Experience counts

1. Design error

The concrete was on its way.

A final check of the rebars.

Hang on !  That just does not look right !

Yes, it is correct, as shown on the drawings.

It STILL does not look right !  CANCEL the concrete !

Call Head Office 500 miles away. 
Frantic check. 
Yes !  You are right ! 
We made an error. 
And our checking did not spot it.

Moral of this story - 
Experience counts.
If it looks wrong, it probably is wrong.

2. Site visits

Most of my working life - in the last century - was in tunnels - London, South Africa, Hong Kong, Turkey.  In each case I had taken visitors on tours of the tunnels, and also the office staff, and wives, and children, so that they might see for themselves what their men were doing.

In Turkey, I took an international group of fresh engineering graduates round the Works.  They thanked me profusely.  They had done all those years of theory, but only now did they appreciate the relationship between their studies and "the real world" on Site.

Much more recently - this century - I did some design work for a tunnel project.

A year or so later, after work on Sitehad progressed sufficiently, I telephoned my ex-supervisor, to ask if I might visit the tunnel. 
A sharp itake of breathe.
"Well -  "
"First you have to persuade the Project Director that your visit is essential to the progress of the Works."
"Then you have to do a two-day training course."
"And then you have to persuade a Senior Engineer to take the time off to show you around."

I said that sounded like nonsense - that the tunnel was regaded as highly dangerous for visitors - itself an indictment of the senior management !

"Tell me about it !  I have young graduates who have been working on the Project for some years; and THEY can't see inside the tunnel !"

Two weeks later there was a letter in The New Civil Engineer from the Head of the Health and Safety Executive, to say that he found it deplorable that "Today's young engineers in the design office never get a chance to get their boots dirty !  How CAN they do a proper job without that Site experience?

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