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
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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
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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”
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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]
For a long time throughout college, I felt that I was the least nerdy engineering major there. I had never made a trebuchet, I didn’t build my own computer, and I couldn’t tell you about the history of the automobile.
Simply put, I chose an engineering school because I didn’t know what else to choose. I no longer wanted to be a journalist (I hated my journalism class in high school), but I knew that I really liked science and math. My neighbors went to Kettering University for engineering, so sure, why shouldn’t I go too.
As time went on, I grew to like engineering. All of the analyzing, all of the logic, all of the sensible people around me… it made me happy. But I still didn’t consider myself nerdy. I didn’t talk heat transfer or machinery in my spare time. Sure, I enjoyed learning about it, but I never got excited. Nothing ever got me riled up in a way that only something you are truly emotionally attached to can.
Anyway, our schedule process required that we make our course schedules 4 months in advance. As soon as schedules are finalized, people will post them on facebook — it’s fun to see who is in your class and to see which of your friends were unfortunate enough to get the toughest professors. One of my friends was taking a fluids class over our winter term, and a few people were commenting on it. “Oh man, you got THAT PROFESSOR?! See you in the summer!” I probably said something along the lines of “I wish I could feel sorry for you, but man up.”
But then this guy that I had ever heard of piped up. He said, “How are you going to take a fluids class in the winter? Won’t all of the water freeze? LOL!”
I read the stranger’s comment… and I became angry. I wasn’t angry because he had capitalized “LOL” and followed it with an exclamation mark like some kind of asshat. I wasn’t mad because he asked a stupid question. I wasn’t mad because he just made the worst joke I had ever read. I was mad because he implied that all fluids were liquids. And it wasn’t like a “what an idiot” kind of mad. I was legimately angry. I wanted to correct him by slapping him in the face and asking if the oxygen he was breathing freezes in the winter… since gasses are a fluid… because it might do us all a favor if that were the case.
Of course I didn’t say anything (I’m far too nice), but I realized I was angry about something that most people don’t get very angry about… afterall, how can you expect people without classes completely devoted to fluids to know that?
But then I laughed. I laughed because that was my first nerdy moment.
I hate to post 2 youtube video posts in a row, but this video was cool enough to be categorized under Way Too Nerd Thursdays (a theme which I am definitely slacking on).
Watch as Liebherr builds a tower for the excavator to climb… and as the bravest man in the world (in my opinion) climbs it.
And yes, the video is a little lengthy, but you can just have it play at different points throughout and get the idea of what’s going on. Make sure you watch the end though!
And thanks Will for telling me that this thing is an excavator 
And thanks DON KEYLIPS for letting me know the existence of this video in the first place.
Person 1: Big Wheel made a Yoda on a spreadsheet made out of green boxes.
Person 2: That Big Wheel. He’s a talented guy.
Person 1: You ever hear that “Yoda” song by Weird Al? “I saw the little runt sitting there on a log. I asked him for his name and in a raspy voice he said ‘Yoda’, Y-O-D-A yoda”
Person 2: How would you guys like to go hunting with a light saber?
Person 1: The deer wouldn’t get close. Light Sabers are too noisy.
Person3: No, they’re only noisy when you hit something.
Person 2: Can you imagine… You jumping out of your tree stand with a light saber to slice a deer
Person 3: Yeah, you just wouldn’t hit the button until you were about to slice its head off.
Person 1: Then I could say, with my light saber, I was able to procure the raw material to create sausage.
Person 2: Hahaha yeah. You could be on the cover of a Hunters’ Magazine!
Person 1: I’d be on the cover with my lightsaber
Person 2: Instead of Bow Hunters’ Weekly, it would be Light Sabers’ Weekly
Person 1: …I bet that exists already.
Additionally, I find it important to mention that all persons above are over 35 years of age.
A lot of people think my dog is adorable and they’ll stop us in the street and ask questions about her.
“Awww!!!! How old is she?!”
“Almost one and a half now.”
“OHHHH She still looks like a puppy! What kind of dog is she?”
“I don’t know. We got her from a rescue. Her papers say Shiba Inu and Collie.”
“AWWW I LOVE HER! I WANT TO CUDDLE HER AND TAKE HER HOME! What is her name?”
“Prandtl.”
“.. Pransil? Pr.. Proodle?…”
“Prandtl”
“.. Pringle?”
“Prandtl. Like Mantle with a ‘Pr’”
“Prandil?”
“….”
“…”
“…”
Nobody has heard of the name Prandtl. It’s weird and different. I think it makes a cute dog name because we can shorten it down to just “P” and call her things like “Piddles” and “Poopface”, but nobody else seems to get it. And in all of the people that I have met on the face of this earth, only two people have understood exactly what her name references. TWO. And that is despite going to college for engineering.. and working with a bunch of engineers. And what was the first thing these two people said when they made the connection?
“JESUS! .. Really?? You ARE a nerd!” and “I’m about to throw up in my soup.”
Dan and I wanted a name that fit the following criteria:
1) German because at first glance her black muzzle makes you think about a German Shepherd.
2) Nerdy because her foster parent had named her “Spirit” since the woman was a total hippie. We thought that “Spirit” was stupid and totally unfitting, so we wanted to name her something engineeringy since we were very much NOT hippies and we were engineering students.
So we sat and we thought, and the only name we could think of at the time was “Prandtl”. We had learned about the Prandtl number in Heat Transfer. I copied and pasted the following from Wikipedia for your reference (and kind of mine too, because I really don’t remember when we actually used this number):
The Prandtl number Pr is a dimensionless number approximating the ratio of momentum diffusivity (kinematic viscosity) and thermal diffusivity. It is named after the German physicist Ludwig Prandtl.
It is defined as:
where:
- ν : kinematic viscosity, ν = μ / ρ, (SI units : m2/s)
- α : thermal diffusivity, α = k / (ρcp), (SI units : m2/s)
- μ : dynamic viscosity, (SI units : Pa s)
- k: thermal conductivity, (SI units : W/(m K) )
- cp : specific heat, (SI units : J/(kg K) )
- ρ : density, (SI units : kg/m3 ).
OH SNAP!! We looked up Ludwig Prandtl (on Wikipedia), too.. just to see if he was a good enough person for us to name our dog after. We have high standards, you know.
Ludwig Prandtl (4 February 1875 – 15 August 1953) was a German scientist. He was a pioneer in the development of rigorous systematic mathematical analyses which he used to underlay the science of aerodynamics, which have come to form the basis of the applied science of aeronautical engineering. In the 1920s he developed the mathematical basis for the fundamental principles of subsonic aerodynamics in particular; and in general up to and including transonic velocities. His studies identified the boundary layer, thin-airfoils, and lifting-line theories. The Prandtl number was named after him
So there you have it. Prandtl is named after a man who is referred to as the father of aerodynamics. Plus, they totally look alike.
And you had better believe that we plan on continuing the trend and naming our next dog something nerdy as well. Maybe we’ll name it Pythagoreon. Or Differential Equations (“Diff” for short).
Engineers get a bad rap. We’re stereotyped as full out geeks: complete with taped glasses, poor fashion sense, pocket protectors, and nonexistant social skills. I little like my engineering friend Charlie:
(Just kidding. He dressed up like this for Halloween.
At least I think he only dressed up like this for Halloween. )
And I wouldn’t really say that the stereotype is unfounded. Just like all stereotypes, it doesn’t necessarily encompass the entire group and is the result of a few that give us a “bad” name. But most of us are just like you non-engineery types.
But yes, we do have our nerdy tendencies. We have a tendency to over analyze things because… well… we can. We can talk about the heat transfer properties of cast iron. We can discuss the friction coefficient of tires.** We are well versed in integration, differentiation, and laplace transforms. And while “nerdy” can classify as anybody that knows way too much about any one thing (for instance, Tommy Lee probably knows an unreal amount of information about drums), we are the dreaded type of nerd because nobody cares about what we know. Does anybody really want to know about the friction coefficient of tires? NO! THEY DON’T! And if anybody were to accidentally overhear any of that conversation, they would probably say, “Wow, those engineers can tell a mean bedtime story. This is so boring, I’m having a tough time keeping my eyes open… and it has only been about 15 seconds.”
But the thing is, I find those conversations to be hilarious. And maybe it’s just me, but I get a huge kick out of how bullheaded engineers can be and how willing we are to argue details. So yesterday, as I sat and did work while the men next to me discussed grilling and the physical properties of cast iron, the idea for “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” came to me.
Every Thursday (assuming I remember) I will share a funny conversation, random factoid you may or may not be interested in, or a fact about myself that could be considered “nerdy”. The subject matter for these posts will come from conversations at work, with Dan, or just nerdy things that I have done in the past.
And sure, I might be pushing forward the engineering “nerdiest people ever” stereotype. And a lot of you probably won’t even think the stories that I’m going to share are interesting or funny. Most likely, you’ll be sitting there scratching your head thinking to yourself… “Uhh… I don’t really get it…. was that a joke?” But I will think they are interesting and funny, and I will be able to go through these stories at a not-to-distant point in the future and giggle like an idiot. And to me, that’s the point of having a blog in the first place. So I can reflect on it later.
And yes, “Way Too Nerdy Thursdays” can be renamed. If you have recommendations, please feel free to let me know.
I don’t have time to write up a nerdy encounter this week, so until next Thursday, please enjoy reading (or re-reading) about The Monty Hall Problem. It’s a pretty good post to get things started.
** Yes, those conversations really happened.
Today, my desk-neighbor Erick had a question for me. “So what are your big plans?” he asked. “Are you staying here? Are you looking elsewhere? Where is Ms. Heather headed?”
I gave a little smile because I had been anticipating this question. It has been on my mind a lot lately, and I am sure that many of my posts reflect that. “Well..” I replied. “I want to do something to help humanity, so I am looking for work that will help me down that path.”
Erick’s response was something along the lines of, “You will grow out of that. I used to want to do that, too.”
Personally, I have a lot of trouble understanding why I need to grow out of anything. Since when is grow out synonymous with grow up?
Want to get a room full of engineers into a frenzy? Show them the following video:
I was looking at flickr’s “Your Best Shot 2009: Rain” and was inspired. After reading the descriptions with each photo, I found out that most of them happen almost by chance. The photographer sees something beautiful and rush to take out their camera in time to take a beautiful shot. They see an opportunity present itself and do their best to seize it because it will be gone in a second. It’s almost like a metaphor about life, right?
