In case you didn't know it, I have a college intern at my bridge project up in Appleton. His name is Jher. I had pretty high hopes for him when he first started. He seemed very motivated and even asked me if I could bring in my old physics and calculus text books so that he could do practice problems when I didn't have real work for him to do. Friday we had to go into the two counterweight pits of my bridge and measure up 16 I-Beams in the pit. We were making these measurements because lower parts of the beams had eroded and are experiencing section loss. There were about 10 measurements to be made on each beam. I had Jher making 
all of the measurements and I was writing everything down. You wouldn't think that this would take very long but it was over 2 hours to complete it all. But the pace at which Jher worked is not what concerned me, it was the measurements that he was telling me. I do not expect every person to be able to look at a tape measure and know within a second or two the measurement, but if you are an engineer or studying to become one, I certainly do. Maybe Jher was a little intimidated as I was pretty much standing over him as he was making these measurements, but that was only to make sure he was doing it right. And he did make a couple of mistakes, so it is good that I was watching over him. I know for a fact that when he was making these measurements he was actually counting each sixteenth of an inch before he would say what the measurement was. Here are some of our actual conversations from Friday morning.
all of the measurements and I was writing everything down. You wouldn't think that this would take very long but it was over 2 hours to complete it all. But the pace at which Jher worked is not what concerned me, it was the measurements that he was telling me. I do not expect every person to be able to look at a tape measure and know within a second or two the measurement, but if you are an engineer or studying to become one, I certainly do. Maybe Jher was a little intimidated as I was pretty much standing over him as he was making these measurements, but that was only to make sure he was doing it right. And he did make a couple of mistakes, so it is good that I was watching over him. I know for a fact that when he was making these measurements he was actually counting each sixteenth of an inch before he would say what the measurement was. Here are some of our actual conversations from Friday morning.Jher: "6/16ths." Me: "Do you mean 3/8ths?" Jher: "Yes, that is what I meant, 3/8ths." That one happened twice.
Jher: "10/16ths." Me: "Do you mean 5/8ths?" Jher: "Yes, that is what I meant 5/8ths." That also happened twice.
Jher: "4/16ths." Me: "Did you say 4/16ths? Don't you mean 1/4 inch?" Jher: "Yes, 1/4 inch."
There was also a moment where he was measuring the flange of the I-Beam which in the area we measured that hadn't been eroded was 1/2 inch. So I knew that any measurement he gave because the beam was eroded would have to be less than 1/2 inch. Here was that conversation:
Jher: "5/8ths of an inch." Me: "Are you sure?" Jher: "Yes, 5/8ths.....wait no 5/16ths." Me: "Well, which one is it?" Jher: "No, it is 5/16ths, I am positive."
And my personal favorite of the day was the reading of "One knotch below a half inch" which the rest of the world likes to call 7/16ths of an inch.
Again, I do not mean to critical, and if it was just any person helping me, I wouldn't make an issue with it. But if you are looking to become a member of the Engineering Community being able to read a tape measure quickly and accurately is an absolute must. When you are trying to determine the strength of an I-Beam there is a huge difference between a beam that is 5/16th of an inch thick and one that is 5/8th of an inch thick.
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