Of course!

This reminded me of a story that happened when I was still in the Navy.

I was stationed in San Diego and I had a friend who had gotten out and became a sheriff’s deputy, in a nearby city, and he offered to let me do a ride along with him for a the day.

There were a couple of things that happened that changed my opinion of him and cops in general (I am 99% ACAB now though).

Towards the end of the day, someone made a call that someone was smoking meth in a motel room. My friend was called in to assist the cop already there.

We got there and he had me stand back until he waved me in a few minutes later.

I walked up and the OP cop had, what looked like, two skater types sitting on the curb just outside their motel room. Still teenagers.

My friend said he needed me to help toss the room, looking for drugs while the other cop questioned them.

Going into the room, my friend asked the kids to do him a favor and just tell him where the drugs were. They told him it was behind one of the nightstand drawers.

Sure enough it was there (sandwich bag of pot), but my friend said we still needed to search, just in case there really was meth, or something else illegal.

While we searched, I could hear the cop question the kids. They were from a town over and just got paid. They both lived at home and just needed a place to smoke.

In the room was a new skate board deck, some Sonic, and an Xbox with some games. No meth. They were begging for them not to call their parents and I just thought these kids were fucked.

We finished searching and came out, my friend gave the pot to the other cop.

This part is what blew my mind.

My friend looks at the kids and says, “Let me guess. You were both smoking and some guy smelled the pot, knocked on your door and asked to have some and you told him to fuck off?”

At no point did the kids say anything about someone knocking on their door.

The kids looked flabbergasted and stammered, “How did you know?”, to which my friend said that was who probably called in, saying someone was smoking meth.

They then took the handcuffs off and my friend then says, “Next time, don’t answer the door.”

The other cop then GIVES THEM THE POT BACK, and we all walk away.

I was sure those poor kids were fucked and I said as much. My friend then said, "I don’t give a shit about pot. Kids don’t break into Grandma’s house and rob her so they can get money to buy pot.

I can say the opposite. I have had craft, in the field, make design choices without engaging the engineer, and now the client is angry because shit isn’t working right, because someone made a command decision in a silo.

Drawings are never perfect. Most of the time, engineers are working off client provided drawings that aren’t very accurate, so the assumptions are bad when the shovel hits the ground.

That is neither the craft, nor the engineer’s fault.

I am an EE and I can’t magically know that the last guy to hang an antenna put it 10’ higher than he was supposed to and the client doesn’t want to pay for a site visit.

So now my tower climber is pissed because he has to make multiple climbs, take photos and then wait with his thumb up his butt, while I am trying to get the client to agree to a plan, and he is going to blame me.

Now I am a Construction Manager, and I get pissed at the engineer when he provides drawings that don’t give even half the info I need.

I’ll buy the material, no problem, but you need to give me a fucking BoM because I don’t know what your design criteria is and I am not going to guess.

I’m sure as hell not going to let my craft buy whatever coax connection is available, and fits, to connect a feedline.

They don’t know what actually goes into that.

Likewise, an engineer can’t tell if an existing conduit has enough room to snake a new cable because the cable schedule isn’t always accurate. But then my craft doesn’t know how to calculate conduit fill b because they don’t know the types/level of voltages in the existing lines.

I have also NEVER known an electrician who, when first laying eyes on a job, not complain about the terrible work performed by the previous electrician.

Working brownfields is always going to be a pain and everyone loves to bitch when the job ends up being harder than it should have been.

I will say this. I love being a construction manager 100 times more than being an engineer, but having that background is fucking invaluable because I can spot problems from further away and can usually resolve them quickly.

They are required to have a minimum of three years of design experience and have to pass a PE exam before they are allowed to verify their own designs.

Up until that point, all of their designs are required to be sealed by another PE.

Beth makes the best stories.