TIL I was misreading my scale ruler for the first 3 years

I was working on a residential foundation plan last Tuesday and kept coming up 2 inches short on a dimension. Double checked everything, redrew the line, same problem. Then my coworker Jim walked by and glanced at my desk. He said 'Hey, you're using the 1/4 side for a 1/8 scale drawing.' I felt like an idiot. All this time I was grabbing the wrong edge of the ruler because I wasn't paying attention to the tiny label on the end. Nobody ever told me to check which side matched the drawing scale, I just assumed they were all the same. Has anyone else had a dumb moment like this where a basic tool tripped you up for years?

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brown.susan5mo ago

Used to think scale rulers were all the same too, but your story totally changed my mind on that.

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diana_bell745mo ago

Wait, did they teach you how to read those tiny markings on the scale ruler right away, or did it take a while to figure out? I mean, when I first tried using one I kept mixing up the different scales and it was a mess.

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