Metric Confusion (OT)

In around the year 2000 the Federal Highways Adminestration converted to metrics, and the engineering department of the U.S. Forest Service followed suit. Converting was mostly a matter of using a different tape measure or leveling rod; our computer software would handle either units, and converting our electronic instruments was merely pushing a button. The problem was that much of industry did not convert, or at least not right away. Some of the suppliers were doing busines overseas and already had metric items, but most did not. When designing a project that involved structures it became necessary to convert English units to metric for the plans, and then convert back to English when ordering materials. This led to some pretty odd measurements when trying to fit metric items to existing English structures. Needless to say this caused much confusion among our contractors, none of whom did business overseas. Evidently there was some confusion among our designers as well. We got a set of bridge plans from our Regional Office with everything in millimeters, even the length. You can immagine what the equivilent of 65 feet would be in millimenters. I guess they did not understand the principles of rounding and significant numbers; I doubt a difference of 1mm would cause the bridge to fall down.