~~~ Are you an Engineer? ~~~
THE TEST
First, let’s establish: Are you a geek-at-heart? What answer
to the following question do you feel most inclined to:
You walk into a room and notice that a picture is hanging
crooked. You…
A. Straighten it.
B. Ignore it.
C. Buy a CAD system and spend the next six months designing
a solar-powered, self-adjusting picture frame while often
stating aloud your belief that the inventor of the nail was a
total moron.
The correct answer is “C” but partial credit can be given to
anybody who writes “It depends” in the margin of the test or simply
blames thewhole stupid thing on “Marketing.”
SOCIAL SKILLS
Engineers have different objectives when it comes to social
interaction.
“Normal” people expect to accomplish several unrealistic
things from social interaction:
* Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
* Important social contacts
* A feeling of connectedness with other humans
In contrast to “normal” people, engineers have rational
objectives for social interactions:
* Get it over with as soon as possible.
* Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.
* Demonstrate mental superiority and mastery of all
subjects.
FASCINATION WITH GADGETS
To the engineer, all matter in the universe can be placed
into one of two categories: (1)things that need to be fixed,
and (2)things that will need to be fixed after you’ve had a few
minutes to play with them.
Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems
handily available, they will create their own problems. Normal
people don’t understand this concept; they believe that if it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain’t
broke, it doesn’t have enough features yet. No engineer looks
at a television remote control without wondering what it would
take to turn it into a stun gun. No engineer can take a shower
without wondering if some sort of Teflon coating would
make showering unnecessary. To the engineer, the world is a
toy box full of sub-optimized and feature-poor toys.
FASHION AND APPEARANCE
Clothes are the lowest priority for an engineer, assuming
the basic thresholds for temperature and decency have been
satisfied. If no appendages are freezing or sticking together,
and if no private parts or mammary glands are swinging around
in plain view, then the objective of clothing has been met.
Anything else is a waste.
LOVE OF “STAR TREK”
Engineers love all of the “Star Trek” television shows and
movies. It’s a small wonder, since the engineers on the starship
Enterprise are portrayed as heroes, occasionally even mating
with aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real social
life of an engineer.
DATING AND SOCIAL LIFE
Dating is never easy for engineers. A normal person will
employ various indirect and duplicitous methods to create a
false impression of attractiveness. Engineers are incapable
of placing appearance above function.
Fortunately, engineers have an ace in the hole. They are
widely recognized as superior marriage material: intelligent,
dependable, employed, honest, and handy around the house.
While it’s true that many normal people would prefer not to
date an engineer, most normal people harbor an intense desire
to mate with them, thus producing engineer-like children who
will have high-paying jobs long before they start dating.
Male engineers reach their peak of physical attractiveness
later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos
in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples
of irresistible men in technical professions:
* Bill Gates.
* MacGyver.
* Etcetera.
Female engineers become irresistible to male engineers at
the age of consent and remain that way until, oh, about their
clinical death.
HONESTY
Engineers are always honest in matters of technology and
human relationships. That’s why it’s a good idea to keep
engineers away from customers, romantic interests, and other
people who can’t handle the truth.
Engineers sometimes bend the truth to avoid work. They say
things that sound like lies but technically are not because
nobody could be expected to believe them. The complete list of
engineer lies is listed below.
“I won’t change anything without asking you first.”
“I’ll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow.”
“I have to have new equipment to do my job.”
“I’m not jealous of your new computer.”
FRUGALITY
Engineers are notoriously frugal. This is not because of
cheapness or mean spirit; it is simply because every spending
situation is simply a problem in optimization, that is, “How
can I escape this situation while retaining the greatest amount
of cash?”
POWERS OF CONCENTRATION
If there is one trait that best defines an engineer it is
the ability to concentrate on one subject to the complete
exclusion of everything else in the environment. This sometimes
causes engineers to be pronounced dead prematurely. Some
funeral homes in high-tech areas have started checking resumes
before processing the bodies. Anybody with a degree in
electrical engineering or experience in computer programming
is propped up in the lounge for a few days just to see if he or
she snaps out of it.
RISK
Engineers hate risk. They try to eliminate it whenever they
can. This is understandable, given that when an engineer makes one
little mistake, the media will treat it like it’s a big deal or
something.
EXAMPLES OF BAD PRESS FOR ENGINEERS
* Hindenberg.
* Space Shuttle Challenger.
* SPANet(tm)
* Hubble space telescope.
* Apollo 13.
* Titanic.
* Ford Pinto.
* Corvair.
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like
this:
* RISK: Public humiliation and the death of thousands of
innocent people.
* REWARD: A certificate of appreciation in a handsome plastic
frame.
Being practical people, engineers evaluate this balance of
risks and rewards and decide that risk is not a good thing.
The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is
technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated
to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt a
project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line
of defense: “It’s technically possible but it will cost too
much.”
EGO
Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
* How smart they are.
* How many cool devices they own.
The fastest way to get an engineer to solve a problem is to
declare that the problem is unsolvable. No engineer can walk
away from an unsolvable problem until it’s solved. No illness
or distraction is sufficient to get the engineer off the case.
These types of challenges quickly become personal — a battle
between the engineer and the laws of nature.
Engineers will go without food and hygiene for days to solve
a problem. (Other times just because they forgot.) And when
they succeed in solving the problem they will experience an ego
rush that is better than anything else.
Nothing is more threatening to the engineer than the
suggestion that somebody has more technical skill. Normal people
sometimes use that knowledge as a lever to extract more work from
the engineer. When an engineer says that something can’t be done
(a code phrase that means it’s not fun to do), some clever normal
people have learned to glance at the engineer with a look of
compassion and pity and say something along these lines: “I’ll ask
Bob to figure it out. He knows how to solve
difficult technical problems.”
At that point it is a good idea for the normal person to not
stand between the engineer and the problem. The engineer will
set upon the problem like a starved Chihuahua on a pork chop.
