by Kelly Dack, CIT, CID+ Figure 1: Fabrication notes of a Design Narcissist.