'Is that some of that Geometry?'

The BBQ Pit
1

A TV mounts to a wall with a swingarm which has two plates connected by the swingarm. The smaller plate mounts to the center of the back of the TV. The swingarm is hinged at two places, on the centerline of the TV plate and on the left side of the wallplate, offsetting the wallplate from the center of the TV.

The customer has an opening considerably larger than the TV in which he would like to mount it. He has asked for the distance between the left edge of the opening to the left edge of the wallplate if the TV were to be centered on the opening (though if it were me I’d ask for the distance between the edge of the opening and the center of the left side mounting holes because this bastard is too heavy to hold up while you mark the centers). Our new Junior Project Manager could not figure this out himself, though he has pretty pictures so he doesn’t have to visualize it himself. He made the mistake of coming to me for help, although:

  1. I’m already mad at this guy because for another project I am doing all of the stuff he is supposed to do at the expense of all my REAL work.
  2. I already have little faith in his output (which is one reason for #1) because though he was first hired as an Installer several of us in a meeting could not get through his head what a junction box is. “It’s a box. It’s just a box. Conduit and cable come to it and leave from it. That’s all. There is nothing fancy about it. It is just a box.”
  3. He calls “architects” “architectures,” from my experience a sure sign of a moron and somebody you needn’t bother wasting much energy on because morons don’t last long here.

But I help anyway.

I sketch out the problem, showing that to get that distance he will subtract the offset (the distance from the center of the wallplate and the TV plate) and half the width of the wallplate from half the width of the opening. We have the width of the opening and the width of the two plates. All we lack is the distance the plates are offset and the dimension the customer needs. The offset is not shown on the manufacturer’s drawing nor can it be calculated from the dimensions they do give. A call to Tech Support should fix that, except Brightboy gets the wrong dimension and comes back claiming I didn’t explain what I needed, despite the sketch, the marks on the swingarm drawing, and the fifteen times I mentioned it. Finally he gets it and calculates the distance though, being a moron, figures it looks wrong. Nope, a fifth grader could plug the numbers into my equation and get the right answer.

When we are done he asks, “Is that some of that Geometry?”

“No, it’s just addition and subtraction with a little division.”

Can we fire him yet? He gives me a headache.

2

Reading that OP gave me a headache. All I saw was plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates, plates…

:stuck_out_tongue:

3

[Jethro]

Division? You me goes-in-tas? Like 2 goes-in-ta 6, 3 times?

[/Jethro]

4

Who wants a TV on a plate anyway? What sort of dinner is that?

5

Well, I’ll sympathize with ya, Drop. Been there.

6

It’s a Tee Vee dinner!

7

Does he begin every sentence with “Duhhhh…” ?

8

Yes, you add and subtract and divide, but it’s the geometry that governs what gets added, subtracted, or divided.

9

I love the enchiladas and the teriaki, too
I even like the chicken if the sauce is not too blue
Oh, yeah!

10

Bring a load o’
RC Cola
TeeVee Dinners,
Plate of Twinkies and it takes a beef burrito for to keep me clean :slight_smile:

11

{sigh} Only in the most rudimentary way. Yeah, I suppose something like “if you draw an imaginary line down the middle of a rectangle half of it will be on one side” qualifies as geometry but even Euclid would affect a dopey expression and say, “Duh!” if you mentioned it. Then he’d run off and make sure it was in his propositions, just to be on the safe side.