The Engineer Syndrome
The nice elderly gentleman bagging my groceries this evening spent a great deal of time stacking them just so. Then he rearranged them. Then stacked. Then rearranged.
I must have been staring. Or maybe I had that impatient expression of someone who realizes that it’s 4:30 and she’s not getting any younger.
He explained that he was attempting to make them all symmetrical. So they would balance correctly in the trunk of my car. He’s a mechanical engineer, you see. These things are important.
It took everything I had not to break into hysterical laughter.
(We won’t even go into what’s wrong with an economy that sends an elderly mechanical engineer to bag groceries at Kroger. There’s just WAY too much wrong with that. We will instead focus on the engineer syndrome, itself. MUCH funnier.)
Anyone out there married to/child of/mother to an engineer?
I hear a few bellylaughs starting.
I haven’t decided yet whether certain professions tend to attract certain personalities, or whether those personalities just choose certain professions.
Surgeons, for instance, are well-known to be God-complected jerks. Were they like that first, or did the training do that to them? (My money is on a 50/50 split, but I haven’t seen even ONE study on this. If you know of one, send it on over).
Engineers, though, are a breed apart.
My dad is an engineer (retired. Thankfully not yet reduced to bagging groceries. But if he were, I have a feeling they wouldn’t rattle around in the trunk). He’s a perfect engineer. A perfectionist par excellence. A man who measures and thinks and ponders and pulls out his slide rule (YES! He still owns one. THREE, I think).
My eldest son is an engineer. He wasn’t, until we sent him to college. Two semesters later, and BOOM. He’s a carbon copy of my dad. Except taller, blonder, and, well, generally not like him at all.
Except JUST like him.
Never use imprecise wording around an engineer. They’ll eat you for lunch. Unless it’s really “dinner.” Never argue with an engineer about a definition of a word. EVEN if it’s one in your specialty, not his. He’s right.
Never ask an engineer to do something that you need done NOW. They have to plot and plan. They will need a legal pad, a calculator, and a ruler. To get the mail.
Never leave anything out of place around an engineer. They constantly play that old Sesame Street song in their heads (one of these things is not like the other….). Mess and disorder disrupt their worldview and could possibly cause a schizoid break.
But most importantly–NEVER put two or more engineers in the same room, unless you want them to redesign the table.
The first time we got my dad together with my newly engineerified son, all my mom and I could do was sit and laugh.
But, if you’re gonna pick someone to get a man on Mars or design a heart valve, who are you gonna call?
By the way, when I got home? All of my bags were sitting, exactly as I placed them, in my trunk. No rattling done.
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25 Comments
Stephanie B
Sunday, 15th November 2009 at 11:56 pm
Once again, I am reminded how I'm not a real engineer but one purely by accident. I do plan, to a degree, but I'm far from anal retentive when it comes to disorder. I also to a surprisingly large percentage of activities impetuously (I suck at chess – although that might be because my real goal with chess is to take the other's queen without sacrificing my own or any other piece, then my game falls apart). I'm a dreamer and have repeatedly demonstrated I don't think like an engineer.
Oddly enough, I manage to do a good job anyway, despite my quirkiness.
Oh, well, I'm used to being, um, distinctive.
[Reply]
Ed Adams
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 12:07 am
As someone with engineers in the family, and having worked for engineers, I deem this as quite possibly the truest post ever written.
OCD doesn't even began to explain it.
[Reply]
Catherine
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 12:47 am
Oh. My. Goodness. You have described my father and father-in-law to a "T"!!! My husband is an electrical/software engineer by training, but is now a math tutor, so I think the engineering thing in his case was a fluke. I used to refuse to let my dad help me do dishes when I was a teenager because he would take three times longer than I would to get them done – mostly because he washed them BEFORE putting them in the dishwasher!!
But, I do have to say that I have met a couple of surgeons who don't quite fit the Jerk mold. One of them, in fact, is the absolute nicest man I have ever met. He retired just a few years ago after practicing his entire career in a small town. The other two that I'm thinking of have their moments of being jerks, but are overall very pleasant, even in surgery. So, there are the occasional exceptions.
Thanks for the great laugh!!!
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 16th, 2009 at 4:17 am
I know lots of nice surgeons, too. It's just a stereotype–which is occasionally true.
Engineers, though, revel in their own stereotyping. It's a strange world.
[Reply]
frogmama
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 1:43 am
I don't know any engineers. I kind of feel like I'm missing out.
[Reply]
The Mayor
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 2:06 am
They recommended I pursue engineering in high school, which I never understood since I was far from being a math whiz. I guess it had something to do with scoring high for spatial perception.
I didn't become an engineer, but man do I pack the car for a road trip like one. And heaven forbid someone tries to "help" me.
[Reply]
Deanna
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 3:54 am
Have you stolen my child? (would you please, cuz that whole Correcting Mom's Words thing is driving me crazy!) Being a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal, engineers make me go bonkers – and I'm married to a half-engineer, birthed one whole engineer, and adopted an extremely precise 3 year old engineer.
Gah! Help me!
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 16th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Sorry, I have enough trouble with the engineers I already have at my disposal. You'll have to find a slide rule and fend for yourself.
[Reply]
The Dental Maven
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 12:14 pm
Dentists are just glad people are pre-occupied with the Engineer and Surgeon stereotypes. Keeps the spotlight off of us.
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Oh, Dentists are stereotyped, too. Ever see LIttle Shoppe of Horrors???
[Reply]
Wendy
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 12:34 pm
Oh. Brother. So. True.
I'm married to an engineer, but he wasn't one by choice. He was pretty much told, "you can major in anything you want in college. There's mechanical, electrical, chemical, civic…" His father and all of his siblings are engineers. Even the one married-in sibling besides me is an engineer. His mother & I are the two sore thumbs.
At any rate, he's not your typical engineer. He's loud and funny and a total slob. And he's in oil and spends all of his time plotting the best and fastest way to get his butt out to the field so that he can watch real things happen & not just see paper get pushed around. All of the other engineers he works with are grateful for this & also think he's a little weird for wanting to do this.
Our son was born an engineer. Born. An. Engineer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0
Sigh.
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 16th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Funny video. Thanks for sharing.
[Reply]
Mrsbear
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 2:34 pm
That explains a lot about my husband, who is not an engineer but thinks exceedingly like one. Seriously, he can't get anything done without getting mired in details and lists and occasionally diagrams. Asking him to explain anything is great for my insomnia though.
[Reply]
Dr. Dad
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 4:46 pm
"You might be an engineer if:"
1. You know vector calculus but not how to do long division
2. You have no life – and you can prove it mathematically.
3. You've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
4. It is sunny and 70 degrees outdoors, and you are working on a computer.
5. You know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
6. You think in "math."
7. You look forward to Christmas so you can put your kid's toys together.
8. You named your dog after a scientist.
9. You know jokes about mathematicians..
10. You can translate English into Binary.
11. You assume that a "horse" is a "sphere" in order to make the math easier.
12. You tried to repair a $5 radio
13. You can type 60 wpm but can't read your own handwriting
14. You are compelled to change an already good design.
9. You got arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 16th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
I would argue that most of these apply to math/science geeks in general, not to engineers in specific. My kids know lots of math/science jokes and have threatened to perform the Schrodinger's cat experiment (luckily, on the neighbor's cat), but only one of them is a bona fide engineer. So far.
[Reply]
sara
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 5:50 pm
How funny! My husband was a grocery bagger in high school, so he does the same thing. Drives me nuts. He is a computer nerd, so I guess that counts, huh?
[Reply]
TracyKM
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 6:33 pm
My husband is an engineer, and I agree with most of your post. However, he is the WORST grocery bagger! He hates shopping anyway and just throws it all in the bags any which way. But they definately are a different breed.
[Reply]
threeundertwo
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 6:38 pm
My husband is an engineer, except his desk looks like a tornado hit. I'll never understand that one.
This post is so true though!
[Reply]
Lawyer Mom
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 7:02 pm
Those engineers sure know how to pack!
[Reply]
Raised By Wolves
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 7:10 pm
Oh my, it seems I may be raising an engineer myself…boo-boo sounds exactly like that. It also takes almost a full week for her to eat a meal. I still haven't figured out what she's doing. She's 3.
[Reply]
Helene
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 9:06 pm
My husband is a computer geek..that's what he does for a living. But after reading your description of an engineer, I think a career switch may be in order.
[Reply]
Becca
Monday, 16th November 2009 at 11:38 pm
My uncle is an engineer and I know exactly what you mean. I have the ultimate fun watching my wife (who SHOULD have been an engineer) and my uncle sit around and decide what they should do next to fix his sisters' house.
[Reply]
Dr. Grumpy
Tuesday, 17th November 2009 at 2:26 am
I know the engineer's when they come in. Elaborate graphs of their symptoms over time, with comparison graphs on what foods they ate, medications they took, blood pressure compared to symptoms compared to signs of the zodiac, etc. And HUGE notebooks.
[Reply]
TheMother Replies:
November 17th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
My dad does that. He invented the "reverse symptomatology" theory of infectious disease. Mom and I laughed so hard we nearly got sick, too.
[Reply]
pat
Tuesday, 17th November 2009 at 4:43 pm
I have an engineer who has been reduced to a security guard (third shift) and it has been devastating.
[Reply]
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