ENGINEER IDENTIFICATION TEST
PHYSICAL
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.
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. This is much more glamorous than the real life of an engineer,
which
consists of hiding from the universe.
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:
-Bill Gates.
-MacGyver.
Etcetera.
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.
- "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 un-solvable. 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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian Borgstede !
Distance Learning Engineer !
University of Missouri - St. Louis ! '68 Triumph TR-250
Phone: (314)516-6433 ! (or two or more)
Fax: (314)516-5294 !
Email: borgstede@umsl.edu !
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