Sunday, August 30, 2009

I Am Proof God Has a Sense of Humor

I truly believe God has a sense of humor and I am living proof of that. All through school my worst subject was anything to do with science (biology, geology, physics, chemistry). Hated it all, wasn’t good at any of that. So I went ahead and got a journalism degree. But for the past nine years I worked for companies/organizations that have been science based. Go figure. And for the last six of those years I’ve worked for two different mining engineering and consulting firms. Yes, I work with engineers and geologists.

Now you may be asking what a mining consulting company does. Well, I can’t give you a lot of details because, well quite frankly, I don’t understand a lot of what they do. What I do know is they produce reports: feasibility reports, due diligence reports, mine planning reports, annual audit reports, etc. (are you still with me?). And that is where I come in. I format, edit and proofread all these reports (and other documents) and I find it so amazing that I can do this so well without fully understanding the content of what I’m reading. Now after six years I have picked up on some things but words like “stripping ratio,” “downdip,” “highwall” and “outcrop” are lost on me.

So anyway (here is where the humor begins), awhile ago I was helping out on a project by doing data entry. A lot of times these mines have drill hole logs that were done 25 years before or earlier (i.e. before computers). So after several days of data entry one of the engineers asked if I wanted to see what all the data produced (bless his heart). Sure, why not? He took me to his computer where I saw a black screen with lots of colorful dots and lines on it. I had no idea what I was looking; it held absolutely no meaning to me.

“That’s nice,” I say. So the engineer explains what it means (don’t ask because I can’t tell you). And after a few minutes he stopped talking. “It’s pretty,” I said. “But you know what it looks like? Remember that childhood toy – Lite Bright? That’s what it looks like, Lite Bright!”

I truly believe God has a sense of humor and I am living proof of that. All through school my worst subject was anything to do with science (biology, geology, physics, chemistry). Hated it all, wasn’t good at any of that. So I went ahead and got a journalism degree. But for the past nine years I worked for companies/organizations that have been science based. Go figure. And for the last six of those years I’ve worked for two different mining engineering and consulting firms. Yes, I work with engineers and geologists.

Now you may be asking what a mining consulting company does. Well, I can’t give you a lot of details because, well quite frankly, I don’t understand a lot of what they do. What I do know is they produce reports: feasibility reports, due diligence reports, mine planning reports, annual audit reports, etc. (are you still with me?). And that is where I come in. I format, edit and proofread all these reports (and other documents) and I find it so amazing that I can do this so well without fully understanding the content of what I’m reading. Now after six years I have picked up on some things but words like “stripping ratio,” “downdip,” “highwall” and “outcrop” are lost on me.

So anyway (here is where the humor begins), awhile ago I was helping out on a project by doing data entry. A lot of times these mines have drill hole logs that were done 25 years before or earlier (i.e. before computers). So after several days of data entry one of the engineers asked if I wanted to see what all the data produced (bless his heart). Sure, why not? He took me to his computer where I saw a black screen with lots of colorful dots and lines on it. I had no idea what I was looking; it held absolutely no meaning to me.

“That’s nice,” I say. So the engineer explains what it means (don’t ask because I can’t tell you). And after a few minutes he stopped talking. “It’s pretty,” I said. “But you know what it looks like? Remember that childhood toy – Lite Bright? That’s what it looks like, Lite Bright!”

I truly believe God has a sense of humor and I am living proof of that. All through school my worst subject was anything to do with science (biology, geology, physics, chemistry). Hated it all, wasn’t good at any of that. So I went ahead and got a journalism degree. But for the past nine years I worked for companies/organizations that have been science based. Go figure. And for the last six of those years I’ve worked for two different mining engineering and consulting firms. Yes, I work with engineers and geologists.

Now you may be asking what a mining consulting company does. Well, I can’t give you a lot of details because, well quite frankly, I don’t understand a lot of what they do. What I do know is they produce reports: feasibility reports, due diligence reports, mine planning reports, annual audit reports, etc. (are you still with me?). And that is where I come in. I format, edit and proofread all these reports (and other documents) and I find it so amazing that I can do this so well without fully understanding the content of what I’m reading. Now after six years I have picked up on some things but words like “stripping ratio,” “downdip,” “highwall” and “outcrop” are lost on me.

So anyway (here is where the humor begins), awhile ago I was helping out on a project by doing data entry. A lot of times these mines have drill hole logs that were done 25 years before or earlier (i.e. before computers). So after several days of data entry one of the engineers asked if I wanted to see what all the data produced (bless his heart). Sure, why not? He took me to his computer where I saw a black screen with lots of colorful dots and lines on it. I had no idea what I was looking; it held absolutely no meaning to me.

“That’s nice,” I say. So the engineer explains what it means (don’t ask because I can’t tell you). And after a few minutes he stopped talking. “It’s pretty,” I said. “But you know what it looks like? Remember that childhood toy – Lite Bright? That’s what it looks like, Lite Bright!”


Can you tell which is a Lite Brite and which is an Underground Mine Plan?

God may have a sense of humor but engineers, not so much.

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