If you are one of those who have problem spotting an engineer, your problem may be finally over. If you are one of those who have hard time separating engineers from human, please read on. There is good news: with little information it is easy to spot an engineer.
Evolutionary Background: First of all, engineers belong to a subspecies of homo sapiens called homo sheepean since they share lot of their traits with the similarly named quadrupedal ruminant mammals. Though they have almost identical DNA structure of human, they are a separate branch in the evolutionary path. The three fundamental features – tool making, use of language for communication, and walking straight – that propelled human evolution are not exactly shared by the home sheepean. Though engineers excel in tool making, they lack the ability to use language for communication and hell bent on moving away from standing up – neither on their own feet nor for their convection. As a result, most of their brain is unused and feared to be vestigial expect for the over developed data crunching center in the left brain. Engineers branched out from the human species no more than two centuries ago, and their evolution is still in nascent stage.
Physical description: Engineers come in all size and shapes, but the distinguishing mark is their backbone. Unlike most human, the backbone of an engineer is never straight and tends to droop forward in all positions: standing, sitting, or even sleeping. It is surprising that they still have one. They are perpetually mesmerized by their feet and constantly gazing at them even when they talk to you. Besides their posture, the engineers exhibit the following physical attributes: have uncombed hair; wear shirts in some shade of blue or free T-shirts along with jeans and khaki pants; tend to wear glasses even if they do not need them, and avoid eye contact.
Classification: There are many subgroups discovered within the species, but population can be divided into two major groups: IT engineers and the non-IT engineers. Since IT stands for insanely trivial, the non-IT population does not consider them as true engineers. To avoid the sigma, IT engineers try to pass them as computer engineers, which is hard since computer engineers do not like to be called IT person. However, the IT group is growing rapidly due to migration of engineers from non-IT group. The non-IT group is divided into electrical, mechanical, chemical, and other subgroups all of which mutate to IT group over time.
Natural Habitat: Engineers tend to live in small cubicles. Even the ones with big houses tend to prefer the small cubicles. Though the walls of the cubicles are no higher than a few feet, it is enough to contain the engineers. They rarely come out to attend meeting which they hate because the conference rooms tend to have bright lights and the walls farther apart. Engineers can also be spotted in electronics gadget stores, technical section of popular bookstores, sci-fi conventions, and online chat rooms.
Food Habits: Of all food groups, engineers undoubtedly prefer free food. Their fondness for free food cannot be exaggerated: free food is the only thing that can lure them out of the comfort of cubicles; the lure of free food can motivate them to work long hours after everyone else leaves for home; the promise of free food entice them to come to company parties which they would avoid at any cost since they tend to require social interaction; and the potential of free food at dinner parties can overcome their morbid fear of talking to strangers. Among free food group, they like the ones that do not need cutlery and can be eaten at their cubicles.
Communication Methods: Engineers have their own dialect that the rest of the world cannot understand. They tend to excel in communicating with each other, but have no interest or skill when it comes to communicating with anyone outside their group. Though most of them acquire more than one language, none of these languages are used by human. Their dialect is heavily influenced by machine and computer languages and full of symbols, acronyms, and equations. They are more proficient communicating with machines.
Religious Beliefs: There are a few scriptures that engineer follow: the story of Star Wars, the chronicles of Lord of The Rings, and the lesser known Hitchhiker Guide to Galaxy. However, all of them believe in the supreme robot god of an alien species of far superior intelligence than all engineers combined together. They think hell and heaven is just myths and there is no after life, but they strongly believe in parallel universes and time travel.
Mating Rituals: Engineers prefer spouse over boyfriend or girl friend. Not much is known about their mating habits, but it is rumored that they exchange designs or computer codes to determine compatibility. Even two engineers cannot produce an engineer baby: all babies are born human. Only over time some of them develop the affliction by association.
Social Structure: Engineers do not form any strong social structure and tend to live solitary lives. Except when they gather for annual conference or workshops. In such situation, it is of great importance for them to establish superiority over others. This they do by shouting matches: they take turn to go to the podium and declare he is the smartest of all and the rest shout at him saying he is not. This continues until the free food arrives and they all stop. The winner of the shouting match is traditionally honored in an award ceremony where everyone else agrees that it was a mistake. However, the winner gets to brag about it for rest of his life.
Other Habits: Engineers love to fix things: they would spend months on a broken switch and spend thousands of dollars and save the humiliation of calling an electrician for $30. They also hate lawyers, actors, doctors, or any other professional since they do not involve engineering. Besides disdain for other professionals, they also tend to hate their bosses who according to them have half their GPA and one third their IQ. The only thing they enjoy outside their work is Dilbert comics.
This post is three years too late and you obviously mean a desi engineer which you have forgot to mention. Besides a couple of spell errors which are becoming rather regular here, this alleged humor is completely devoid of any laugh.
Yawn !
To Huzefa: I forget the spelling, but had no idea about the “desi” part. Also not sure about the three year part, but I understand it was not funny for you. My apology.
To bongopondit: Hush, little baby, don’t say a word…
Decided to look around your blog after reading an article about IITians.
Worst decision of my life. I know you are not to be blamed for this. I guess I can put it down to an engineer’s curiosity. π
Besides, you are not so good at writing funny hate articles. If you hate engineers as much as I think you do, check out Maddox’s writing at http://maddox.xmission.com/
Hopefully, you’ll get some pointers from this guy and realize that your thoughts are not worth sharing! π
this was quite humorous …
I’ve also read your IIT-tribe article – this seemed more opted to spread humour than to spew out your frustration on some system…in a ‘hate mail’ type blog. . .
i doubt this applies only for ‘desi’ engineers …
but then the word *applies* itself is wrong …
anyway you don’t expect good vocabulary from me do you ?
and . . . how come you haven’t written an article yet condemning those brilliant minds who , after doing technical studies go for an MBA and settle for a management job ?
isn’t this next ? – a waste of technical potential .
OMG ! .. I thought you were merely jaundiced against IITians. It now looks like you have something against engineering itself !!
You need not get a formal degree to be an engineer … geometric abstraction and the ability to use tools is present in the human species .. perhaps to a greater extent in men. It is also known that men are not really good in communication and refrain from making long and winding diatribes … the logical conclusion I can make is that you are either a female or an effeminate male π
My Dad is a retired engineer. I did an internship (psychological counseling) in a college counseling center at a big name engineering university. My supervisor assured me repeatedly me that the majority of clients came in with relationship problems caused by poor communication. Apparently lots of them or the average one scores around between 100 to 200 points better on the general version of the GRE. It was fascinating to conduct therapy with these guys. I mean simply fascinating.
then I married one. He is a great guy and I love him and he loves me and our daughter. (And yes he did built her a pink computer of her own – ergonomically designed for a three year old left-handed girl. But we do speak different languages.
This is hilarious!