Week 5 - I Dream of Wires
Well, that’s five weeks and I’m coming to the dread realisation that the horror of this industry continues on the same inexorable path towards damnation. One of my main tasks at the moment is checking the drawings of other designers for CAD compliance, so the other day I’d spent the best part of an hour identifying and correcting all the errors in a design, and then I came to a near identical sheet expecting to find the same errors but no, an entirely new set of errors had been created especially for each sheet in the sequence. Later, I spent some considerable time fixing a quite horrific drawing for one designer, and immediately afterwards he created a new sheet based on the source of that sheet before I’d made the corrections. I had to go outside for a bit at that point.
The thing is, thanks to the wonder of cut and paste, these alleged designers will grab portions of one circuit and stick it into another diagram by just slapping it down in the approximate area and drawing lines over it. Unfortunately, our clients are quite hot on ensuring that computer produced drawings are of a slightly higher quality than sketches produced on the back of a beer mat, and this demands that my colleagues have an degree of competence which I suspect they are incapable of achieving. Worse, the accuracy of their errors makes them almost undetectable – I am typically finding wires which miss their contact point by sixty-eight ten-thousandths of a millimetre, which almost makes me think that they’re doing it deliberately. I try to explain to people how to produce diagrams precisely so that they aren’t just generating landfill when they go to the printers, and get told “yes, but I’m in a hurry and it’s easier for me to do it like this.” Yeah, and it would be easier for me to kill you and hide the body than to attempt to train you to do something right, but we can’t always be going for the easy option, can we?
So, what it seems to be is this: a designer who has no knowledge of CAD and no interest in learning produces an engineering drawing of the most abysmal quality (broken cells, nothing set to grid, wires constructed from disjointed fragments and straight lines which aren't even straight) which are illogically laid out and of the kind of aesthetic quality that would make any wireman say "stuff it" and go home early, and when it is suitably atrocious, having the appearance of being drawn by someone stood fifteen metres from the screen and using a light pen in their non-favoured hand, it is then taken and copied into every other signalling installation before it has a chance to be compliance checked. I am endeavouring to pursue these errors in the vain hope of actually catching them up and overtaking these rogue designers but, because it is quicker to throw elements onto a sheet than it is to go in and check every single connection and then repair the circuits, I have no chance of success and will probably still be correcting this mess long after rail has ceased to be a mode of transportation and everybody has switched to driving solar-powered air-cars. I increasingly suspect that I am actually living in a mythological Greek vision of hell. I’m putting in fifty hour weeks and seem to be achieving nothing.
As if this were not enough, we have no graphics cards in our computers, for reasons which continue to be unclear but are probably related to working for a multi-million pound engineering firm instead of all the two-bit, fly-by-night charlatans I have worked for who managed to have fully-specified machines. Normally, this would merely be seen as an unacceptable level of cheapness, but because of the level of accuracy, or rather inaccuracy, which we work to, contact point errors are visible which do not actually exist: that is to say, I can see a contact point disconnection which measures 0.0000mm. Of course, it isn't there, but if one can't rely on the evidence presented by one's own eyes when using what is essentially a graphical device, then there is absolutely no chance at all of compliance checking engineering drawings accurately. Far be it from me to complain.
Beyond that, I noticed that off-circuit connectors from sheets 2156 to 2157 were labelled TA and TB, and that sheets 2160 to 2161 also has OCCs labelled TA and TB. I drew this to the attention of a designer and was informed that only last week it was decided not to use the same OCC names in any book of circuits more than once. Last week! Apparently rationing of letters only ended recently, or perhaps electrical engineering is still in its infancy in this part of the world. I'm quite used to going to places where they're still trying to re-invent the wheel, but these guys are still inventing the straight line, and they're struggling with that.
Meanwhile, I have taken to wearing a Post-It note stuck to my lips whilst at my desk, as it became evident that I was unconsciously talking to myself whilst working and that most of what I muttered was unnecessarily graphic and quite profane.
The canteen continues to impress, providing sausage sandwiches and bacon rolls in the mornings (necessary when one starts work between 6:30 and 7am), and full cooked-breakfasts on Fridays. They also produce some pretty damn fine curries, hot-pots, pies and lasagnes and even offer a roast on Thursdays and fish ‘n’ chips on a Friday. There is also allegedly-fresh orange juice available in cans produced by Minute Maid (a division of The Coca Cola Company which offers no explanation as to whether said Maid is very fast or merely extremely small), who claim on their packaging: ‘We hope you enjoy drinking this as much as we enjoyed making it.’ Well, that's just too much pleasure.
I have finally joined the on-site social club and gym, but cannot comment further on these facilities because those responsible forgot to activate my swipe card so that I couldn’t get in, although I am assured that this state of affairs has now been rectified. Fortunately, the proximity of the Cutty Sark (real ale, good food and busty barmaids) has allowed me to take advantage of the opportunities presented by 18:00 GBT (Greenwich Beer Time).
More as it breaks. Live from Blighty.
The thing is, thanks to the wonder of cut and paste, these alleged designers will grab portions of one circuit and stick it into another diagram by just slapping it down in the approximate area and drawing lines over it. Unfortunately, our clients are quite hot on ensuring that computer produced drawings are of a slightly higher quality than sketches produced on the back of a beer mat, and this demands that my colleagues have an degree of competence which I suspect they are incapable of achieving. Worse, the accuracy of their errors makes them almost undetectable – I am typically finding wires which miss their contact point by sixty-eight ten-thousandths of a millimetre, which almost makes me think that they’re doing it deliberately. I try to explain to people how to produce diagrams precisely so that they aren’t just generating landfill when they go to the printers, and get told “yes, but I’m in a hurry and it’s easier for me to do it like this.” Yeah, and it would be easier for me to kill you and hide the body than to attempt to train you to do something right, but we can’t always be going for the easy option, can we?
So, what it seems to be is this: a designer who has no knowledge of CAD and no interest in learning produces an engineering drawing of the most abysmal quality (broken cells, nothing set to grid, wires constructed from disjointed fragments and straight lines which aren't even straight) which are illogically laid out and of the kind of aesthetic quality that would make any wireman say "stuff it" and go home early, and when it is suitably atrocious, having the appearance of being drawn by someone stood fifteen metres from the screen and using a light pen in their non-favoured hand, it is then taken and copied into every other signalling installation before it has a chance to be compliance checked. I am endeavouring to pursue these errors in the vain hope of actually catching them up and overtaking these rogue designers but, because it is quicker to throw elements onto a sheet than it is to go in and check every single connection and then repair the circuits, I have no chance of success and will probably still be correcting this mess long after rail has ceased to be a mode of transportation and everybody has switched to driving solar-powered air-cars. I increasingly suspect that I am actually living in a mythological Greek vision of hell. I’m putting in fifty hour weeks and seem to be achieving nothing.
As if this were not enough, we have no graphics cards in our computers, for reasons which continue to be unclear but are probably related to working for a multi-million pound engineering firm instead of all the two-bit, fly-by-night charlatans I have worked for who managed to have fully-specified machines. Normally, this would merely be seen as an unacceptable level of cheapness, but because of the level of accuracy, or rather inaccuracy, which we work to, contact point errors are visible which do not actually exist: that is to say, I can see a contact point disconnection which measures 0.0000mm. Of course, it isn't there, but if one can't rely on the evidence presented by one's own eyes when using what is essentially a graphical device, then there is absolutely no chance at all of compliance checking engineering drawings accurately. Far be it from me to complain.
Beyond that, I noticed that off-circuit connectors from sheets 2156 to 2157 were labelled TA and TB, and that sheets 2160 to 2161 also has OCCs labelled TA and TB. I drew this to the attention of a designer and was informed that only last week it was decided not to use the same OCC names in any book of circuits more than once. Last week! Apparently rationing of letters only ended recently, or perhaps electrical engineering is still in its infancy in this part of the world. I'm quite used to going to places where they're still trying to re-invent the wheel, but these guys are still inventing the straight line, and they're struggling with that.
Meanwhile, I have taken to wearing a Post-It note stuck to my lips whilst at my desk, as it became evident that I was unconsciously talking to myself whilst working and that most of what I muttered was unnecessarily graphic and quite profane.
The canteen continues to impress, providing sausage sandwiches and bacon rolls in the mornings (necessary when one starts work between 6:30 and 7am), and full cooked-breakfasts on Fridays. They also produce some pretty damn fine curries, hot-pots, pies and lasagnes and even offer a roast on Thursdays and fish ‘n’ chips on a Friday. There is also allegedly-fresh orange juice available in cans produced by Minute Maid (a division of The Coca Cola Company which offers no explanation as to whether said Maid is very fast or merely extremely small), who claim on their packaging: ‘We hope you enjoy drinking this as much as we enjoyed making it.’ Well, that's just too much pleasure.
I have finally joined the on-site social club and gym, but cannot comment further on these facilities because those responsible forgot to activate my swipe card so that I couldn’t get in, although I am assured that this state of affairs has now been rectified. Fortunately, the proximity of the Cutty Sark (real ale, good food and busty barmaids) has allowed me to take advantage of the opportunities presented by 18:00 GBT (Greenwich Beer Time).
More as it breaks. Live from Blighty.
posted by Jules at 7:23 AM
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