Is 1/4" glass directional?

I've done lots of projects with glass and had it cut at my local glass shop.
I am putting an antique medicine cabinet in a house I'm restoring and I
needed new glass shelves for it. There was a new girl at the counter. When
I gave her my measurements, I told her that I wanted 1/4" glass and my
measurements were 3 1/8" by 15. Then she wanted to know what was width and
what was length. I told her that as far as I knew, she had all the
measurements she needed. With some eye rolling on her part, she took the
order and later in the day, I got a call to pick it up and it was fine. I'm
thinking she was just new or maybe a little nagging voice in my head says
*maybe* it makes a difference in what is length or width? I doubt it, but
I'm throwing it out here anyway.

Glass can have a grain in it from the manufacturing process although I
doubt most people would ever notice it. You do take this into
consideration in stained glass work but that is usually a different
type of glass.

I grind and polish telescope mirrors and in the process have learned a
fair bit about glass. To the best of my knowledge, properly annealed
and polished plate glass has no grain or direction. In fact the
purpose of the annealing process is to remove strain (there's usually
some residual strain but it's trivial).

My wife did some stained glass work and Perry is correct, some stained

Tell her you need a piece of 15" thick glass, 3 1/8" by 1/4".

glass is made with ripples or ridges or surface texture. When cutting
that kind of glass one must consider the direction of the surface
texture. But for ordinary plate glass it doesn't matter which edge of
the big sheet you cut the strip from....

Best -- Terry

Maybe when you first gave her your "measurements" she didn't realize
you were talking about glass.

The owners most likely taught her to take measurements that way.. "There
was a new girl at the counter" Your own words I'm sure she will figure it
out with a little experience.

You just encountered the educated populance we now have coming out of
our 21st century school system. Their brain cells are mostly rock &
roll musical notes