How to recognise an engineer Page 1 of 4

How to recognise an engineer

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 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:

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-
optimised 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

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sticking together then the objective of clothing has been met. 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 recognised 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 harbour 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: * Bill Gates. * MacGyver. * Etcetera. Female engineers become
irresistible at the age of consent and remain that way until their 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 includes: "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.

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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. Here are some examples of bad press
for engineers:

Hindenburg

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 the project, then the engineer will
fall back to a second line of defence: "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 sex. 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.

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