Bad Dream 184 -- Where's the Functional Drawing?

One of my favorite jobs was being a Technical Instructor for Leeds & Northrup.  I taught a two-week course in control systems for utility power plants.  My students were all competent to excellent electrical technicians already but their plants were getting an upgraded controls system that was considerably more efficient -- but more complicated than their existing system.  My dream takes place in one of these power plants just as I begin the course.

In my dream, I am standing in an equipment room in one of these power plants getting ready to begin the course.  

The drawings that describe the system are twice the size of an ordinary piece of copy paper -- and there are typically 300 or so drawings that describe the overall system in detail.  Fortunately there is also a set of drawings twice as large as the details that provided a flowchart-type description of each part of the system.  And looking at the system (wires and electrical components) itself without understanding the drawings is absolutely useless.  

So understanding the details of the system design is essentially impossible without a clear understanding of this overall design.  With that understanding, all the detailed drawings are easy to follow and thereby allow the technicians to troubleshoot the system should a problem develop.     

I have grown somewhat complacent about preparing for these courses, as  the overall system design is repetitive.  The critically important details about any particular system, however, were unique.  So if I don't have either set of drawings -- the overall or the detailed -- immediately to hand, I can't teach the course.

In the dream, my students are now gathering in the room to begin the class.  I look around at the students, hoping to find a copy of the drawings that might have been sent to the customer prior to my visit.  No luck.  

I look on every table and in every closet.  I move from room to room without finding anything useful  In essence, the course couldn't begin in earnest until I found the drawings.

I described what the drawings looked like and asked some the students if they had seen anything like them.  No luck.  

In continuing to look, I come across other drawings from my company, but had no idea whether they described an earlier set of controls or this newly installed set.  So I didn't dare consider using them.  

I consider getting in touch with my factory to generate copies of the new system and FedEx them to me -- but I know that would likely take most of a week for the drawings to get to me.  

I think that, at least, I might provide the students with a high-level overview of the new system and introduce them to some of the new vocabulary they would need: terms like "Pressure Ratio," "Energy Demand," and "Heat Release Computation."  But then one of the system designers from my company appears from nowhere and said: "No!  You can't do that.  There are special considerations for this installation that require a unique approach to understanding."

Understandably, some of my students begun to drift off.  They had other projects that they could work on -- and they promise to check back with me later.  

I wake up.