Schools of Engineering, may I have a word with you? I have worked diligently, for these last sixty years or so, as an unpaid and largely unappreciated consumer product tester. I've seen, closely and personally, the work that your graduates have done. And I have reached a conclusion that I need to share with you. The bottom third of each and every one of your classes should have diplomas that read "PPE", for Pretty Poor Engineer. They are the ones who end up designing can openers, vacuum cleaners, clock radios and cardboard boxes, while the top two-thirds of the class goes on to engineer jet planes and Corvettes. And those bottom thirders are the ones responsible for all the stuff that almost works.
My father had a unique method of dealing with consumer products that did not, for one reason or another, meet his professional standards. A brook ran alongside and below our house. When some gadget drew his ire, he'd walk outside and throw it into the brook, accompanied by some strong but fitting language. Problem solved. Us kids found the darnedest collection of stuff in that brook, from flashlights to can openers. I inherited my high standards from the king of high standards and I carry on the cause, even though I currently lack a brook.
So let me tell you why this particular gripe is on my mind today. I am, as you might suspect from the photo above, a rower. Rowing becomes difficult here in the winter since the lake freezes over, so I move my workout to my man cave in the basement, where I keep my rowing machine. It's a generally good machine and I've put quite a few miles on it; resistance is provided by a tank of actual water with a rotating paddle wheel inside. I queue up a Netflix streaming moving and put in a hard half-hour on the rig every other day through the winter.
A few days ago, while simultaneously engaged in viewing a shoot-em-up movie and in a quest to beat my best ever record for imaginary miles rowed in thirty minutes, I suddenly found myself doing a back flip off the seat of the rowing machine and onto the basement floor. Umph. As I struggled to my feet I noticed that I was still holding the handlebars that simulate oar handles -- but they where no longer fastened to the strap that makes the paddle wheel go round. The strap had looped through a slot in the handlebars -- a slot cut in steel and left sharp on its edges. Sharp steel slot, meet nylon strap -- no contest.
This had to be the work of a PPE! A rowing machine that cost the better part of a grand falling apart and putting my very valuable head in grave danger because some "engineer" missed the class where they taught that rock breaks scissors and steel cuts nylon! Boy, if I had a brook...
