In the United States, we are very used to the English system of measure: inches, feet and miles, cups, quarts and gallons, and ounces, pounds, and, well, more pounds. Surely other English speaking countries use this system, right? Nope.
We’ve spoken with: English, Scottish, Irish, Australian, New Zealanders, and Canadians and NO ONE uses the English system. Just us Yanks.
And don’t try the continental countries (France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc.) … it’s all the metric system.
Bottom line: if you want to be able to talk distances, weights or volumes, you’ll want to be conversational in metric measures.
There are two kinds of industrialized countries in this world: those that use the metric system, and those that have visited the moon.
You’re right that it’s not just the units that make the engineer successful. But, what was that pesky problem with the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999 … ?
when I read the title of your post, I thought you were referring to pints of beer and how many pounds and inches you lost because of all the walking you’ve done. Boy, was I way off!