We were the superintendent of a supermarket construction. A major technical problem arose: The engineers came and said that the cover was intended to support very heavy items, so they had to test what weight it could support. There came many 60-70 years’ old experienced Armenian construction workers, engineers to solve that issue. They decided to place a temporary load on the cover and calculate. They made a preliminary calculation and said that they would bring and put there tufa stones. They placed an order after which the stones were purchased and laid there. Then another problem arose: Who would take those stones back? Amidst this entire hustle and bustle, a young engineer from Dubai was standing there and staring at us. He asked what we were doing. We said that we were performing a deformation test. He asked: ‘‘Why are you doing it with stones? Why is the tufa your criterion?’’ He said that we could take an inflatable swimming pool, fill it with water and perform the test, and then empty the water, as the weight was the same. Everybody got surprised at this most logical solution.
