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Characteristics of an Engineer*
(*Applies equally to most "Tekkies")
People who work in the fields of science and technology
are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the non-technical people who have to deal with them. The secret to
coping with technology-oriented people is to understand their motivations.
This chapter will teach you everything you need to know.
I learned their customs and mannerisms by observing
them, much the way Jane Goodall learned about the great apes, but without
the hassle of grooming.
Engineering is so trendy these days that everybody
wants to be one. The word "engineer" is greatly overused. If there's
somebody in your life who you think is trying to pass as an engineer, give
him this test to discern the truth.
Engineer Identification Test
You walk into a room and notice that a picture is
hanging crooked. You:
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Straighten it.
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Ignore it.
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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 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 social interaction:
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Stimulating and thought-provoking conversation
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Important social contacts
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A feeling of connectedness with other humans
In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational
objectives for social interactions:
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Get it over with as soon as possible.
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Avoid getting invited to something unpleasant.
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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
genitalia 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 having sex with
aliens. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer,
which consists of hiding from the universe and having sex without the
participation of other life forms.
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 losing their virginity.
Male engineers reach their peak of sexual
attractiveness later than normal men, becoming irresistible erotic dynamos
in their mid thirties to late forties. Just look at these examples of
sexually irresistible men in technical professions:
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Bill Gates
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MacGyver
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Et cetera
Female engineers become irresistible at the age of
consent 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.
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"I won't change anything without asking you first."
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"I'll return your hard-to-find cable tomorrow."
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"I have to have new equipment to do my job."
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"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.
Some examples of bad press for engineers include the
following:
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Hindenberg
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Space Shuttle Challenger
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SPANetTM
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Hubble Space Telescope
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Apollo 13
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Titanic
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Ford Pinto
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Edsel
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Chevy 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 or a customized pocket protector. |
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:
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How smart they are.
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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 sexincluding the kind of
sex where other people are involved.
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.
An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St.
Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer-you're in the
wrong place."
So the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let
in. Pretty soon, the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort
in hell, and starts designing and building improvements. After a while,
they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the
engineer is a pretty popular guy.
One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says
with a sneer, "So, how's it going down there in hell?"
Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got
air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling
what this engineer is going to come up with next."
God replies, "What??? You've got an Engineer? That's a
mistake - he should never have gotten down there; send him up here."
Satan says, "No way. I like having an Engineer on the
staff, and I'm keeping him."
God says, "Send him back up here or else I'll sue you."
Satan laughs uproariously and answers, "Yeah, right.
And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?" |
