Understanding engineers

[AES]

Understanding Engineers #1

To the optimist, the glass is half-full. To the pessimist, the glass is
half-empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Understanding Engineers #2

A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a
particularly slow group of golfers.

The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must have been waiting for
fifteen minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"

The priest said, "Here comes the greens-keeper. Let's have a word with him."
He said, "Hello George, What's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're
rather slow, aren't they?"

The greens-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firemen They
lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year so we always let
them play for free anytime!"

The group fell silent for a moment.

The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for
them tonight."

The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist
colleague and see if here's anything she can do for them."

The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"

Understanding Engineers #3

What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.

Understanding Engineers #4

The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"

The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"

The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"

The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"


Understanding Engineers #5

An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and
said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

He bent over, picked up the frog, and put it in his pocket.

The frog spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn back into a
beautiful princess and stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it
to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess,
I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want."

Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his
pocket.

Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful
princess and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want.
Why won't you kiss me?"

The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a
girlfriend, but a talking frog - now that's cool."

And Finally

Two engineers were standing at the base of a flagpole, looking at its top.

A woman walked by and asked what they were doing.

"We're supposed to find the height of this flagpole," said Sven, "but we
don't have a ladder."

The woman took a wrench from her purse, loosened a couple of bolts, and laid
the pole down on the ground.

Then she took a tape measure from her pocketbook, took a measurement,
announced, "Twenty one feet, six inches," and walked away.

One engineer shook his head and laughed, "A lot of good that does us We ask
for the height and she gives us the length!"

Both engineers have since quit their engineering jobs and are currently
serving as elected members of parliament.

AES

 

[finneyb]

And ...

Two engineering students were biking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"

The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."

The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice: The clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."

Brian

 

[AES]

Brian, I had that one in originally, but knocked it out 'cos I thought it was too silly, even for an engineer! (Well, it's too silly for this one anyway - I would have taken the bike AND the clothes).

AES

 

[novocaine]

we really do get a raw deal.

I'd complain, but then I'd have to talk to someone and that isn't going to happen.

 

[sunnybob]

Dont worry about understading us, but its important to get the diagnosis in early

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8vHhgh ... DIEHARDave

 

[Harbo]

Thank goodness nobody’s quoted the Engineers Drinking Song!!

Rod

 

[novocaine]

yey dilbert.

 

[DTR]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[woodenstx]

The answer to the problem that never existed

 

[Racers]

A BOLD NEW PROPOSAL FOR MATCHING HIGH-TECHNOLOGY PEOPLE AND PROFESSIONS

Over the years, the problem of finding the right person for the right job has consumed thousands of worker-years of research and millions of dollars of funding. This is particularly true for high-technology organizations where talent is scarce and expensive. Recently, however, years of detailed study of the finest minds in the field of psychoindustrial interpersonnel optimization have resulted in the development of a simple foolproof test to determine the best match between personality and profession. Now, at last, people can be infallibly assigned to the jobs for which they are truly best suited.

CLASSIFICATION GUIDELINES

Mathematicians hunt elephants by going to Africa, throwing out everything that is not an elephant, and catching one of whatever is left.

Experienced mathematicians will attempt to prove the existence of at least one unique elephant before proceeding to step 1 as a subordinate exercise. Professors of mathematics will prove the existence of at least one unique elephant and then leave the detection and capture of an actual elephant as an exercise for their graduate students.

Computer scientists hunt elephants by exercising Algorithm A:
1. Go to Africa.
2. Start at the Cape of Good Hope.
3. Work northward in an orderly manner, traversing the continent
east and west.
4. During each traverse pass,
(a) Catch each animal seen,
(b) Compare each animal caught to a known elephant,
(c) Stop when a match is detected.

Experienced computer programmers modify Algorithm A by placing a known elephant in Cairo to ensure that the algorithm will terminate.

Assembly language programmers prefer to execute Algorithm A on their hands and knees.

Engineers hunt elephants by going to Africa, catching gray animals at random, and stopping when any one of them weighs within + or - 15% of any previously observed elephant.

Economists don't hunt elephants, but they believe that if elephants are paid enough, they will hunt themselves.

Statisticians hunt the first animal they see N times and call it an elephant.

Consultants don't hunt elephants, and many have never hunted anything at all, but they can be hired by the hour to advise those people who do.

Operations research consultants can also measure the correlation of hat size and bullet color to the efficiency of elephant-hunting strategies, if someone else will only identify the elephants.

Politicians don't hunt elephants but they will share the elephants you catch with the people who voted for them.

Lawyers don't hunt elephants, but they do follow the herds around arguing about who owns the droppings.

Software lawyers will claim that they own an entire herd based on the look and feel of one dropping.

Vice presidents of engineering, research and development try hard to hunt elephants, but their staffs are designed to prevent it. When the VP does get to hunt elephants, the staff will try to ensure that all possible elephants are completely prehunted before the VP sees them. If the VP does see a non-prehunted elephant, the staff will (1) compliment the VP's keen eyesight, and (2) enlarge itself to prevent any recurrence.

Senior managers set broad elephant-hunting policy based on the assumption that elephants are just like field mice, but with deeper voices.

Quality assurance inspectors ignore the elephants and look for mistakes the other hunters made when they were packing the jeep.

Salespeople don't hunt elephants but spend their time selling elephants they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.

Software salespeople ship the first thing they catch and write up an invoice for an elephant.

Hardware sales people catch rabbits, paint them gray, and sell them as desktop elephants.


Pete

 

[sunnybob]

Many years ago I worked for a county council.
I applied for a different job in the council, obviously higher up and with more money (my sole motivation)

I had to take a test on a handheld device that had a couple 100 multiple choice answers (if youre in a boat with your family and its sinking, who do you throw overboard first to save the others?) Once you finished, this device did unknown numbers of calculations and came up with a score that I was not allowed to see.

At the end of it all I had the interview with the man who had designed this nonsense. He told me I had passed everything except for the fact I was too resistant to change. I denied that. i told him if he could find a better or simpler way to do something i would never do it the old way again.
He told me that was NOT what the council was looking for. he had been specifically tasked to find some "yes men" who would cheer every time the council leader came up with a whizz bang idea.

True story.
I left the council shortly after that, in a search for some sane people.

 

[Eric The Viking]

yey dilbert.

"QuickProtect" My favourite piece of software, ever. (Wally: "At this point, all it does is erase your hard drive...")

Found it! http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-09-17