I worked as an industrial mechanic in a factory just south of Boston in 1989. I had been there about a month and quickly learned from my coworkers that our boss didn’t always have the expertise to do his job. He graduated from a two-year engineering program and lacked any real-world experience. Let’s call him Mark because I really don’t remember his name.
The company had recently purchased a large, second-hand, numerically controlled machining center from another company. The machine had been installed in the shop and needed to be hooked up. The electricians had run power to the unit, but some pipes my department needed to install were missing between the machine and the hydraulic power unit.
Mark found some light-duty hose in the storage room and asked me to install it in place of the missing pipe. I showed him the hose's 250-psi pressure rating and the pump's 3000-psi output. I suggested we order some heavy-wall pipe and weld it in place instead. “Let’s just try it,” Mark said, and again, I suggested that we more appropriately use pipe for the application. Mark pressed on with the plan to use the hose, so I hooked it up as he had ordered. Mark turned on the hydraulic power unit, and the hose blew off the pump within a few seconds. Mark retreated to his office and came back later that day with several sections of 500-psi-rated hose that he wanted me to string together and hook up. Yet again, I showed him the hose rating and the pump's output pressure, but he insisted we just try it. I hooked up the hose; he turned on the pump, and it started leaking at the fittings.
Mark headed back to his office, and I was hoping he would order the pipe we needed to hook up the machine. When he emerged from his office, he had the address of a local hose supplier written on a scrap of paper. He said he had spoken to someone at the supplier, and the guy assured him that they had a hose that would work. He asked me to take the company pickup truck to fetch the hose. When I got to the supply house, the guy at the desk produced some hose rated at 2000 psi. I explained to him that we needed a 3000-psi hose, and he said that they don’t stock anything at that rating, so they would have to order it. I called Mark to discuss the situation, and he insisted that I bring the 2000-psi hose back to the shop and hook it up. Again, I made my case that it would leak, but he ignored my advice and insisted I bring the hose back to the shop.
You can imagine what happened next. I hooked up the hose, Mark turned on the pump, and the hose started to leak at the fittings. Mark was enraged and stomped away back to his office.
Later that afternoon, he stopped by our shop and said, “I went ahead and ordered the heavy-duty pipe, but why didn’t you tell me in the beginning that that was what we needed? It seems like you wanted to sabotage me." I almost fell off my chair!
The pipe and fittings arrived the next day. I cut up the pipe, installed pipe supports, and tacked the fittings into place. I enlisted a guy in the weld shop who was certified on high-pressure piping to complete the welding, and the machine ran perfectly after that.
