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now willing to suck engineer dick
Monday, September 12 2005
This morning Gretchen called the building inspector's office and got through to the guy. The sense we got from him was that he was a reasonable guy just doing his job. He wasn't being a dick about the rules and nobody had turned us in; he knows all the houses of Hurley and had observed the changes to ours just by driving by. And, instead of being concerned about the paperwork, he had legitimate questions about the new deck's ability to handle a load of winter snow. He suggested we get a structural engineer to look at it and maybe make some suggestions. If we can get an engineer's approval, we're in the clear.
This all came as an enormous relief, though it didn't mean we were off the hook. The building inspector wanted to visit us sometime to have a closer look, and we agreed on Wednesday afternoon. To put the deck in the best possible context, Gretchen thought I should clean up the clutter in the laboratory, saying "it's a fire hazard." For my part, I thought it more important that I increase the structural underpinning for the deck in the triangular cross-section of the laboratory space. First, though, I started on a cleaning jihad the likes of which the laboratory has not seen in two and a half years. Somewhat late in the process, I added an additional outlet under the window looking out on the laboratory deck. I know my laboratory doesn't have anywhere near enough outlets and it seemed, based on today's conversation, that the building inspector was interested in "blessing" the off-permit work done when it was converted from a raw attic.
It's been awhile since I was beholden to the decision of an engineer. Back when I worked at dotcoms I had to get shit past the database administrators, who sat at the top of the engineering pyramid. Bureaucratic hurdles set up around the database are what got me interested in the file system object back in those days. It was a place where I could hone my skills without needing to get anybody's approval. My status rose with my skills and before long I was considered an engineer and people were vying for my time. I, like all engineers, had broken through into the rarified zone of a resource in scarce supply.
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