Muntzing

Four years ago, I was assigned to a work project that had a coworker on loan from another division. His role was to provide our team with a working design and serve as an expert. This design would be integrated into our product, and my job was to facilitate this integration.

Things started badly because his “in production” design had many flaws, was never tested, and had not actually been used in a product. In addition, his design was not complex, so I could have easily made a much better one in about three days.

To make matters worse, his people skills were less than ideal when he tried to explain his design. Side note: I made some calls and learned his true expertise was annoying his other coworkers. They exclusively described him using four-letter words, and yes, I added some new ones.

I persevered through his problems and soon had a design ready for review. This is when the real problems began because he performed Muntzing. This is an engineering practice to minimize the cost of a low-reliability design. Here is a great description:

What's All This Muntzing Stuff, Anyhow?

While Muntzing is great for a low-cost approach, it has no business in ultra-high reliability products, which is what we were designing. Plus, it is a good practice to use this cost-reduction approach after a working prototype is built, not at the design stage, because it is easy to eliminate a necessary component.

Now, readers of this article might not understand what I am discussing. An equivalent annoying behavior is called hypermiling. This is when a driver intentionally drives slowly to avoid braking, thereby saving gas. While technically legal, hypermiling is unsafe, selfish, and annoying to other drivers. This can lead to road rage and accidents.

Each painful design review meeting felt like being surrounded by a buzzing fly. No matter how much I swatted, the fly kept coming back. The design review should have taken an afternoon, but he dragged it out over a week. It got so bad that I began doing something I never do at work: yelling. To me, this crude behavior has no place in a professional environment. Yet, I let it happen.

Over and over, he made the same arguments about the same circuits. “You do not need to do it that way.” “This is too expensive.” “Take away that component.” “I have used this exact minimized circuit a million times.” Over and over, I had to correct his “logic.” And the buzzing fly kept coming back the very next meeting.

Side note: The manager in charge was a bonehead and refused to intervene. But on the plus side, he played many games on his phone during these exchanges. Sometimes he would even laugh at my angry remarks and raise his eyebrows when I yelled.

After one heated meeting, I knew if I had another, it would come to blows. So, I begged my boss to take me off the project, and he let me. What a relief! But there is an unanswered question. How did Muntzing become so ingrained in my coworker’s mind? My only guess is that he learned bad habits early in his career and never had a boss who was patient enough (cared) to correct his unprofessional behavior.

Wait, a minute. As you know, I like my articles to have a writing spin. So, what is the connection? In my experience, a character with so much undefined drive will confuse readers. Instead, readers want obvious motives so they understand what is going on.

A good story motivation example is the parent of a murdered child who refuses to stop tracking down their killer. Their unwavering drive includes illogical decisions, big risks, exhausting their savings, and damaging their personal relationships. Readers relate to this extreme obsession because we were once children and understand how our parents cared for us.

The problem occurs when the foundation is unclear, as with my Muntzing coworker. Keep in mind that my coworker was a real person, and this was his actual personality. He was not faking (doing it for the camera or for the plot of a book), and he did not have a hidden/ulterior motive. Meaning he appeared to be driving me crazy for no reason.

What if I wanted to use this Muntzing coworker as the basis of a character? The problem is that words fall short of explaining a super-obsessed person. Meaning that readers only accept a small amount of craziness, and my coworker was too extreme.

Does this mean, “Characters cannot be crazy because readers will not understand?” Hmm. I took a walk to think about this and determined that the statement is indeed what I am claiming.

To explain, imagine I wrote, “My coworker cannot stop his crazy behavior, and I don’t know why.” Surely readers would accept this sentence? No, because it is the writer’s job to lead the reader down a clear path. Readers will put down a book faster than lightning if they do not know what is going on.

Alright, let’s make something up, “At his last job, my coworker had a boss who forced him to remove essential components. Now, he cannot help himself.” While silly, this explanation mostly covers the situation. The problem is that not everyone can relate to such a destructive person who does not understand the damage they are causing. Many readers would conclude, “That is a stupid motivation. Bad writer!”

How about a mysterious character that is annoying for unknown reasons? My advice is to use “unknown reasons” sparingly, because in real life people hate or barely tolerate those who are annoying for no reason. When readers want to be entertained, they only accept a small amount of this unexplained personality. Let’s not forget The Phantom Menace with the annoying minor character Jar Jar, who deeply tarnished the entire movie.

In conclusion, authors must take great care to establish character motivation, and although strangely obsessive people are present in our society, writers should not make them into characters. The good news is that I can make any character I want, and you can put down a book you do not like. The bad news is that in real life, there are many annoying people.

You’re the best -Bill

June 20, 2026

Hey, book lovers, I published five. Please check them out:

Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

Cable Ties. A slow-burning political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

Pushed to the Edge of Existence. Just when Kim, Gabe, and Emma’s lives start returning to normal, a mysterious government organization orders them to use their telepathic abilities, and then they travel to an alien planet.

These books are available in softcover and in eBook format.