Tell us something really trivial about your life (Vol 26)
Discussion
drivin_me_nuts said:
DickyC said:
So I said I was going down to look at the sea at lunchtime and the locals said it would be lovely sailing today. Lovely sailing?!? The Bristol Channel was like Trafalgar Square on New Year's Eve. Couldn't move for boats out there.
Same as brighton yesterday. Lots of little plastic tubbery tub things racing each other from here to there (when I mean tubbery thing, the kind of shape boat a kid would draw on their etch-a-sketch or with a pcaket of crayons on a nice freshly painted dining room wall). The curious thing about sailing is that it may well be a race, but it sure as hell looks damned slow from the coast. Has no one ever thought about putting such a thing as an engine in them and maybe take it a notch above watching paint dry boring.
Sorry. It was funny in my head.
Fishtigua said:
Dear God! Is that the beach on Barry Island? No wonder visitor numbers have dropped off.
I'm atcherlly in Sully, betwixt Penarth and Barry, where the BP chemical works were and where the DOW Corning chemical works, Cabot chemical works and Barry Power Station still are. What appears to be a post nuclear wasteland in the foreground of the picture is seaweed. Rather a lot of seaweed.I'll pop along and take a picture of Barrybados for yous all.
Barrybados. You think I'm kidding, right?
We issued a heap of drawings on Friday and yesterday we received an irritable email from the guvnor saying the client had found a load of mistakes. We asked if the client could be a bit more specific so we could correct these errors. Apparently, it was one client engineer who had noticed the revision number in the corner of several of the drawings didn't match the number in the revision history. It does happen, it's not the end of the world and most people familiar with drawings will spot the mistake and alter it by hand on their copy. Not "a load of mistakes" then; several similar minor mistakes. Anyway, we spent some time going through the drawings and comparing the numbers. One. One drawing had the mistake. Not a load of mistakes, not even several errors. One minor error. So, the engineer found the mistake, made a fuss to thir boss, their boss emailed our boss and made a fuss, our boss emailed us and made a fuss and we wasted a couple of hours. Get a grip, will ya? The impression that we make the mistakes will be hard to shift now the idea has been planted. I wonder what misdemeanours their engineer is hiding that they needed to make so much smoke.
doogz said:
Happens all the time here, as we updates the ship scantlings in sections. So one sheet of a drawing will be updated, new revision number, new date, and another sheet that's not impacted by the changes to a section, will not be updated, because no-one's touched it.
Can cause a bit of confusion, but stage 2 like to make a big deal out of the "inconsistencies" in our draughtsmen's work.
There was a story years ago about two men who started together as apprentices in a heavy industry and both went on to powerful positions; one as Chief Engineer and one as Works Manager. After a lifetime of batting ideas backwards and forwards, they both retired at the same time as well. When their successors looked at the drawings of the company's long established products, they found a few scruffy old drawings from the dark ages. What had happened was the two guys had just spoken to each other about improvements and not recorded anything. The system worked fine until they retired whereupon there were no records, there was just "this is how we've always done it." Nightmare.Can cause a bit of confusion, but stage 2 like to make a big deal out of the "inconsistencies" in our draughtsmen's work.
OpulentBob said:
I know exactly what you mean. I've got a Principal Engineer who is a whiney, moany little b
h and he goes running to the director with wet knickers every time something isn't as he likes. Yet when he sends his mark-ups back to us to check and edit, and we find mistakes in his supposedly perfect corrections, he goes off "with stress" for 2 days if you dare go anywhere except to him with it.
I also asked him to back-save the Autocad dwgs from 2015 to 2013, so that more people here could work on them, and the pissy little bh went to a divisional director to complain that we were stopping him from providing decent output. The little bell-end didn't even realise that most other alignment software doesn't work with anything newer than 2013 anyway, and that he was causing more problems by saving it as 2015.
Anyway, all that notwithstanding, it's hardly trivial!
One of my old fella's saying was, "They know upstairs," by which he meant that senior management had a better grip on things than was perceived and they knew where the weak points were in the staff. It just doesn't seem to work like that any more. The whole business of engineering changed in the 80s with the adoption of CAD and the death of the drawing office in its old form and its regimented way of working. On my last contract a young safety graduate was late with his drawings and rushed them out and we all rallied round to help. Later he sidled up to me and asked if I could just add one or two things that he had missed in the rush. I told him it didn't work like that. The drawings had gone and changes would have to be picked up on the next revision. If it wasn't done like that, there would be drawings in existence claiming to be the same which were in fact different. His reponse was sneery. He said he wanted it done and didn't want to get involved in office politics. h and he goes running to the director with wet knickers every time something isn't as he likes. Yet when he sends his mark-ups back to us to check and edit, and we find mistakes in his supposedly perfect corrections, he goes off "with stress" for 2 days if you dare go anywhere except to him with it. I also asked him to back-save the Autocad dwgs from 2015 to 2013, so that more people here could work on them, and the pissy little b
h went to a divisional director to complain that we were stopping him from providing decent output. The little bell-end didn't even realise that most other alignment software doesn't work with anything newer than 2013 anyway, and that he was causing more problems by saving it as 2015. Anyway, all that notwithstanding, it's hardly trivial!
Huh?
You gather from my endless witterings that, irrespective of the truth, I like to portray myself as part man of mystery, part man of the people, part man about town, part man of the world. When I was dealing fairly frequently with wealthy people I found many of them weighed me up quickly to know how to deal with me by looking at my watch and my shoes. One was ex-military and actually confessed that the thing he didn't like about civvy street was no one wore their rank. In the army he knew who he was dealing with and how to treat them because they were wearing the instructions. So, to get over this, if I went to interview some well-to-do or other - and hopefully drive their car or cars - I wore a decent watch and a decent pair of shoes. No big deal, it was just shorthand. It occurred to me just now that if anyone did the shoes and watch test on me today, or almost any work day, they wouldn't see the Simon Templary sort of chap I would prefer to project, they would see a chap who enjoys wearing the Tissot he inherited from his uncle and who shops at M&S.
How depressingly accurate.
On the strength of this I started to compose a thread for the Lounge entitled "Your Watch And Shoes - Right Now." Then I deleted it for fear it would have just turned into another squabbling ego fest.
How depressingly accurate.
On the strength of this I started to compose a thread for the Lounge entitled "Your Watch And Shoes - Right Now." Then I deleted it for fear it would have just turned into another squabbling ego fest.
Justayellowbadge said:
The inverse egotists would almost make it worthwhile though.
Y'know, the 'I never wear a watch, there's a clock on my 1998 Nokia and as for shoes, I've never spent more than a fiver' brigade.
Almost? I'll do it if you all dive straight in and set on the right road.Y'know, the 'I never wear a watch, there's a clock on my 1998 Nokia and as for shoes, I've never spent more than a fiver' brigade.
Watch and Shoes - right now.
Wallace & Gromit and charity shop comfy.
Leafspring said:
Impasse said:
DickyC said:
Quiz Question: an elderly couple, immaculately dressed and coiffuuered, just walked by in full-on Duke and Duchess of Kent mode, and when I looked up and smiled - as I am wont to do - the Duchess peered down her nose at me in full-on fk off pleb mode. Where am I?
On the bottom of her shoe. k off pleb mode. Where am I? 
Cheltenham?
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