YOU MAY BE AN ENGINEER...

Author Unknown

• If you introduce your wife as "mylady@home.wife"
• If your spouse sends you an e-mail instead of calling you to dinner
• If you can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie
• If you want an 8X CDROM for Christmas
• If Dilbert is your hero
• If you stare at an orange juice container because it says CONCENTRATE
• If you can name 6 Star Trek episodes
• If the only jokes you receive are through e-mail
• If your wrist watch has more computing power than a 486DX-50
• If your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the decimal point in the right place
• If you look forward to Christmas only to put together the kids' toys
• If you use a CAD package to design your son's Pine Wood Derby car
• If you have used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than hanging coats and taping ducts
• If, at Christmas, it goes without saying that you will be the one to find the burnt-out bulb in the string
• If you window shop at Radio Shack
• If your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies
• If you have "Dilbert" comics displayed anywhere in your work area
• If you carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that actually takes five minutes to run
• If you are convinced you can build a phaser out of your garage door opener and your camera's flash attachment
• If you don't even know where the cover to your personal computer is
• If you have modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven
• If you know the direction the water swirls when you flush
• If you own "Official Star Trek" anything
• If you have ever taken the back off your TV just to see what's inside
• If a team of you and your co-workers have set out to modify the antenna on the radio in your work area for better reception
• If you ever burned down the gymnasium with your Science Fair project
• If you are currently gathering the components to build your own nuclear reactor
• If you own one or more white short-sleeve dress shirts
• If you have never backed-up your hard drive
• If you are aware that computers are actually only good for playing games, but are afraid to say it out loud
• If you truly believe aliens are living among us
• If you have ever saved the power cord from a broken appliance
• If you have ever purchased an electronic appliance "as-is"
• If you see a good design and still have to change it
• If the salespeople at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions
• If you still own a slide rule and you know how to work it
• If the thought that a CD could refer to finance or music never enters your mind
• If you own a set of itty-bitty screw drivers, but you don't remember where they are
• If you rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile tires
• If you have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own turns bread into charcoal
• If you have more toys than your kids
• If you need a checklist to turn on the TV
• If you have introduced your kids by the wrong name
• you have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work
• If your I.Q. number is bigger than your weight
• If the microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work and you rush up to the front to fix it
• If you can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary
• If you have memorized the program schedule for the Discovery channel and have seen most of the shows already
• If you have ever owned a calculator with no equal key and know what RPN stands for
• If your father sat 2 inches in front of your family's first color TV with a magnifying lens to see how they made the colors, and you grew up thinking that was normal
• If you know how to take the cover off of your computer, and what size screw driver to use
• If you can type 70 words a minute but can't read your own handwriting
• If people groan at the party when you pick out the music
• If you can't remember where you parked your car for the 3rd time this week
• If you did the sound system for your senior prom
• If your checkbook always balances
• If your wristwatch has more buttons than a telephone
• If you have more friends on the Internet than in real life
• If you thought the real heroes of "Apollo 13" were the mission controllers
• If you think that when people around you yawn, it's because they didn't get enough sleep
• If you spend more on your home computer than your car
• If you know what http:// stands for
• If you've ever tried to repair a $5.00 radio
• If you have a neatly sorted collection of old bolts and nuts in your garage
• If your three year old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory
• If your lap-top computer costs more than your car
• If your 4 basic food groups are: 1. Caffeine 2. Fat 3. Sugar 4. Chocolate

TELL-TALE SIGNS OF AN ENGINEER...

Author Unknown

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 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-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.

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 engineerlike 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
• * Larry Ellison
• * Scott McNeely
• * MacGyver

Female engineers, due to their being around desperate male engineers all the time, 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 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 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--and I'm including 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 Doberman on a pork chop.