---
id: 2026-03-23T12:48:49-0400
title: 2026-03-23 12:48:49
tags:
  - status/draft
  - occupational
date-created: 2026-03-23T12:48:49-04:00
daily: "[[2026-03-23]]"
---
# 2026-03-23 12:48:49

[[joel-jansen]] asked me to give feedback on the project engineer
I've had shadowing and helping me on [[charlotte-south-end-hotel]].

They've been exceptionally engaged,
with an impressive ability to follow along with procedures
that are based in electrical and general construction considerations
that they weren't already familiar with.
I told Joel the same.

I added that I appreciated that their engagement extends
to my explanations of my thought processes during takeoff,
which can be quite abstract.

I found the PE's receptivity
a pleasant surprise.
In my experience training estimating,
both at Ace and PDI,
I have to be _very_ careful with my words
to prevent unintended interpretation.
More than once I have said casually
that some low-[[sensitivity]] consideration "doesn't matter",
finding later that the student has over-generalized the direction
and is not properly discriminating
between significantly different cases.
Other times,
the student continues to discriminate between nearly identical cases
even despite repeated instruction
that consideration of the differences is not worth their effort.

I think both behaviors indicate an inability for abstract thinking.
The first case seems like over-abstraction,
but in practice it is usually rooted in the principle of least effort.
That is, the student assumes
that considerations that would be _unpleasant_ to account for
are the same as those that are not worth accounting for,
which is a [[category-mistake]].
