...
Hellfire; that speedy stretch just outside London Bridge will just not be the same again...
Scrobs is off to the City today, to see a couple of new sites, meet the Partners for a resume of how we'll beat the bastard Brown's policy of trying to cheat and ruin everyone, consider the business plan of an intriguing Jewish Rabbi, meet some more property people, (including the stunningly lovely lady who seems to appear about now every year, like The Angel of Lourdes, to help me out of my raincoat while I'm on the mowbawl), and probably approach incoherence after Xmonius Thronging with about 150 similar reprobates.
The car is safely embedded in the drive and the good people of Kent will regard with tireless sufferance, the return of a shambling, gibbering wreck later today - probably on foot - possibly arriving back at the Turrets after Mrs S and JRT have gone to bed, and starving hungry for about a pound of cheese, some of that funny brown bread in the pantry, a two inch layer of Lurpak, all the Branston in the gallon jar, a final 'Cleanser' if it's still in the fridge, and an unloading of all the cards, notes, keys, and other pocket detritus, about which I'll probably recall absolutely nothing!
It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it...
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Thursday, 3 December 2009
Friday, 20 November 2009
The excitement mounts...
...
As the slide rule post is grinding slowly to a climax, (and I can tell you, I've learnt quite a lot about people from the last post!), I thought I would add insult to perjury by explaining a little more, why calculators are so important in Quantity Surveying!
This really is rivetting stuff, and not for the faint hearted, so Ladies and Gents, pull up a pouffe, pour a green-tea, and I'll begin...
Up until the late sixties, the offices of QS firms operated a form of torture or apprenticeship, which would coincide with the starters getting qualified and moving up in the world. The difference between then and now is that calculators were a rarity, and not the size of credit cards which they are now. The machines we had were about the size of your average multi-tasking printer, with glowing lights and a keyboard rather like a Star Trek display...
(Little known fact - The hardware and software on the rocket and other kit, which took the men to the moon, was not as powerful as that designed into your everyday Beamer 7 series...)!
Anyway, back to Quantity Surveying! This really is exciting isn't it... (more tea Vicar?)
When sprogs were taken on straight from school, they usually had a couple of GCEs and a series of bruises behind the neck from being battered by schoolmasters like the one in 'The Wall'. Their first job was perhaps making coffee, buying Partners' fags etc., and coping with amorous telephonists, (I've got a nephew just like you; nice boy, strong legs, plays rugger...how old did you say you were...ooooh). But for real work, they were put in a darkened room, usually a small windowless cupboard with a single unshaded light bulb, and ordered to calculate, by hand, using duodecimals, a list of figures on a pile of paper about a foot high, which was constantly added to by immediate superiors who smoked Gold Leaf and wore mohair suits (40 Guineas...).
It went like this.
Year one - Lowest of the low, little self esteem, probably just kicking the 'Clearasil' years, usually ignored by older members of the firm, told to calculate millions of areas, cubes, lists, schedules, (without the use of a single cylindrical slide rule or anything mechanical or electric...), thought Luncheon Vouchers were better than salary, fancied Gloria in Accounts; and her mother.
Year two - Promotion to Worker-Up. (True Gals...)! This meant that he or she could actually do some writing as well, or copying at least. It had to be done correctly and checked. Once the processes had been carried out, there was proof reading as well, God how we lived then, it was magic!
Year three - More Working-Up and even being in charge of a 'job' and allowed to beat up all the other juniors like the year one guys, and steal their fags, sandwiches etc.
Year four - Promotion to Taker-Off. (Even truer Gals)! This was a skill which was earned by experience and a detailed knowledge of the Bible of QSing, "The Standard Method of Measurement". It entailed measuring quantities of building materials and labours from drawings prepared by Architects, who were an odd race that walked on water at the time. The Taker-Off would write all his numbers in lists on Bill Paper, (Not the bloke who lives at No 45, a pad of specially ruled paper, please keep up...)!
The Taker-Off was indeed secure for life. He or she would be among the first people ever to cultivate the 'Nerd Pack', (a row of coloured biros in the top jacket pocket), and these would be carefully laid out next to the pile of paper in readiness for the day's work. Pencils were frowned upon, but rulers were needed by the ultimate perfectionist.
One man had a folded Kleenex on which he would carefully wipe the ink which gathered round the Biro tip...)! A highlight of his work was a 'Colouring Friday', when he would colour up important parts of a building on the drawing, to define the detail more easily! Another chap would occasionally pop his head round the door, and say something inane like "I've just done a reduction estimate on Chase Farm, Heungh Heungh Heungh"; all in the voice like Bluebottle's in the Goons).
So that's it! This was the start of a career which actually veered away pretty quickly from the original course after all the excitement explained above, and which is probably why I never made a fortune (yet), but with the experience of all those rude procedures, telephonists...oooooh, small rooms (and shenanigans) in the basement, well, the world's your oyster, er, wasn't it...
Slide over Cylindrical Slide Rule, Floreat Electric Calculator...
Better now?
As the slide rule post is grinding slowly to a climax, (and I can tell you, I've learnt quite a lot about people from the last post!), I thought I would add insult to perjury by explaining a little more, why calculators are so important in Quantity Surveying!
This really is rivetting stuff, and not for the faint hearted, so Ladies and Gents, pull up a pouffe, pour a green-tea, and I'll begin...
Up until the late sixties, the offices of QS firms operated a form of torture or apprenticeship, which would coincide with the starters getting qualified and moving up in the world. The difference between then and now is that calculators were a rarity, and not the size of credit cards which they are now. The machines we had were about the size of your average multi-tasking printer, with glowing lights and a keyboard rather like a Star Trek display...
(Little known fact - The hardware and software on the rocket and other kit, which took the men to the moon, was not as powerful as that designed into your everyday Beamer 7 series...)!
Anyway, back to Quantity Surveying! This really is exciting isn't it... (more tea Vicar?)
When sprogs were taken on straight from school, they usually had a couple of GCEs and a series of bruises behind the neck from being battered by schoolmasters like the one in 'The Wall'. Their first job was perhaps making coffee, buying Partners' fags etc., and coping with amorous telephonists, (I've got a nephew just like you; nice boy, strong legs, plays rugger...how old did you say you were...ooooh). But for real work, they were put in a darkened room, usually a small windowless cupboard with a single unshaded light bulb, and ordered to calculate, by hand, using duodecimals, a list of figures on a pile of paper about a foot high, which was constantly added to by immediate superiors who smoked Gold Leaf and wore mohair suits (40 Guineas...).
It went like this.
Year one - Lowest of the low, little self esteem, probably just kicking the 'Clearasil' years, usually ignored by older members of the firm, told to calculate millions of areas, cubes, lists, schedules, (without the use of a single cylindrical slide rule or anything mechanical or electric...), thought Luncheon Vouchers were better than salary, fancied Gloria in Accounts; and her mother.
Year two - Promotion to Worker-Up. (True Gals...)! This meant that he or she could actually do some writing as well, or copying at least. It had to be done correctly and checked. Once the processes had been carried out, there was proof reading as well, God how we lived then, it was magic!
Year three - More Working-Up and even being in charge of a 'job' and allowed to beat up all the other juniors like the year one guys, and steal their fags, sandwiches etc.
Year four - Promotion to Taker-Off. (Even truer Gals)! This was a skill which was earned by experience and a detailed knowledge of the Bible of QSing, "The Standard Method of Measurement". It entailed measuring quantities of building materials and labours from drawings prepared by Architects, who were an odd race that walked on water at the time. The Taker-Off would write all his numbers in lists on Bill Paper, (Not the bloke who lives at No 45, a pad of specially ruled paper, please keep up...)!
The Taker-Off was indeed secure for life. He or she would be among the first people ever to cultivate the 'Nerd Pack', (a row of coloured biros in the top jacket pocket), and these would be carefully laid out next to the pile of paper in readiness for the day's work. Pencils were frowned upon, but rulers were needed by the ultimate perfectionist.
One man had a folded Kleenex on which he would carefully wipe the ink which gathered round the Biro tip...)! A highlight of his work was a 'Colouring Friday', when he would colour up important parts of a building on the drawing, to define the detail more easily! Another chap would occasionally pop his head round the door, and say something inane like "I've just done a reduction estimate on Chase Farm, Heungh Heungh Heungh"; all in the voice like Bluebottle's in the Goons).
So that's it! This was the start of a career which actually veered away pretty quickly from the original course after all the excitement explained above, and which is probably why I never made a fortune (yet), but with the experience of all those rude procedures, telephonists...oooooh, small rooms (and shenanigans) in the basement, well, the world's your oyster, er, wasn't it...
Slide over Cylindrical Slide Rule, Floreat Electric Calculator...
Better now?
Monday, 16 November 2009
Slide rules OK...
Lils has prompted - nay; cajoled - nay; jugularised me to do this post which I once threatened I'd do for Elbers who is a clever chap (much cleverer than me), and only because I'm possibly a dormant nerd passim, a hoarder, a collector, a greying, shambling, emotional won't-let-the-past-go-type-of-bloke-with-stuff-in-the-roof-which-he-just-can't-chuck-out; - er - yet...
So here it is!
A post on Slide Rules!
There; I've said it, and I must tell you what a relief it is to mention how much I'm going to enjoy life from now on!
My Dad used a slide rule all his life. It was an engineer's calculator, a scientific object to fiddle with on your desk, a magical instrument to teach your son when you're taking him away to Wales to boarding school, and need to occupy the lad until he's either bored to tears, or just full of tears.
Dad had at least three linear slide rules, and another cylindrical model here
which for the life of me I cannot understand one bit!
For intricate calculations, he'd use a single bar linear rule which was about two feet long, and was incredibly accurate. He then graduated to stellar numerology...
This pictured Otis King model 'L' was the bees knees up until the late sixties, when electronic calculators came on the scene. I worked in Westminster in a Quantity Surveyor's office then, and we had calculators which cost £350.00, and were the size of a multi-tasking printer from Currys now! They were huge, and did peculiar things if you pressed all the keys at once, then left it to smoulder; which we regularly did after taking bets on the number which would flash up after lunch...
But these slide rules are a bit special still, and they don't need batteries, and they still work after fifty years, and - well, they're a bit of Scrobs' history...
So here it is!
A post on Slide Rules!
There; I've said it, and I must tell you what a relief it is to mention how much I'm going to enjoy life from now on!
My Dad used a slide rule all his life. It was an engineer's calculator, a scientific object to fiddle with on your desk, a magical instrument to teach your son when you're taking him away to Wales to boarding school, and need to occupy the lad until he's either bored to tears, or just full of tears.
Dad had at least three linear slide rules, and another cylindrical model here
which for the life of me I cannot understand one bit!For intricate calculations, he'd use a single bar linear rule which was about two feet long, and was incredibly accurate. He then graduated to stellar numerology...
This pictured Otis King model 'L' was the bees knees up until the late sixties, when electronic calculators came on the scene. I worked in Westminster in a Quantity Surveyor's office then, and we had calculators which cost £350.00, and were the size of a multi-tasking printer from Currys now! They were huge, and did peculiar things if you pressed all the keys at once, then left it to smoulder; which we regularly did after taking bets on the number which would flash up after lunch...
But these slide rules are a bit special still, and they don't need batteries, and they still work after fifty years, and - well, they're a bit of Scrobs' history...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)