The day my apprentice asked a question I could not answer about my own method

After 12 years of running jobs in Cleveland, this 22 year old kid asked me why I always reverse the torque sequence on flange bolts, and I froze because I had no clue. He pulled up the manufacturer manual on his phone and sure enough I had been doing it backwards since my first year, nobody ever caught it because everything just held anyway. Has anyone else had a younger worker point out something you had done on autopilot for over a decade?

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lisak2619d ago

Took me back to my second year doing HVAC work. This new kid, probably 19, asked why I crimped lines in a certain spot. I told him "that's just how you do it." He pulled out the spec sheet and showed me the crimp was supposed to go 2 inches further down. I had been doing it wrong for almost a decade. Felt like a total idiot for a week. But I started checking my own habits after that. Now I ask the young guys to question everything I do. It saved my ass more than once.