Engineer's Piss Me Off!!!!

I admit that I am not sitting on a BS in engineering here, but I do not think of myself as completely stupid. My expertise is in the building codes. However, to do my job I have to understand the basic principles of engineering to make sure they have been properly incorporated into the plans. It is actually a fairly simple process on my end...when the damn engineer gives me proper calculations.

I got another set this week with shitty engineering. I believe that the results of the engineering are probably acceptable, but how the hell would I know that when all I get is a few sheets of paper saying that this foundation works and these are the weights that it holds up. Believe it or not, to get those numbers you actually have to do math or at least type the information into a computer program and let it do the math. Is it asking to much to just include the math and computer calculations with the submittal. Now I have to go through the hassle of sending out a letter, waiting for you to get it and make the revisions I require, and then review those revisions once you finally turn them in (three months later when I no longer have any idea what the problem was to begin with and now have to completely review the plans again). In the meantime, the asshole that hired you is calling me everyday to find out why you are stupid.

Anyway, my favorite local draftsman came in today. The freaky bastard, I swear, has got to be homeless. He comes in at least once a week wearing the same ratty disgusting shirt, same torn dirty shorts, and flipflops that I think he stole from a homeless person back in 1987. Who hires this freak? He is always submitting new plans that he has drawn up for people on a computer so he definitely gets a lot of business, but come on he looks like shit and smells...well, he smells like he looks. I probably wouldn't care one way or the other, but I seem to always be the one checking his plans, they are never correct, and he always wants to meet with me to see if he fixed it as I requested in my letter.

The girls know just to tell me that the homeless guy is here to see me.

I am always looking under the bridges around town now. I figure odds are in my favor that one day I will spot him sitting under one working on an old computer getting power from a wire he spliced off one of the street lights.