On Fri, 30 Sep 2005 23:28:51 -0700, "Ken Davey"
wrote:



A couple of lifetimes ago when I worked for the Canadian National Railroad
we had a book.
This book was called "the Uniform Code Of Operating Operating Rules (UCOR).
This rule book was a distillate of several centuries of global railroading
experience.
In theory, if all the rules were adhered to nothing could go wrong.
It was (unofficially) understood that if one knew *ALL* the reasons for any
given rule and *ALL* that could go wrong if said rule was broken one could
selectively break it.
Any defect in your reasoning that led to a disaster resulted in (at the
least) brownie points (get enough and it was bye bye job) and at the worst,
jail time.
When I was a greenhorn someone decided to break one of of those rules to
save a couple of seconds.
Rather than seem officious I went along with this.
The result was I almost got six people killed.
It was so close that, to this day, I break out in a sweat just thinking
about it.
And it happened more than thirty years ago!

The moral?
Before you break/bend the rules think long and hard about ALL the possible
consequences.
This is not a 'the towers fell because of an engineering oversight' kind of
thing.
It is a 'the rule was there for a damn good reason' worked out by your
betters.
You might just get away with a non-code installation and you may just get
someone killed, all for the saving of a few miserable dollars.


Good advice.