I wholeheartedly agree with you here. I hate when an answer to “Why are we doing it this way?” is just a plain one-word “Security” answer.
In all likelihood, the people who should be expected to know what a 4" flange is are piping up stuff that is much, much worse than household plumbing would deal with.
Get the pipe size wrong at home and you have a homeowner’s insurance claim maybe. Get the pipe size wrong at a chemical plant and you might kill people.
Yep, Lightray got it. 
In the last few years, someone decided it would be a good idea to allow the inspectors themselves – rather than the engineers – to be the final sign-off for the inspection of certain ‘low-hanging’ components. In other words, if a component doesn’t require any special testing, or that testing has already been completed for the lot, the inspectors are supposed to be able to handle it. This scares the hell out of me.
Fortunately, the inspectors are not allowed to be the final signature on things like functional test results or material test results, but they are supposed to review test results and sign them, basically to ensure all steps were followed and all supporting documents have been attached. I’ve had inspectors tell me that they just sign the paperwork without bothering to read these results, since they find the procedures impossible to understand…and, anyway, aren’t the engineers the ones doing the final review? >.< Yeah. This results in more work for the engineers when we find that some step has been skipped, or some printout is missing. Hell, we’re having to scrap a piece of an expensive assembly now because someone failed to read the specification written by engineering, and the only available material specimen was scrapped before all testing had been completed.
You’ve reminded me of a recent stupid at work, which another engineer will appreciate. I had nothing to do with it (I deal with process chemistry), but it happened in one of “my” units.
2" water meter went out. We’ve got oodles of them at the plant. Yet, there was no spare in stock. Process was down until it could be replaced, and furthermore it would be days before the vendor could get us a replacement.
But there was a 2" hastalloy meter of the same type in stock.
Procedure requires that a change in material of construction (MOC*) requires a management of change (MOC*) to be completed. So the unit engineer duly completed the MOC, changing the proper MOC to hastalloy.
Which means it’s now documented as a meter in water service that requires hastalloy. And will stay that way until it fails, probably some time long after all of us here now have retired.
At which point, someone will no doubt go order a 2" hastalloy water meter as replacement, because that’s what the spec sheet says.
- yeah.
In the late eighties, I twice moved into new construction homes in a city that has a nice story sung about long ago inhabitants. In both locations, the furnace was plumbed backwards–intake and exhaust reversed. Furnace would fire for a few seconds, and shut down. Froze my encounter suited ass off. Seems the building inspector had three hands, and was a guest of the Commonwealth a few years later.
Flash forward a score of years later, and the sweat joints of the copper pipes started failing. Seems the apprentice plumbers were stoned legless when they connected the pipes…
Seems flux was considered optional.:smack:
No shutoff valves under the kitchen sink. The best one, however, was reserved for the bathroom–there was a shutoff valve for the toilet, but it was part of a permanent installation, with what it was connected to under a tile floor. Of course, the valve failed. The good news was they still made it, and we cut the water for my half of the building, removed the valve guts and transplanted the guts of the new valve into the seat that was original.
Oh I know that well. I was working on a Navy test base testing [REDACTED]. We had pipes at 1K PSI, Live steam, and depending on the test, boiling lye. One screwup blew a {can’t say} off the test pad on a ballistic trajectory to land in the middle of the officers gold course, farting boiling lye all the way.
And they wondered why I was the first one in the bunkers at test time…
I spent my share of time in the wardroom inserting ACNs and Revisions in the Reactor Plant Tech Manual, and I never saw a gold course.
Was it maybe a golf course?
Autocorrect is your fiend 
The annual employee satisfaction survey season is upon us.
That’s not the rant, although it’s worthy of one.
No, my problem is the number of times I was asked if I’d filled it out today.
No. I did not take it today, because I was the only person in my sub-department today, and I had a million things that needed to be done. (I accomplished about 75% of what needed to be done. I’ll tackle the rest tomorrow.)
I will take the survey on a day when I might otherwise spend time twiddling my thumbs, or pondering the pros and cons of hiding and playing stupid phone games.
And no, a goodie bag filled with a bottle of water, and a package of chips or cookies is not exactly much of an enticement to take the survey TODAY.
My company doesn’t even bother with the satisfaction surveys anymore. 
(Were the chips barbecue flavored?)
Fun communication error of the day: I received a 75-page analysis from a vendor for an assembly my company has ordered. The only problem is that we haven’t finalized the design for this assembly yet…hell, we don’t even have customer approval. On the plus side, they actually showed all of their work, so I won’t have to waste time recreating their calculations if/when I review this document.
Today Dr. Bigcheese asked me to help him edit his book, although I am just Secretary Dimbulb. He gave me a document and some brief instructions. I’m trying to make the changes he asked, only they don’t make sense to me. I keep having to go back in there and ask another question, which I hate to do because I’ve interrupted him several times already. I don’t mind hard work, but I’m just fucking this up and it’s very frustrating. I’m trying not to cry because I’m about to go bother him again.
I honestly don’t know about mine. I’ve lost track of all the “initiatives of the month” (now with extra catchy acronyms) that I’m supposed to be answering questions on, taking surveys for, racking up “Institutional Gold Medal Points” for, or generating pie charts for.
None of the powers to be have ever noticed that I just don’t do ANY of those administrative “trained seal tricks”. And I haven’t for going on 25 years! I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have gotten away with this.
I did have a coworker admonish me once: “It’s your JOB! How can you just SIT THERE and ignore all these emails from HR?” Well, I’m not “sitting there”, I’m getting more work done than you are, precisely because I’m not wasting my time on cross-departmental team-building, Quality Enforcement Disciplines (“QED, it works!”), or monthly personal fulfillment spreadsheets. Or worrying about what my coworkers are getting away with…
(But I am getting away with it, bay-beeeee…) [smug dance in my chair]
My company never tried anything like that – I guess they don’t really want to hear the things the employees will say? 
One or two emails, and that was the end of it. There was never any followup either. They’re much more concerned at how fast we complete our safety courses online. We supposedly have a year, but access to the site isn’t granted until February or March, and we have to have all courses complete by mid-November so the corporate office can see that we’re on top of things. 
Personally, I’m pleased with the file/folder organizer I scavenged from the abandoned cube this afternoon. After a thorough cleaning, it actually looks very nice. I was going to help myself to some computer accessories – and possibly a whole computer – from the office of the last engineer who left, but someone beat me to it. Even the cables are gone!
Ooh, online safety courses… :smack: Yeah, another Corporate Slacker Trick is that I have the ability to “watch” a video while doing three other things. Then I take the little test and answer “If I see a liquid on the floor I would D: NOT STEP IN IT.” Usually the same answer I would’ve given if I hadn’t watched their excruuuuuuciatinglyyyy slowwwww video.
Hey, that’s the same method I use for completing our safety courses! Some of the little quizzes can be contradictory though, like the one where the course material insists that you should never go near blood without specific PPE, while the only right answer for the quiz is that you should find any suitable hand coverings and do something to help the bleeding person. (Company policy is more in line with the course material – only employees trained in first aid are allowed to assist an injured person.)
It sounds as if you’re not trained in whatever field Dr. Bigcheese works in. Doesn’t he have any minions who actually are?
It’s not your fault that he’s too stupid to understand that, to you, his book might as well be in a dialect of Basque whose last speaker died before dictionaries got invented.
Right. I want to do a good job, but I literally don’t have the tools. Thanks for the kind words. I’m refreshed and ready to pester him again today (until he realizes it would have been simpler to just do this himself).
That was my standard procedure for the first three years at my old employer, then they actually did something right and added a pre-test that allowed you to skip the video and test if you passed it.
My last such survey had a question, “Describe your work environment in three words.” I gave them refulgent, sesquipedalian, and coadjuvant. Each of which I can make a case for.
Our two extracurricular activities this week mesh together nicely. Several days of attempting to pack up the agency’s library in some sensible way went into the toilet when the approaching deadline led to the decision to throw everything willy-nilly into cardboard boxes without any kind of order, sorting, or labeling. Yesterday afternoon the room was finally empty. This morning the unlabeled boxes filled with thousands of disorganized documents stretching back 28 years were moved into long-term storage.
Literally less than two hours after that, an urgent request came to search “all files” for a broad stretch of ill-defined search parameters on a highly technical subject. That includes the large roomful of files just randomized and buried.
I believe flatlined has experience with unsorted boxes. You should enlist her help searching for that info.