Food for thought if you're in engineering school. That's all.
You can always tell an engineer.. but you can't tell them much.
Fellow goes to a Psycologist for an aptitude test, and is presented with the classic test: "Is this glass of water half-empty or half-full?" Guy says, "The glass is twice as large as it needs to be." Doc writes down, "engineering talents."
Engineer walks into a hardware store for some plumbing stuff for his house, tells the counter guy "I have tried checking the pipe size with my micrometer, and can't get a true reading whether it's 1/2" or 3/4". How can I tell the difference?" Salesman says " They're called nominal sizes, so you won't get a precise reading, but here's a trick we suggest: get a nickel and a quarter. Place it flat on the open end of the pipe. If the OD of the pipe is the same as the nickel, you have 1/2", if it's the same as the quarter, it's 3/4"." Later the engineer comes back in, and the hardware guy asks what he figured out. Engineer says, "Apparently I have 3/4", as the pipe was the same OD as the quarter.. one problem though, how do I get my nickel out of the pipe?"
Back when I used to do equipment submittals for my dads crane and hoist company I had all sorts of fun with engineers.
I had one project where the engineers were killing me with requests for paint datasheets, information about motor windings, specs on fasteners, structural calculations for non load bearing sections of the crane (angle iron that holds up some electrical conduit), all kinds of things that don't really matter. On install day the crane didn't even fit in the building. No one ever checked the dimensions.
Really, whenever a project started with "City of x..." it was going to be a nightmare of bureaucratic paperwork. I had one come back unapproved due to a spelling error in the maintenance manual. Not "approved with corrections, fix this page and it's fine" but "the whole thing is garbage, send us 10 more copies of the complete 700 page submittal package and we'll try to find something else to fuss about."
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