Faux Pas

[jmw]

A rule of survival:
In any situation, think before you speak.

In my first years of work, my company was bought out or merged or something and several operating units were closed down as part of the "rationalisation" program. Of course, a lot of folk got laid off.

One plant that closed produced orifice plates: "CROPs and TOPs" and manufacture moved down to our plant.
We also had some people move down and provide some training and one illustrated his talk with some pretty good stories.

One day we had a visiting inspector and it was my job to look after him. He seemed not to be the happiest sole so I related one of the stories I had been told of how an oriface plate installation was being commissioned and the engineer rang back to say that he couldn't get a flow registered.
Aftermuch discussion and following lots of tests, the engineer finally decided to open up the pipework and inspect the orifice.
It had no hole but it did have an inspection mark.
He rang the office and spoke to QA about this.
"Hey, I've got this oriface plate with no hole but everything says it was inspected and approved."
The QA guy, whose approval it was, replied "If it passed inspection, its got a hole."

This story went down like a lead baloon with my visiting inspector.
"Did you never hear of a blank oriface plate?" he asked through gritted teeth, explaining that sometimes blanks would be provided to be sized on site later.

It just hadn't ocured to me that laid-off QA guys would get work as inspectors.... I guess I just about made his day.
A less generous guy might have found a way to make some trouble for me.

Fortunately my ears are drying out now and I have learned some discretion and that part of surviving is not to make enemies, they can have long memories.

But it's an amusing occupation watching others make the same mistakes and look horrified when they learn what they did.







JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[Latexman]

I'll have a blank orifice plate and a 3/8" hole shipped loose along with the plate. The hole will be installed in the field.


Good luck,
Latexman

 

[RDK]

No 3/8 holes left will a 1/4" and a 1/8" hole do?

Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[TheBlacksmith]

How about a 23/64 hole and letting it wear in...

Blacksmith

 

[Ashereng]

Laughing Out Loud.

I love engineering humour.

 

[EngJW]

If only it had a sharp edge, you could use a donut

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

You must eat very small doughnuts!


Helpful SW websites faq559-520
How to get answers to your SW questions faq559-1091

 

[redgdon]

LOL

Once again, that age-old adage applies.

Better to let people think you’re an idiot, than to open your mouth and confirm it.

 

[lewtam]

One of my rules is to not pass on any humerous stories that involve anonymous parties - I've done exactly what JMW did several times (slow learner).

The weird thing is, if you know who made the funny mistake, 90% of the time you can make fun of them to their face and they take it with good grace.


LewTam Inc.
Petrophysicist, Leading Hand, Natural Horseman, Prickle Farmer, Crack Shot, Venerable Yogi.

 

[jmw]

Well, I only think I've learned my lesson and though I don't now repeat such stories (except here?) there are lots of other ways to do oneself no good and I am pretty sure I find new ways every day.

Learning from the mistakes of others is far better:

A colleague of mine was at an ISA dinner or some such similar, his first (and nearly last) time of being allowed out in such august company, and proceded to wax lyrical about our companies products.

Fair enough, maybe, but when he then laid into the competitors products (a no-no in any event) he failed to take account of the fact that that company was represented at the same dinner table as our own after dinner speaker. Rather than get into a slanging match he simply sat quite and then sent a strong letter to the MD.

It is a sad thing when some engineers are not allowed out on their own because of what they may or may not say. The social graces are often not much attended to by company training programs and yet the ability not to put ones foot in it is surely a pretty strong requirement and one wrong word can do endless harm.

There are some excellent Video Arts traning films produced by John Cleese that proved very amusing and instructional. My fvaourite is the service engineer who visits a client, regards the offending piece of equipment, sucks his teeth, shakes his head and then says "Who sold you this then?".

Despite having seen this film, one service engineer (and by training, history and nature of the products, of necessity a true engineer) continued to accompanied excurions to key accounts to prevent just such occassions.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[flamby]

The best part of donut is the hole, eat it and throw the rest.

Ciao.

 

[PSE]

As if there were not enough opportunities to make mistakes in one's own country, remember cultural differences also add to the complexity of working in today's world.

Regards,

 

[SomptingGuy]

Back in the 80s a manager where I now work published an internal document assessing one of our competitors. It made specific references to that competitor's then CEO/MD. They were not in any way complimentary and I'm not going to repeat them here.

When that person was later hired by my company to fill a senior position, the document and all references to it went strangely AWOL.