All in a Year's Work

One knows he/she is doing a challenging engineering job when any of the
following exchanges or the like occur at your workplace:

1)

One: Er..sir. I think these prints are all wrong. The plans of the old plant are all fuzzy and unreadable.

Sir: Yes, I know. You did requisition a magnifying lens with your stationary right? No? Ok, use mine for the time being.

2)

Sir: So these thickness calculations have been done using a spreadsheet. We need to manually validate it.

One: So, we take random values from the 367 calculations and check it?

Sir: Random? No. We sequentially iterate through all the 367 entries.

One: !

3)

One: Sir, these material test certificates don't seem to be in English.

Sir: Yeah? Lemme see...hm...oh wait. Its here. See, right here, after the Spanish entry...nope, sorry, thats not English, 'materialo'...must be Italian. Now, whats Garantito Della resilienza...

One: (To Oneself) Sounds like a disease.

Sir: Alright.Use the other certificates that have English entries to cross reference as to what language the fields are in and then use Google Translate to find out what they mean. Wait...how do we enter Chinese characters?..hm...

4)

Sir 1: Apparently Joe didn't use the 2004 edition of the BPV code in the design. He used the 2002 edition...you know, the one that doesnt take into account the HIC requirement.

Sir 2: Oh my! Did they commision the thing with that?

Sir 1: Yup, you can imagine what happened...

Sir 2: Kaboom, huh?

Sir 1: Damn right! Big, bada boom. 6 people died.

Sir 2: What about Joe? He's in the Hong Kong office right?

Sir 1: Not any more. Apprently he is being extradited to Saudi Arabia for a public beheading.

5)

Sir 1: YOU DID WHAT??!!!

One: Sir, I just rounded the value off to the first decimal. I thought the material grade might still be right.

Sir 1: YOU ROUNDED IT OFF? WHO GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO ROUND OFF ANYTHING?

One: Well, sir..I had to 367 manual calculations and using 4 significant places of decimal is kinda cumbersome...so...

Sir 1: WHAT THE HELL DOES "KINDA CUMBERSOME" HAVE TO DO WITH ROUNDING OFF?

6)

HR Manager: You must have all heard of Joe's beheading. He was a good man, a responsible and caring father and husband to his family, though apparently, not as good an engineer. Nevertheless, he will be missed. Lets observe a minute's silence in honour of his memory.

(30 seconds later)

HR Manager: Thank you all. The Manager of Engineering Operations will now address you.

The Manager of Engineering Operations: Er..I have come to understand that apart from poor dead Joe, we may have a few more...how shall I put it... Here's the thing...most of those engineers involved in the design of the unit that exploded might have to visit Saudi Arabia of their own volition or choose instead to be extradited there against their will. Ofcourse, you can instead flee to a country that does not have an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia but that would mean you'll be a fugitive from the law of this country and worse, lose your employment at this firm.

If you instead choose to stay in this firm and face trial in Saudi Arabia, and if found guilty of manslaughter by negligence, you may, at worst be sentenced to something along the lines of mutilation of your limbs or at best a few lashings. In any case, the company's lawyers assure us that there will most
probably be no more beheadings and this gives us great confidence, as it should to you, what with our lawyers being the most competent Corporate lawyers in the business albeit quite capable of dealing with criminal issues of this nature. Should you be interested in engaging them to represent you the law firm will be glad to offer all of you a group discount for their services, in light of the long association with our company.

So, the good news is that almost certainly none of you will die. Some may be mutilated and some grievously injured, but at the end of it all, you'll all be, quite alive. And here's the best part...you may even get to keep this job. Lets not get our hopes up. Management is still working hard on this decision but we are sure it will decide in your favour. Can't be too sure about the Saudi courts though, so all the best!

7)

One: Sir, do you believe in God?

Sir: Nope. I believe in the Force.

One: The force?

Sir: Yup, the cosmic force that keeps the boilers I design intact despite the multitude of roundoff errors that you put into 'em.

One: Hm...Joe must have fallen out of favour with the Force, huh?

Sir: Nonsense. The dark side got to his boiler.

8)

Manager 1: Project Control tells us that ever since the Saudi Boiler trouble, productivity has doubled.

Manager 2: How's that?

Manager 1: Apparently, all the slacking supervisors now want to be the ones originating the designs. Before the incident they used to idle away, signing only the check print, leaving all the drudgery of the first draft to the hapless trainees.

Manager 2: Really?

Manager 1: Apparently, the engineers who originate the document only get 50 lashings if the stuff they design blows up according to Saudi law. Its the engineers who attest it as having been checked who have their limbs handed to them.