084: DS9: Vortex

Welcome! Thanks for joining me today. Most everyone has a story about working with a terrible manager. Sometimes it seems, sadly, that they are legion. But we are going to talk about the one, single thing that differentiates an amazing manager from the rest of them. The ability to set, and communicate crystal clear expectations. And we’re going to do that by watching the 12^th episode of the first season of Deep Space 9, Vortex.

<<Transporter>>

A group of Miradorn are visiting Deep Space 9 and Odo, the security constable, is convinced they’re up to no good and Quark is involved. He also notes someone that was brought in from the Gamma Quadrant, Croden. He tends to be quiet and avoids eye contact, but, again, Odo is sure Quark is somehow involved with him too. “How is it you’ve come to know him?” 1:01 Quark gets defensive just as the Miradorn come into his bar. Immediately, these are interesting emails. They appear identical and seem to be moving more or less in tandem. Quark begs off Odo and preps some drinks.

In a holosuite, at least I think it’s a holosuite, Quark is working a deal with the Miradorn. Turns out Odo was right. The deal goes south when this Croden guy walks in, with some kind of phaser, and tries to steal the artifact Quark was trying to sell, killing one of the Miradorn in the process. Odo appears, you see, he’s a changeling, a shapeshifter, and turned himself into the drink glasses that were brought into the room, so he turns into himself, breaks up the fight and arrests Croden and Quark.

The surviving Miradron goes to Commander Sisko. He explains the connection twinned Miradorn have. “Together we are a single self.” 7:36 He is broken and wants vengeance. Sisko refuses and says Croden will face justice on the station. The Miradorn swears he will live to see Croden dead as he returns to his ship. He shows up a few more times, advocating to get his hands on Croden, barricading Odo’s office, and monitoring all ship traffic to and from the wormhole. Quark is released; there isn’t enough evidence to hold him, but Odo remains skeptical.

Sisko and Odo question Croden and in that, he shares info important to Odo. “I’ve never heard of a changeling.” 10:56 That’s the first time we’ve heard that word to describe Odo. It becomes synonymous with him and his people from here forward. Odo’s hooked. He wants nothing more than to know his heritage and this dude seems to know stuff.

Sisko wants to reach out to Croden’s people. They’ve never had official first contact and he’s concerned about homicide being the reason to meet. He and Dax get on a runabout and head for his home planet. They reach out and we get introduced to a theme that will pop up a lot in future episodes, specifically with the Cardassians: trials are for show only. The conviction is already in place, and that’s the way these people work. We also learn that Croden is an enemy of the state and is wanted. They want him extradited and will hear nothing else. All in all, the whole operation is a bust. “We simply have no interest in contact with your quadrant.” 19:05

Croden tries to convince Odo he knows where a colony of his people is at. He shares a locket that shapeshifts, like Odo does, as proof. And Odo buys it, hook, line and sinker. Of course, at the time, we, as viewers probably did too, so let’s keep that in mind. Odo shares it with Dr. Bashir who confirms it has organic material in it and it sort of resembles his makeup. It’s enough to get Odo to agree to take Croden to the alleged colony. And it’s all going to happen because Sisko asks him to take Croden to his homeworld. They get creative so they can avoid the Miradorn ship, and they get through. “The Miradorn ship is scanning and aren’t reading the runabout.” 24:19 The surviving twin, Ah-Kel, comes back to the station and threatens Quark. Because of that, he finds out Croden is on his way to the Gamma Quadrant and is on the chase.

They eventually intercept. Odo refuses to give up Croden and the fight is on. The Miradorn ship is faster and stronger than the runabout so Odo agrees to let Croden fly the ship. He heads into a nearby vortex, which happens to be where the changeling colony is supposed to be, and finds a safe spot to hide out, eventually landing on the asteroid where he says the colony is.

After a few moments of exploring, it’s clear he’s been lying the whole time. “How much of it was true? None of it.” 34:42 Changelings are a myth, a story they tell on his homeworld. The locket is a special key that opens a thing that is on this asteroid. They head to it, and it’s a stasis chamber holding Croden’s daughter, the last surviving member of his family. Their reunion is broken up, though, when the Miradorn find them and start blasting the asteroid. They make their way back to the runabout and hideout in an anomaly. The Miradorn fire on them, hit the anomaly, which happens to be super volatile, the runabout barely escapes and the Miradorn ship is destroyed. Safe, Odo agrees to take Croden’s daughter back to DS9 and to watch over her. A Vulcan ship swings by “This is the Vulcan science vessel T’Vran.” 41:43 Having connected with Croden, Odo brokers a deal where they will take Croden and his daughter to Vulcan where they can find safety. “Don’t thank me, I already regret it.” 42:26 He tells Croden’s people that he was killed in the Miradorn attack and, apparently, everything is cool and copasetic again. Except now Odo has had a taste, an inkling of where he came from, and he has a lot of reflecting and thinking to do. “Home. Where is it?” 44:02

<<Red Alert>>

Just about the halfway point of the first season of Deep Space 9. Have I shared on here that I do not much care for this season? In fact, when people tell me they’re going to watch DS9 for the first time, I recommend they watch Emissary and Duet and skip the rest of this season. And, this one kinda backs that up. That said, this one had some notable firsts and did a lot to build up the Quark and Odo relationship. And speaking of Quark…

Quarks – Ads

DS9, like pretty much all sci fi from this time period, took awhile to get its footing, to figure out what it really was. We have the advantage of being in the future and knowing where this series’s story goes, but at the time, each episode was new information. At this point we knew Odo could change shape and was from somewhere in the gamma quadrant, but that was it, so the idea of learning more about him was not only exciting for him, but for viewers as well. So it must have been disappointing when Croden’s story turned out to be just that. A story. Knowing what we know now, though, I’m kind of thankful, because he got just about everything wrong about them! High level, I guess he got some stuff right. What we come to know as the solids, or, us, were terrible to them, forcing them to live in isolation eventually concocting schemes to make our lives terrible. But outside of that, Odo’s sentiment at the end really echoes mine: so what.

I liked the visit from the Vulcan science ship in this one. TNG and DS9 used Vulcans sparingly so when they do it’s worth taking notice. But this one was also cool because it reminds us that Vulcans still have their own ships doing their own things. They haven’t been entirely assimilated by the Federation, and, yes, I used that term intentionally.

And then there were some really cool firsts in this one. I already brought up that this is the first time we hear the term changeling in DS9. This becomes so common for us, they even use it in the third season of Picard. It’s kind of weird to remember that we didn’t always know to call Odo that. And then there’s Morn. If you like DS9 you know who Morn is. He’s the big, kind of dumpy looking guy that is always sitting at the bar. The show uses him in fun ways and we slowly learn about him and his race. We learn he is a Lurian, a race that mostly kept to their home planet in the Ionite Nebula, they have two stomachs and like to sleep in hot mud baths.

Part of the joke with Morn is that he never shuts up. “Morn here saw you talking. He should keep his mouth shut.” 13:16 Which is great because he literally never speaks a single word on screen. On one hand, it shows us that we’re just seeing snippets of the lives of the people on the show, but also, what a great and kind of stupid joke. They get a ton of mileage out of it through the series and I love that it started the second they introduced him.

One of the questions I like to ask myself when watching shows, whether it’s Star Trek, Babylon 5, or anything else with an overarching storyline, is what purpose did this episode serve? Like, in the bigger story of the series, why this episode and why now. And to be honest, this one doesn’t do much, maybe like two things. But those things are cornerstones of the story of Deep Space 9 so I can’t get too upset about it. First, it drives home Odo’s drive to learn his history and heritage. That becomes a massively huge issue that I talked about in the 77^th episode of the podcast when we watched DS9’s Behind the Lines. Like, he literally turned his back on and betrayed his crew for the chance to learn about and connect with his people.

The second thing it did was further establish the relationship between him and Quark. This is a constant through the series, and even before it. These are the people that worked on the station during both Cardassian occupations and when the Federation was in charge with the Bajorans. Their relationship runs deep and grows throughout the series and this episode did a lot of work to establish that early on.

<<Command Codes>>

There are a lot of qualities, skills and abilities that differentiate a strong leader from other people, we talk about them on every episode of this podcast. But there are also skills and abilities that differentiate strong managers from others and we are going to talk about one of the most critical ones. The ability to set clear expectations, with measurable outcomes and defined parameters for both success and failure. In an episode that was just a beat by beat telling of a story, Commander Sisko steps in to show us what that looks like.

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I might be alone in this thinking, but I hope I am not. But I believe that almost every single person wants to do a good job at work. Like, they might not want to be a superstar or a top producer, but most people want to do well. In my experience, though, most management styles and even HR shops I built around the assumption people want to do the bare minimum and that they are trying to get away with doing as little as possible.

Again, that’s just my theory, but it is based on a lot of years of working in different industries and places. To be fair, yes, I have worked with people that were just trying to collect a paycheck and not work as much as possible, but in over 30 years of working, there have been like 10 of them. Maybe. My experience is that most people want to do something they are proud of and they want to do it fairly well. And, in my experience, the key difference between someone being able to show up and do a good job and not being able to do that is have a clear understanding of what is expected in the job.

The person doing the job, their manager and the “bigshots” they report to should be able to describe, in plain and understandable language, what they do, why they are doing it, and how well they need to do it. All three of those things are critical. Notice I’m not saying how it needs to be done. If you’ve paid attention to previous episodes, like episodes 80 and 83, you’ve heard that, a lot of the time, the how can look different based on the individual and how much competence and clarity they have about the task. But, all the way up and down the proverbial chain, people should be able to plainly describe the what, why and quality of what is being done.

Here’s a very real example from a local bank I worked with recently. There was a small team of 2 people that processed loan applications documents into their system. This wasn’t their only job but a primary duty for them. It was essentially uploading documents that clients brought or mailed in and then updating their applications. When I asked the team what they did, they said, Ok, not really. They actually said, ‘we upload documents to their application.’ Period. That’s it. They understood this was to move the application forward but nothing more than that. One of the team members told me their manager told them when they made mistakes but had no idea if they were making an acceptable amount of mistakes or not.

Then I talked to the manager. They had all the details and stuff. ‘They scan and upload required documents to the application so the people applying for the loan can get the funding for their dream.’ The manager explained she thought of their work as making dreams come true. Editorial by me, making dreams come to true at a 10.99% APR. They then hit the third point by telling me she expected 99.5% of the work to be done without error. The team, are, after all, only human. But this hit everything. What: uploading documents. Why: to help make dreams come true…or to continue the loan application process, depending on your perspective. Quality: 99.5% accuracy.

If you are where I’m at, you are seeing that disconnect. The manager sure says all the right things, but the team has no idea. When I finished my mapping and recommendations for the team I reported out using the ‘making dreams come true’ statement and one of the people doing the work actually laughed. They said they had never heard that said before. In an ideal situation, I would have heard the same gist, maybe even the same words, from both the team and the manager. But, in this case, and the case of a lot of workplaces, the manager’s idea of the work exists in their head and maybe in reports up the hierarchy. But their idea of the work is disconnected from the people actually doing the work.

There was a moment in this episode of Deep Space 9 that I loved. Sisko played out exactly what managers should do. This is early on. Croden has been arrested and is in his cell. He’s resting and trying to get someone to bring him some food. Sisko is here, though, for the sole purpose of providing clear direction. He wants to be certain that Croden has heard what the situation is, what is happening and what he needs to do to make it through this process. “I want you to understand exactly what’s going to happen.” 10:10

I love this so much!! In my bank example, this is precisely what the manager should have done. Make it crystal clear what is going to happen, why it’s going to happen and how well it needs to happen. At the end of any work shift or work day, everyone should be able to look at the work they’ve done and know if they’ve done a good job or not. Did they meet expectations. And the only way to get there is clear, consistent communication on what a good job looks like and what it doesn’t look like.

On top of providing the guides to the person working on doing that good job most people want to do, it also gives the manager the framework to correct and coach bad work and, if necessary, terminate the person if they don’t step up meet the expectations.

Let’s talk about that a little bit. Terminating someone, or firing them, is something I don’t think we talk about enough. It is almost never comfortable to fire someone. In fact, it almost always sucks. But when you have worked to provide crystal clear expectations, a road-map to success, if you will, then anyone you have to fire will fall into one of two categories and both are a lot more comfortable to work through. The first category is gross misconduct. This is the person assaulting customers or harassing their teammates. Clear, unacceptable, sometimes illegal behavior. This is the firing that sometimes kinda feels good. I’ll never forget this person I terminated from a movie theatre I managed. They were cleaning a theatre between showings and inappropriately touched a co-worker while pressuring them to, um, we’ll say go on a date. The person complained to me, I made a quick phone call to HR, sent dude home and fired him the next day. Felt good.

Then there’s the other category. These are the people that are, to use some HR language, are either unable or unwilling to meet the expectations you have clearly communicated. This still kind of sucks to do, but, here’s the thing. If you were clear with your expectations, hitting on the what, they why and the how well, and you told the person where they were at and gave them parameters on improving, when it’s time to let them go, you can rest easy. You were clear, you gave the tools for them to be successful, like appropriate training, and you were transparent about how they were performing compared to those expectations. Now, they have basically made a choice to not perform to the level they should be, and firing them is simply facilitating that choice. That’s it. I think I count success when I terminate someone and they were expecting it. They knew it was coming. That means I did my job communicating expectations and being transparent and clear on where they stood. It’s still sad and I still hate doing it, but I know I am making the right choice based on the choices they have been making.

But all of this is moot if you don’t follow the example of Sisko. I’ll play the clip again, “I want you to understand exactly what’s going to happen.” 10:10 This is where you need to be. This is how you need to be communicating with your teams and the people you work with. Notice the first phrase of this, I want you to understand. I want. You want them to understand so you tell them the what, the why and how well and you tell them a lot. Provide clarity through consistent and almost constant communication. If you, as the manager, describe what success looks like, the exact same way the people doing the work describe it, mission accomplished. Well done.

Communicating crystal clear expectations and providing that road-map to success will give everyone the framework necessary to do what most people want to do. A good job. A job they can have pride in. And all you have to do is tell them what that is.

<<Hailing Frequencies>>

I want to share a really cool podcast with you. But, to call it a podcast really does it a disservice because I think it is much more than that. Victoria and T host Star Trek Sundays. You can find it at Star Trek Sundays podcast.com. But this is an experience, yeah, I like that better than podcast. It’s an experience that looks at philosophy through the lens of Star Trek. They pick a topic or theme, and then curate two episodes of Star Trek that speak to that. They invite their community to a watch party of the episodes on Saturdays and then host an interactive discussion on the theme, through those episodes on Sundays. I really encourage you to check them out.

I also encourage you to connect with me! I’m on Twitter and Mastodon: @ SFLA podcast and you can follow me on instagram, @jefftakin Jeff, t as in Twins, a k i n. I haven’t done the Threads thing, but if you’re there, let me know.

Before we get to the next episode, I want to share a quick, personal update. My family is going to take a little time as our summer break winds to a close and do some fun things, so you won’t see another episode of the podcast for a month; I’m going to take this next round off. During my break, if you haven’t already, I recommend taking some time for you as well. Whatever that self-care looks like, take some time and do that. So, let’s see what we’ll be doing when we come back.

Computer, what are we going to watch next time….

We got an episode from the 3^rd season of Enterprise. We’re watching that season a little differently. It is hyper serialized, with each episode leading into the next, so whenever an episode from that season comes up, we go to the next one in story order, which, for us is the 2^nd episode of the 3^rd season, Anomaly. In this one the Enterprise becomes a target for pirates and raiders in the Delphic Expanse as they continue their search for the Xindi. I’m excited to return and watch this one with you.

Until then, Ex Astris Scientia!