[via buttersafe]
Sigh.
Jan 312011
The day I looked around and realized I was the only woman in my freshman-level introductory engineering course, I knew I was stepping into a world of men. It was evident I would be one of the few women in the field (and school in general), but I didn’t really stop to think how that would effect me when it came to my ability to relate with others. Today I find myself very naturally fitting in with the guys, but completely incapable of creating friendships with women.
Admittedly, it is kind of nice. Perhaps I’m bias after 5 years of “guy time”, but I’m drawn to the fun-loving and goofy attitudes of men. I appreciate their tendency to move toward on-the-surface conversation because I am someone who doesn’t like to share much about herself in casual conversation. And, should I ever feel like sharing, men really aren’t bad listeners. They tend to base decisions on logic rather than emotion, so their opinions are worthwhile to hear (so long as I don’t mind a jab at my feelings once in awhile). Not to mention they can open jars and move heavy things — a Godsend for a scrawny lady like myself.
Unfortunately, the good also must come with the bad. Sometimes A lot of the time, lunch conversation is a discussion over WHICH ACTION MOVIE IS THE BEST ACTION MOVIE EVER?!!? while I sit quietly poking at my food with my fork. Car talk is also a snooze-fest for me. I also have a tendency to be over-emotional at times (thanks, lady parts) and while it’s kind of funny watching them figure out how best to approach me in fear of setting me over the edge, it also can make me very angry for a reason I’m not really sure of.
And then there are days like today. Days when I am shown a piece of paper with a penis faintly drawn on it… or they are openly and gleefully playing fart audio loudly on their computers nearby… or I open my inbox and discover a forward all about anal leakage…
… these are the days I realize I should never forget what I got myself into. They might try to class it up once in awhile for the lady, but deep down men are still pretty gross.
I don’t think I would have it any other way.
People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the nontechnical 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
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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
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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.
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 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.
* 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 project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: “It’s technically possible but it will cost too much.”
EGO
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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 Chihuahua on a pork chop.
[Not sure who gets credit for this... I didn't write it... and all of the humor sites online didn't give a source either. One said it MIGHT have been written by Scott Adams]
Jun 032010
Every Friday is casual Friday, where we get to shed our typical “business casual” duds and put some jeans on. Typically people will wear the same type of business casual shirt and match it with denim, but some people choose to wear South Park t-shirts, baseball hats, and hawaiian shirts.
A few weeks ago, on a Friday toward the end of the work day when everyone was getting kind of squirrely and in the midst of a break down following the 38 hours of staring at a computer that week, some guys were giggling over something. I sat and listened, thinking that maybe they were having fun talking about gas powered blenders again, but I slowly moved my head to see what they were all looking at when I spotted it…
And I had only one thing to say.
“… Really?”
And this sent them into a fit of giggles.
At first, I thought I had spotted a man wearing the periodic table on his shirt, but I was wrong. You see, my eyes aren’t that great and I have glasses but don’t typically wear them. So instead, a picture of the shirt was googled and then e-mailed to me.
I smiled, but I didn’t laugh. They were appalled by my lack of amusement.
And would you believe that the guy wearing the Chucknorium shirt was heralded while I, someone that could appreciate the shirt but didn’t think it was the best thing ever, was heckled? Something is a little backward here.
They told me that the joke would have to grow on me. “You know” said the man wearing the shirt, “I guess I didn’t really think it was all that funny the first time I saw it either. But then, a few days later when I was driving in my car, it hit me. And it was the awesomest thing ever. And then I went home and bought this shirt.”
Something tells me that I won’t be purchasing the shirt.
May 092010
I am sitting at work alone right now on a Sunday afternoon. I put 60 hours on my time sheet this week (I’m working lots of overtime to help me out with the pending vacation) and I worked all morning… but now I’m ready for a bit of a break and I don’t have anyone in the room to talk to. And so I turn to the internet.
While it is pretty boring and a bit depressing to be sitting in a dark room with the only light coming from the few flourescent bulbs I turned on and the glow of about 60 computers (there are no windows to let in any sun), I appreciate that I am able to hear the buzzing and the creaking made by the light fixtures. Aside from that 20 minute drive to and from work every day, I don’t get to be alone much. Sometimes I am at work in a room with 40 others. Sometimes I am at home with Dan. Other times I am in a room full of strangers. Always is Prandtl bothering me. And while most of the time I’m okay with this set up, I tend to get very tired.
So this empty room? This is what I’ve wanted for a long time.
Apr 282010
Because all of my work is done with the assistance of mighty online databases and the power of excel, I listen to music on my headphones all day. And I don’t mean “every once in awhile when my boss is away”. I mean ALL. DAY. And I never thought I would tire of music until about a month ago when my ears would never stop hurting and I had heard every song in the universe.
I tried books on tape for awhile as well. Turns out I can’t follow an intricate story while copying and pasting. It’s harder than it sounds… I guess… since I couldn’t pull it off. Or maybe I lack the mental capacity. Or maybe it was because I was so enthralled in the story that I couldn’t remember what I was doing at any given moment. Apparently “just clicking things” isn’t the best way to roll. Especially when your short term memory is as sad and sorry as mine.
My vision is blurring by staring at a computer all day. I know that breaks are the way to go, but I have been here for almost 6 months and over that amount of time, while breaks are helpful, damage will still be done. My fingers hurt from the mouse and the keyboard. My plant is dying from the lack of windows. I love my coworkers, but I love my boyfriend and cat and dog more, and I would rather be with them. Or I guess I could settle to see my friend The Sun once in awhile. At least my plant would be a little happier.
When I first started here, I was doing well at still looking for other employment opportunities. Unfortunately not much else was out there and, over time, I have completely stopped looking for other jobs. But today… today I felt a renewed sense of urgency. I had just finished watching the first half of Dead Poets Society. I went over to chat with a friend, and I looked through the music he had brought with him on his netbook. I saw he owned Jock Jams. I came back to my desk, got on youtube, and played some of the Jock Jams music in hopes it would renew my will to live. And then, as I listened to the writhing beats and nasaly voice as it sung “Yo, pump the jam, pump it up”… I thought to myself…
I… NEED…. TO…. GET… OUT…
One of the gentlemen that work with me has a big chip on his shoulder — that chip goes by the name of TECHNOLOGY. He complains incessantly about how my generation (as he is about 45 years old) sucks at verbal communication because of our dependence on things like e-mail and text messaging.
The other day, I sent him an e-mail (despite him sitting about 30 feet away from me — he hates when people do that) to rile him up. I do things like this because, admittedly, I get a little bored sometimes. PLUS the guy is hilarious when he gets upset because he is one of those people that speaks WAY TOO LOUD on every occassion.
“Mike, would you like some coffee?”
“WHY YES, I WOULD LIKE SOME COFFEE THANKS”
“Hi Mike, how’s it going?”
“GREAT, HOW ARE YOU?”
“Okay, until my ear drums were blasted out from the volume of your voice during the single sentence exchange that is this conversation”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
The best part was that, after reading my email, throwing paper at me, calling me a smartass, and wondering out loud why anybody likes me, he commended me for my writing skills. Talk about irony.
Despite all of the harassment I endure for being a part of Generation Y and despite all of the fighting I do to try to put our generation as a whole in Mike’s good graces, I kind of agree with his problem with us. He thinks that we are wasting away the english language with our “LOL”s and “BRB”s. Suddenly, “you”=”u” and “are”=”r”. Nobody can spell any more and we all have the vocabulary of 5th graders. I used the word “crass” the other day and felt like the smartest human being in the world. NEWSFLASH TO ME: Crass isn’t all that impressive given the grand scheme of things. But, because somehow my generation has lost the ability to use a basic dictionary, it suddenly is.
Unfortunately, Generation Y has become known for avoiding social interaction in the physical sense. We text, we IM, we blog. We don’t need to go out any more because we have our computers, internet, and cell phones. Hell, we barely need a talk function on our cell phone because we’ve got texting. Suddenly, we’re a joke to all of the older generations because we can’t speak in public situations. We are the socially inept, forever doomed to avoid eye contact and stutter in the middle of every sentence that passes our lips.
I’m not writing to discuss possible solutions to the minimal vocabulary of the Echo Boomers. I’m not writing to say that Mike is wrong or right about us (and he’s probably closer to right since I came close to spelling it “write”. UGH!). I’m also not writing to say that we NEED to change (although we probably do). I’m just writing to bring awareness to anybody reading this and also to myself. After fighting so many hours with Mike about where we stand as a society and where we’re headed as soon as my generation takes over, I need to remind myself that I’m not living in la-la land as far as our socially awkward presentation. I get him riled up because it’s funny, not because everything I say is true.
My way of combatting the de-evolution of our language? Don’t shorten things to single letters. “Are” is “are”. “You” is “you”. “Why” is “why”. I know the difference between “two”, “to” and “too” and I’m not going to forget it. Sure, I’m not going to change the world through a single text message, but at least I can still live with myself. I acknowledge that my grammar may not be the best, that I may misspell the occassional word, and that I can get a little crazy with commas… but I’m going to pat myself on the back anyway for trying. And sure, I do get a little awkward in situations and I do get bouts of anxiety when I’m about to enter a room full of people, but doesn’t trying count for anything? I do my best to throw myself out there and take myself out of my comfort zone.
Here’s to complete sentences and doing your best to make every situation less awkward than the next!
Mar 122010
Ever since my boss gave the okay to 60 hour work weeks (meaning 20 hours of potential overtime), a lot people have been staying in the office until at least 6pm. Some even stay until 10pm. Me? I’m not too concerned with overtime and I leave about an hour after wanting to gouge out my eyes from staring at a computer and manipulating spreadsheets for too long. Some days it’s after 9 hours and some days it’s after only 5. It’s like my own test of willpower. Can I make it that next hour without blurred vision? Will my sanity still be there? It’s like this crazy mind game I can play.. and the outcome is never the same twice in a row. Usually I will take some time and just set my forehead down on my desk and leave it there for about 5 minutes. Then I pick it up and I have only 55 minutes to go. Score 1 me.
Needless to say, after anyone spends 3 hours making spreadsheets, they start to go a little crazy. But when 5pm rolls around and a lot of people have been there for 10 hours already (except for me… since I usually stroll in at about 9am), people start talking gibberish and laughing at God knows what. Suddenly people are talking about weird crap and nobody can focus any more. They are losing their minds.
I think that I have mentioned here before that I learned how to survive bear attacks at work. And believe it or not, that conversation did not happen at the late hours of the evening, but at around 2pm. The guy that sits next to me just knows a lot about bears. ANYWAY. Last night, as the sun was setting and we were all still sitting around talking and clicking away on excel, the bear conversation came up again. Eventually it evolved into a conversation about cougars and how, if you were to ever encounter one, you had better just get the biggest stick you can and hope to God that you’re able to beat it away (and then I giggled because I was thinking about how that might apply to the older-women-type as well). And then it become a conversation about all cats, big or small. And FINALLY, about 15 minutes after the initial conversation began, the common house cat was introduced into the discussion.
Are you ready for this? Because this totally blew my mind when they told me this little factoid. Make sure that you’re positive you’re ready because this post is about to go to a really weird, morbid place.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a cat, the cat would eat you to stay alive.
If you were to die in your house and no one were to find you for awhile and you owned a dog, the dog would not eat you and starve to death instead.
**I had to stop writing at this point because my dog just consumed bits of the plastic water bottle I didn’t notice it was chewing. It won’t eat me as a last ditch effort to stay alive, but it will ingest plastic for no real reason at all. Wow. **
First, I was disgusted at this news. I felt betrayed, thinking that my cat would eat me to stay alive. My love for Prandtl grew exponentially as I thought about her, laying next to me, refusing to eat me because she was far too loyal.
But then I thought about it longer, and I suddenly thought Prandtl was an idiot. She’s a wild animal, for God sakes. She wasn’t raised eating ceasar salads and filet mignon. Her ancestors hunted for their food and stalked their prey to get it, but she wouldn’t eat me to stay alive? I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. She just lost a ball under the entertainment center and it looks like her brain is going to implode as she thinks about how to get it back.
So after careful consideration, I’m not hurt that cats are willing to eat their owners to stay alive. I’m not disgusted. It’s self preservation. They gotta do what they gotta do. I mean, as long as I’m not waking up in the middle of the night to find Lucy gnawing on my arm with a crazed look in her eye, I’m fine. I respect that she will do whatever she has to do to stick around. And I certainly don’t blame her.
And honestly, usually conversations like this gross me out. I’m usually really squeamish whenever it comes to anything dealing with the deceased or zombies eating one another. So sorry if you threw up in the middle of reading this, but I just couldn’t let this one go.
Jan 282010
Do you ever have one of those days where you just don’t want to get up? One of those days when rolling out of bed seems like too much effort… but then you realize that if you want to ”e-mail in sick”, you have to get out of bed to e-mail your boss to let him/her know you’re not coming… and by the time you use up enough brain power to turn on the computer, navigate to your e-mail, figure out what you’re going to say, and try to remember all relevant e-mail addresses, you’ll be too awake to fall asleep anyway… and so all you have left to say to yourself is, “Oh, hell… I might as well go”?
Believe it or not, today is one of those days for me. I feel slow despite the coffee that I had this morning on my way to work. I feel frumpy. I feel like I wish I were still in bed. And if inanimate objects had feelings, I would probably most compare myself with a marshmallow. I took the time to draw these so you could further understand my feelings toward the day that is January 28th, 2010.
And while the game was fun last night, it left me in a sour mood today. Perhaps it was the Red Wing loss. It might have been the fact that I didn’t get an autograph. Maybe it was the beer. Or maybe it was some other variable that I am not taking into account here.
Tonight I’m going to investigate a Primerica “business opportunity” despite the nagging feeling in the back of my brain (and all over the internet) that it is some kind of scam. But even though I was considering blowing it off, I’m kind of happy to go now because it will give me some time away from work and away from Dan and away from Prandtl and away from Lucy and away from my apartment and away from everything and everyone I know. I don’t really feel like dealing with any of it right now. I wouldn’t really mind just hanging out in a cave for a couple of days.
I was reading today about the difference between introverts and extroverts. Extroverts need people and thrive from social interaction and the energy of others. Introverts are stereotypically shy, withdrawn people, but the article I was reading (which I lost, otherwise I would link it) said that’s not necessarily true. Introverts can interact with people and can be quite good at it, but they need time alone to recharge. Dealing with people too often makes them very tired and drains them, which I believe is very true in my case. I love working with people and being around people, but I can’t deal with them all of the time. I need to be alone.
Even if it’s only a half an hour in my car on my way to some stupid “business opportunity”. Sigh.
This is my 24th post for NaBloPoMo, and I must say that I am incredibly proud of myself. I made this commitment with the intention to do the best I could, but admittedly I had expected life to get in the way of my plans (as it always seems to do). In hindsight, I guess that whole “failed trip to Mississippi” fiasco could have easily deterred me from goal, but I rolled with it. I wasn’t that impressed with myself for figuring out a way to write at the time, but now that I think about it… it took some dedication to write a post on an airplane when crammed between two people. Go me!
I wrote a cover letter last night, and even though I still struggled a little with the verbage throughout it (it’s always tough to pick out just the right word), I found it surprisingly easy to write. So easy, in fact, I saved it and reviewed it again today because I didn’t trust what I had written. I was happy with what I had come up with and so was Dan. It wasn’t stiff or full of large words that I can barely define. It was honest. True, it was a cover letter and it was written for a hiring manager, but instead of writing what I thought they would like to see, I wrote what I had to say. I am not sure that is status quo for cover letters, but it will certainly stick out.
Since starting NaBloPoMo, I have gained a lot of confidence in my writing ability. I haven’t written in years, but I have always told myself that I would start when I had the time. Well folks, I have had more than enough time over the years, but I was better at thinking up excuses than thinking up things to write. I believe that if I didn’t sell my soul to NaBloPoMo for the month of January, this blog would be long gone by now. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t say that. Without NaBloPoMO and Don Keylips breathing down my neck on a daily basis, this blog would be long gone by now.
While I don’t believe that I will be participating in NaBloPoMo again (Don’t judge me — I’ve done my time!), I would certainly recommend that other people try it. Forcing yourself outside of your comfort zone is the only real way to see what you are capable of. I found that I am capable of sticking with something for longer than three days, and that means more to me than I can express in words.
7 days left!
