spoiler
For people that don’t know this is not how you use Calipers
I remember when I first applied for a job in a fabrication/machine shop. One of the questions in the interview was “Do you know how to read a tape measure‽” followed by “demonstrate that you can use a tape measure” along with some other fun ones like “what is the difference between these two pieces of material” (one was aluminum, the other stainless) and other such things. I remember being surprised/disappointed that there were grown people who couldn’t read a tape measure.
I’ve worked in machine shops and drafting offices for years now, and I’m no longer surprised by people who can’t use basic measuring tools. Still disappointed though.
There’s a great test for programmers called FizzBuzz. It’s an extremely easy task - print some numbers (maybe 1 to 100), but replace them with Fizz if they’re divisible by 3, by Buzz if they’re divisible by 5, or by FizzBuzz if they’re both.
Many reasonable people consider it way too easy - if you can write this, it doesn’t mean that you can write complex programs, or that you know the applicable languages, or that you know anything about the business domain.
But interviewers know that it’s a great test because a lot of so-called programmers still fail it.
We did a fizzbuzz interview with a candidate. He passed but I had a weird feeling about it so we asked him to do another one with 7 and 21 and he couldn’t do it even with his old code right there
It’s slightly different because all numbers divisible by 21 are also divisible by 7, so you would get all Fizz and FizzBuzz but no Buzz. So the question is, should you even be checking for Buzz, or should you make your code more efficient by eliminating those lines?
OK - now I’m curious, what were the most common mistakes people made reading a tape measurer? Because I’m having trouble working out how someone could screw that up lol
We had a guy we called “10/16” (ten sixteenths) because he was told to grab some 5/8" (0.625" or 16mm) steel plate, but he couldn’t find any he could only find 10/16" and 12/16".
People will count the little lines on the tape and not remember if they are 1/32, 1/16, or 1/8.
I think metric would help this.
Oh OK - that does make a bit more sense. Still not exactly Nobel prize material, but fucking up the fractions at least makes more sense than not knowing how to read numbers and count lines lol
Metric would help with everything lol. I dream of the day we finally make the switch
Yeah, fractions are dumb. Or I’m dumb and fractions are easy, but why don’t we split the difference and switch to metric?
I worked with a girl who would say “4 and 3 ticks!” meaning 1/8ths. We laughed at her enough that she tried to improve and started saying “4 point 3!” that lead to a discussion about decimal inches. I really blew her mind when I showed her the scale in 12ths on carpenter squares.
I worked on a site with two carpenters once, and one would measure and the other cut. One guy would call out “inch and a quarter strong” or " inch and a quarter weak" etc. Meaning 1 inch and 3/8 or one inch and 1/8. Perfect cuts every time.
Or they even say this is a sign of wear and means you should throw it out.
And because I enjoy sharing knowledge more than boasting I know more than others: the reason it moves is to account for the thickness of the metal hook itself.
It makes a difference if you are hooking it onto the back of something and measuring from there, OR butting it up onto something and measuring from there.
If you want accurate and consistent readings in both of these situations, the hook has to move. It basically pivots around the true point you’re measuring from.
If you already knew this expression, here is chapter two:
Account for the width of the blade.
At least for me, that has more to do with misremembering what I measured than mismeasuring it
Can’t count how many times I the workshop I measured something, made a mental note of it, walked back to the workbench, only to have to walk back and remeasure it because now I’ve forgotten what I just measured lol
“what is the difference between these two pieces of material” (one was aluminum, the other stainless)
Did they expect you to identify which metals they were, or just that they were different metals?
I was expected to know that one was stainless steel and the other was aluminum, but not the specific grades of stainless or aluminum. Stainless and aluminum can look very similar when they’re dirty, and 300 series stainless won’t stick to a magnet just like aluminum won’t stick to a magnet. But if you pick them up or even rap on them with your knuckles you can tell the difference.
After having a customer chew us out for something that wasn’t our fault he had us follow him to another room to discuss some more work. He borrows my tape measure and tries to measure something on the wall and the tape keeps falling over and flexing. It finally hits him in the face and hands it back to me and says “I’m not familiar with this type of tool”. I think he saw our faces turn red and eyes water up as we were trying SOOO hard not to laugh.
