Greetings:
While getting together a pile of logarithmic graph paper for a give-away
drawing (soon to be announced on RF Cafe homepage), an incident came to mind that occurred
way back during my technician days.
I was working in a "special" section of
the company. The manager for that area was a former electronics technician from another
division that had developed a good relationship with a "special" customer. He ended
up being in charge of a couple very excellent engineers, as well as another technician
and me. The manager was a really nice guy, but it kind of irked the engineers that they
were working for someone that did not have a degree of some sort. One of the engineers
was an old-school guy who made no effort to hide his objection. The other electrical
engineer was a good-natured type who would rather express his dissatisfaction by playing
practical jokes at the expense of his chosen victim.
Well, one day we were working
on a circuit that required plotting the response of a filter (this was in the early
1980s, before there was a computer on every desktop). The practical joker mentioned
to the manager that the graph should be plotted on logarithmic paper, and the manager
quickly agreed. Sensing that the technician-turned-manager did not really know how to
use log graph paper, our joker volunteered to go get some from his office, and asked
the manager how many cycles he would need on the graph.
"Oh, about ten," came
the response. Even as a technician myself at the time, I knew a faux pas had been committed,
and it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud as the engineer immediately
looked over at me and rolled his eyes.
