...and then there was the time that I was training a new (book-smart) engineering graduate while one of the plant journeymen was making up a cord connector for our testing truck.
He asked my whether I wanted postive or negative phase rotation.
Since the truck was set up to reverse rotation as part of our testing procedure anyway, I told him that it didn't matter.
The kid was watching him terminate the cable in the cord connector when I pointed out "notice that he's making this up for POSITIVE phase rotation, if we were to need NEGATIVE phase rotation, he'd simply have to twist the wire strands in the other direction."
The kid would have completely bought it except for the small fact that the tradesman actually fell over against the side of the truck from laughing so hard.
