(This is from 'The Dilbert Principle' by, of course, the creator of Dilbert, Scott Adams.)
People who work in the fields of science and technology are not like other people. This can be frustrating to the non-technical 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 everthing you need to know.
All technical professionals share a common set of traits. For convenience, I will focus primarily on engineers. It is safe to generalize to the other science and technology professions.
For the record, I'm not an engineer by training. But I spent ten years working with engineers and programmers in a variety of jobs. 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.
In time, I came to respect and appreciate the ways of engineers. Eventually I found myself adopting their beautiful yet functional philosophies about life. It was too late for me to go back to school and become a real engineer but at least I could pretend to be one and enjoy the obvious benefits of elevated sexual appeal. So far I think it's working.
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.
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."
My contribution to the understanding of engineers will be to try to explain the noble, well-reasoned motives behind what the so-called normal people perceive as odd behaviors.
It's totally unfair to suggest--as many have--that engineers are socially inept. Engineers simply have different objectives when it comes to social interaction.
"Normal" people expect to accomplish several unrealistic things from social interaction:
These goals are irrational and stupid. Experience shows that most conversations degenerate into discussions about parking spaces, weather patterns, elapsed time since you last exercised, and--God forbid--"feelings." Those topics hardly qualify as stimulating and thought-provoking. Nor are they useful. Engineers realize that making personal contacts is not valuable in their occupation. For them it's not "who you know" that matters, it's "who knows less than you do" that counts. Nor is there much tangible value in feeling "connected" with other humans. That stuff is best left to the poets and the multilevel marketing organization. To an engineer, most "normal" people are intellectually indistinguishable from Mexican jumping beans with faces. Feeling "connected" with carbon-based dolts holds all the joy of being handcuffed to a dead zebra--it sounds special, but it can get old fast.
In contrast to "normal" people, engineers have rational objectives for social interactions:
These are sensible goals and ones that can produce great joy. Tho social skill of an engineer must be evaluated on the basis of these rational objectives, not on the basis of bizarre and nonsensical societal standards. Viewed in this light, I think you'll agree that engineers are very effective in their social interactions. It's the "normal" people who are nuts.
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.
That's a good thing, society-wise.
If not for the compulsions of engineers, mankind would have never seen the wheel, settling instead for the trapezoid because some Neanderthal in Marketing convinced everybody it had great braking ability. And there would be no fire, because some middle-manager cave person would point out that if fire was such a good idea the other cave people would already be using it.
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.
If you think about it logically, you are the only person who doesn't have to look at yourself, not counting the brief moments you look in the mirror. Engineers understand that their appearance only bothers other people and therefore it is not worth optimizing. Another plus: Bad fashion can discourage normal people from interacting with the engineer and talking about the cute things their children do.
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. Consequently, ratings for "Star Trek" will remain high as long as they stay away from any realism.
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.
For society, it's probably a good thing that engineers value function over appearance. For example, you wouldn't want engineers to build nuclear power plants that only "look" like they would keep all the radiation inside. You have to consider the global perspective. But the engineer's emphasis on function over form is a big disadvantage for dating, where the goal is to act phony until the other person loves you for the person that you are.
Engineers don't like to make small talk because no useful information is exchanged. It is more useful to explain complicated technology issues to any human who will stand still. That way at least some information is exchanged and the encounter is not wasted. Unfortunately, it seems that a normal person would rather have a bushel of pine cones rammed up the nose than listen to a story about technology. But that's no reason to stop imparting valuable knowledge to a person who doesn't want it.
Sometimes normal people will try to use body language to end an encounter with an engineer. But engineers ignore body language because it is an imprecise science at best. For example, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between a comatose stare and an expression of interest.
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:
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.
Engineers are often stereotyped in the media. It is horribly unfair to assign a set of common traits to an entire class of people. There is some talk that I have been guilty of doing this myself, but I contend I've been framed.
To set the record straight, I have interviewed thousands of engineers and determined that the stereotypes do "not" fit them all. Here are the exceptions I found:
ENGINEER EXCEPTION TO STEREOTYPE
Elmer Moline, Calgary, Canada Had a second date at age twenty-three
Herb Blinthem, San Jose, CA Enjoyed "Bridges of Madison County"
Anita Fluman, Dublin, CA Has rhythm
Hugh Hunkelbein, Schaumburg, IL Doesn't care how his television remote
control works as long as it does
For humans, honesty is a matter of degree. 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. But thanks to the concept of "common usage" this is not technically dishonest in the modern workplace.
Sometimes engineers 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.
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?"
Engineers are always delighted to share wisdom, even in areas in which they have no experience whatsoever. Their logic provides them with inherent insight into any field of expertise. This can be a problem when dealing with the illogical people who believe that knowledge can only be derived through experience.
Most people don't know what it means to be an engineer. There are many types of engineers and they do many fascinating things during the workday. However, the excitement and pure adrenaline rush of the engineer's life is sometimes lost when it is explained to other people.
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.
There are numerous reports (I can't remember where I saw these reports, but when I think of it I'll mail you copies.), of engineers who were halfway through the embalming process before they sat up and shouted something like "I've got it--all it needs is a backup relay circuit!!!" 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.
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
The risk/reward calculation for engineers looks something like this:
RISK REWARD
Public humiliation and the death A certificate of appreciation in a
of thousands of innocent people. 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."
The quickest way to make a project uneconomical is by doubling the resources needed and using the cover story that you need to prevent failures.
Ego-wise, two things are important to engineers:
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. Not only is it better at the moment, but it lasts for as long as people will listen to the engineer's tale of conquest.
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.
Engineers can actually hear machines talk to them. The rattle in the car's engine teases softly, "I'll bet you can't find me." The computer hums an approving tune when the engineer writes an especially brilliant piece of computer code. The toaster says "Not yet, not yet, not yet" until the toast pops out. An engineer who is surrounded by machines is never lonely and never judged by appearance. These are friends.
So it should be no surprise that engineers invest much of their ego in what kind of "friends" they have.
Last Modified 2/14/00