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.
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 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.
I like this
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.
“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.
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
Damn, dude managed to literally memorize code without having any idea of what was going on. Meanwhile, I’d spend most of my time trying to figure whether it’s div or mod that i’m supposed to use to check for the remainder of a division, I always forget which is which
Omg!
So these guys are smart enough to read Vernier calipers, but dumb enough to measure like this?
I’d hazard a guess that they are also reading them wrong.
Oh jeebus fucking christ. Sometimes the dumb hurts and then you get the existential dread knowing you’re about to have to call this moron. And, even better, they usually make more money than you.
Anyone who works with clients can appreciate this one
I am a certified blithering idiot and even I feel like a high society intellectual compared to this picture.
They were trying to design a caliper holder that fits the jaws in that orientation, obviously. They need to fix this, send it back.
Judging by this, even if it’s the right size, they’ll probably install it wrong anyway, so why bother?
I hate that I have blurted this out during meetings before.
A normal set of calipers has 3 basic modes of measuring things: inside, outside, and depth. It is amazing to me how many people in this thread don’t know at least one of those or use them wrong.
Til the calipers I use, almost daily, can measure depth. Now I’m less annoyed about the stick protruding from the end lmao
Haha same.
Tbf I use mine daily and had to pause a second thinking what would be the third mode. (never use it to measure depth)
You can also use the top back side to measure steps. It’s more precise than using the depth gauge.
This just tells me calipers should have 2 measuring bars on them, so gaps and other inside edges can be measured like this (maybe this already exists, idak)
Just flip it, the top bars are for measuring from the inside.
That’s what the two prongs at the top are for. Flip the caliper upside down, use the prongs to measure the inside dimension, and read it off the same scale.
Ah cool, didn’t notice those. Cheers
“Caliper jaws for inside measurement—I thought of that. Turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently."
I think the guy was actually referring to something a bit different, that is having a second number scale on the caliper that is offset by the width of the first jaw, so you can use the outside jaws for measuring inside dimensions. I don’t think that would work, however.
The second scale sounds like a good Idea till you mess up everything due to using the wrong one. I once had a Spirit Level that was for plumbers and had a Second bubble-level built in that was even when the Level was tiltet to about 1.5 degree, great for waste-lines and gutters. Now everything in my House ist tilted by 1.5 degree except the plumbing and gutters.
I was indeed (and I think you’re right, the calipers would need at least to be parallel on their outer edges to work this way).
I’m not sure what rz2000 was doing by (slightly wrongly) rewording basically what I wrote — I get the impression they think I was being full of myself for thinking of a (similar) concept that already exists (despite conceding that it already might) and felt the need to put me back in place.
By using the same scale for inside and outside, you can take one measurement inside, and compare it to something else as outside without moving the scale at all.
Looks like that hole chamfer is wrong. Doesn’t properly fit the measuring device.
Wow! That’s a creative way to use a caliper.
That’s why teaching children about metrology basics is so important.Idiots suck
Showed this pic to my co workers (steelworkers/blacksmiths) and only the old guys knew what was funny about the pic… Gen z think that calipers are toy guns…
I dunno, a lot of gen z and millennials probably use them when fabricating parts for things that you can’t get them for. I know I do for my printer.
Well… im an old millennial and know what it is and how to use it properly…
