The Rough Draft

I think I’ve just figured out a deep secret of the universe.

I’m working on big industrial project right now (hey, people got to eat you know) and I overheard one of the Engineers telling a junior engineer, “Hey, pay attention to all of this, you’ll be writing the manual.”

Now this junior engieer is pretty new to this particular industry, he comes out of the automotive world. We’re a bit more freewheeling than those guys. I’m not saying we’re better, just different. Back however to this engineer. See he’s not just new to this industry but alos to the country asa whole. He hails from mainland China and while his English is good, we still have a few communication issues. It’s also become apparent that there are subtle body cues that differ greatly from the West to the East. That however is neither here nor there. He’s writing the manual on how this particular plant operates.

This is when I realized, that’s why manuals seldom make sense. They’re written by Junior Engineers and because of the current breakdowns in our own education system and the gap filling smarts of our other worldwide cousins, the majority of the junior engineers are not in the English as a first language camp. Then again, I also discovered that there is spoken German and Technical German (both very different). Technical German reads like a bad Monty Python script because each single word accurately tells you what the thing does. So a. “gewurrlensplittenripper,” pretty much does what it sounds like.

But as the majority of these engineers are junior and the senior guys don’t want to be bothered about writing a manual, they get stuck with the job. And then it becomes a chore of research and translation. As English is a fluid language, you can see what happens. And if you have a document that has been translated two or three times through different languages, well then you can only guess what the final manual looks like.

I guess it was the same in my Dad’s day as I never saw him read a manual when he was fixing something. Though he would look at the pictures from time to time.

So my daughter snapped this pic of me the last time we went to play. I didn’t realize that I looked so serious when I’m on the field. She took some friendlier snaps of me in the neutral zone (really). However, I’ve been having a blast at the Paintball Nation field here in Mississauga. The guys keep swithcing up the field layout so it’s always a challenge to find the angles and dangles that let you win your side.

I was doing a lot of pushing the corners. so I took more than a few hits. I did however clean the field a few times as I guess a 6′2″ guy dressed in flourescent red running down your left hand side, shooting is hard to see.

Going out again next Wednesday. After seeing how much guys with those electric markers spend screwing with their markers, I’ll be sticking to my trusty mechanical for the forseeable future. Though I am glad that I picked up a Freak kit. Holy crap Batman is that thing accurate.