Mama, don't let your children grow up to be engineers

Samples of dialogue I hear in my morning vanpool commute:

*Action: Van driver, aka Only Semi-Cool Engineer, flicks turn signal and accidentally turns on window wipers. They go for several wipes before he turns them off.*

Annoying Engineer #1: "Hey...why'd you turn the wipers on?"

Only Semi-Cool Engineer: "I didn't mean to."

Annoy. Eng. #1: "But...it's not raining or anything. Why did you turn them on?"

O. S-C. Eng: "I didn't do it on purpose."

Annoy. Eng. #1: "But why..."

Me, turning around: "He flicked them on accidentally when he put the turn signal on. Haven't you ever done that?"

Annoy Eng. #2: "Hey, last night O. S-C. Eng put them on when it was sunny, too! Why did you do that?"

O. S-C. Eng: "I was trying to turn on the AC."

Annoy. Eng. #1, highly entertained: "There's some weird cosmic wiper action happening!"

Me: *bangs head against window*

And the following shining conversation:

Annoy. Eng. #3 (yes, these are all DIFFERENT annoying engineers, because one wouldn't be bad enough): "Hey, that Middle-Eastern-looking guy got on at the KENT station today."

*van is totally silent*

Annoy. Eng. #3: "He got on at the PUYALLUP station yesterday."

*still silence*

Annoy. Eng. #3: "And he was walking up and down the platform, like he was casing the joint."

Me, unable to keep silent (which is always the case): "Maybe he has a girlfriend."

Annoy. Eng. #3: "Ummmmm..."

Me: "Or maybe he was visiting his mother."

Annoy. Eng. #3: "But he was CASING the platform. I tried to get on the same car as him, to keep an eye on him, but he avoided me, all right."

Me: *bangs head against window*

Behind me, two engineers discuss their wives:

Sympathetic Engineer #1: "So you're sure she's just having a midlife crisis?"

Stoic, yet Obviously Broken Hearted Engineer #1: "Yeah. She's living at her mom's and she's talking about some guy. She's dyed her hair blonde. She's talking about buying a Harley...with my money, of course."

Symp. Eng. #1: "But you think she'll come back..."

St. y. Obv. Br. Htd. Eng #1, suddenly brave: "Of course she will! I just have to wait it out. She'll come back."

(Sidenote: Most of the guys in my van are either divorced or married for at least the third time. Who says engineers are quick learners?)

After telling all this to my mentor, Bill, he laughed and said, "There are a few requirements before you can be an engineer. You have to be conservative, and you have to be narrow-minded, and you have to be anal, and you have to be..."


I finished it for him: "Emotionally retarded."

"Well, yes, that’s an important quality, too."

This, folks, is why kt's blog is subtitled, "i'm a gemini trapped in an engineering career. i need a creative outlet."

Amen, sister.

(And it doesn't get any better. I'm trying to get the Finance people across the hall to help me out with something, and I swear to God they howl at the moon and devour their own young.)