Engineer Joke

February 14, 2002

Hi all

I got this one off Motley Fool this morning (my new hobby being, learning to

smash the stock market). As one who is married to an engineer who comes from

a NEST of engineers I can testify to the truth of the following:

ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST

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 theinventor of the nail was a total moron.

The correct answer is " C " but partial credit can be given to anybody who

writes " It epends " in the margin of the test or simply blames the whole

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

socialinteraction:

*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. Anything else is

a waste.

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.

Male engineers reach their peak of attractiveness later than normal men,

becoming irresistible 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 at the college age and remain that way

until about thirty minutes after their clinical death. Longer if it's a warm

day.

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

* 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

the 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 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.) 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

astarved Chihuahua on a pork chop.

Cheers!

Kathleen Petrides

Editor: AFS

Coming in the next issue: Making E.O. flavored Easter Candies by Chris

Ziegler, a report from the Aromatherapy Conference in Tempe by Lynda

Sorenson , a new column about Flower Essences and MORE! Subscribe:

http://www.smellennium.com/mag9.html

February 14, 2002

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

As an ex-engineer who is married to an engineer, I printed this out & put it

up by my computer! Though I don't know if I agree with the dating part,

most guys I knew were turned off by dating a woman engineer.

Michele (ex-chemical engin-nerd)

" Kathleen Petrides " <petrides5

Thu, 14 Feb 2002 10:22:19 -0800