Today's Daily Pencil

[FlyingClayDisk]

Oh Lort! I knew I shouldn't have opened this thread! Having flashbacks of working on the final touches of a vocational (industrial) drafting project in preparation for state competition back in high school. The anxiety!!! 

Won at state, flopped like a nearly dead fish at higher levels with an honorable mention- which back then was on par with a participation ribbon! Lol!

I fully expect nightmares tonight!

Ahh yes, the old pressure cooker.  Know it well.  I laugh now when I look back on those days.  I started technical drawing in 7th grade (1st year of Jr. High School).  I was horrible, just awful!  I couldn't draw a straight line even with a ruler!  And, my lettering was worse than Egyptian hieroglyphics (much worse)!  My father was the head of Engineering for one of the largest steel corporations in the World at the time, and I couldn't even letter my own name properly.  Seriously.  I was at my wits end.  I'm not 100% sure, but I think I might have broken all records in recorded history for being the most awful, just ever!

I sat down with Dad one day and asked him how he learned to print so well.  His advice; "print every single word you write from no on in capital letters."  It worked.  By the time I'd made it to my 2nd year in HS I had already tested out of all of my technical drawing, math and science classes and was already getting job offers to work as a Draftsman professionally. 

Now, for that nightmare you're contemplating having, just imagine this...

There is no test.  You're still not even 20 years old yet.  You're asked to go to work for Bechtel Engineering (the largest in the World at the time), on a major chemical plant shutdown in the windswept high deserts of Wyoming.  The date is December 20th, and you will work with a team of others night and day (24x7), as fast as you possibly can, to produce thousands upon thousands of drawings.  The plant costs tens of millions of dollars an HOUR to be shut down.  Each Sr. Draftsman (I was one) had 3 Field Engineers assigned to them, each constantly bringing me three-dimensional isometric diagrams and sketches they'd made from out in the plant where thousands of tradesmen were working non-stop to refit the plant.  It was nearly impossible to keep up with the mountain of data these guys were bringing.  As soon as a drawing was finished it would immediately be processed into reproducible "mylars" and prints were given to the modelers who were painstakingly constructing an exact scale model of the entire plant based on your documents.  One mistake backed up the isometrics and sketches you had coming in, and starved the modelers for the designs required to build the scale models.  Why scale models?  Because chemical plants are so infinitely complicated that when something doesn't fit someplace they literally used the models to figure out how to maneuver the pieces into place, and then changed the designs on the fly...which were all the more drawings you had to complete. 

One morning, at last we were done, it was about 3am or so.  The date was January 3rd. 

I've worked as an Engineer all my career since those days, and I've been all over the World doing it, but to this day I made more money in a single day than I've ever made in a single day before or since.  And I remember when the clock struck midnight on December 24th.  It was Christmas Day.  Some joker flipped off the lights for a second and then back on again; "Merry Christmas!!", everyone said.  And that was all the time there was for idle chit-chat...back to it...there was no time to waste!

When I got my paycheck that week I went down to the Jeep dealership and paid cash for a brand new top of the line Jeep CJ-8 (Scrambler) with the money I'd earned from December 24th at 6pm to December 26th at 6am.  My Christmas present to myself.

All because of a pencil.

And people wonder why I like pencils.

P.S. - I hope you sleep well tonight!  It can always get more stressful.