My apprentice handed me a tape measure backwards and I lost 20 minutes on a simple layout

So I had this little tank job down at the ethanol plant near Decatur last Tuesday, just a 10 foot diameter thing with a normal straight shell and an elliptical head. My apprentice, kid's been with me maybe 4 months, he's fitting up the shell and I ask him for the tape measure. He hands it to me with the hook facing the wrong way, the numbers were upside down and I just grabbed it without looking. I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out why my measurements were off by a half inch on every mark. I finally looked down and realized he'd flipped the tape, but I had already cut a 4 foot section too short. Had to weld in a filler piece and grind it down, just a pain in the rear. Has anyone else had an apprentice do something simple that cost way more time than it should have?

2 comments

2 Comments

reeseperez16d ago

Wait, the hook was facing the wrong way or the numbers were upside down?

emmawood16d ago

Your mileage may vary but I heard about this thing where you're supposed to train apprentices to hand tools with the business end facing you, like how a surgeon hands a scalpel. It sounds over the top but after reading a safety bulletin from one of the big fabricators, they said it cuts down on mistakes like this by a lot. The kid probably didn't even realize he flipped it, he just grabbed it however he had it in his hand. I had a similar thing happen with a level once, the bubble was stuck on one end and I didn't check it for a whole afternoon. You just assume the tool is right and it bites you.