Why are Engineers so arrogant?

[rusnak]

There's a farmer on here?

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by fanaudical

... I often run across "engineers" in industry who have been falsely titled; many don't have the expertise or education to carry the title. Some have been promoted to the title after completing years of technician-level work in their company. I have met several of these people who truly are arrogant (and in some cases dangerous in their practice of engineering). Fortunately, almost all of these cases required oversight of a PE who had final design authority...

I work in a division (485 people) called "Weapons Systems Engineering". Some of us do systems engineering, some of us do test and qualification stuff, some of us do basic research on detonation/shock physics and some others do stuff with hydrogen-materials interactions. Our degrees cover: (duh) engineering, chemistry, metallurgy and physics. Some HR monkey has declared that, since we're in "... systems engineering", we all must be engineers.

There were not a few bad feelings among the chemistry and physics PhDs. Primadonnas all of them - even worse than chemical engineers.

[RWebb]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

chemistry and physics PhDs. Primadonnas all of them - even worse than chemical engineers.

That would NEVER happen at ORNL. Never, never

BTW - if you know a guy who was called Goodsie in college, tell him hi from me. He's Dr. Goodsie now (Mat. Sci.).

[Outback Porsche]

I'll be nicer if you be smarter.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

What I find amazing about this thread is that the OP has been banned at least three times for not playing nice in the sand box in PARF in his short time being here and now he is running down two of our long time posters pretty much by name and alluding to them and other engineers as being "arrogant". Yet you all seem to miss that and prattle on about engineers in general.

I didn't miss that, but then there are a lot of things I don't miss.

[ledhedsymbols]

Some of my best friends are engineers. This is all in good fun.

[livi]

Wow. This was obviously a topic that touch a lot of people.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by MotoSook

Lol

Three more words:

Reverse Polish Notation

I have an HP41 app on my iPhone.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by IROC

I have an HP41 app on my iPhone.

That's hilarious! I need to get that, so I can leave my HP48G at home.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by Hugh R

What I find amazing about this thread is that the OP has been banned at least three times for not playing nice in the sand box in PARF in his short time being here and now he is running down two of our long time posters pretty much by name and alluding to them and other engineers as being "arrogant". Yet you all seem to miss that and prattle on about engineers in general.

Relax Hugh. His post immediately died on the vine as we all went off in various directions, "acting" pompous, arrogant, humorous, nerdy, evil genius, etc. This is OT, where we tend to play better.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by Jim Richards

That's hilarious! I need to get that, so I can leave my HP48G at home.

It's awesome. It's called "i41CX". I'm afraid to admit that I use it all the time.

I still use my HP41CV that I bought brand new in 1982. It's sitting on my desk as I type this. They'll have to pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by RWebb

That would NEVER happen at ORNL. Never, never

That's funny. When I first started at ORNL I was told that engineers are "second class citizens". I shrugged it off, but it's true. It's an interesting social and professional dynamic.

Our value here is to arrogantly tell the PhD physicists why their crazy idea won't actually work. I stood and listened to one physicist spend 10 minutes describing this thing he wanted to do during an upcoming outage. He had it all figured out. He got done and asked what I thought. I said, "Yeah, technically we can do that. Unfortunately the radiation levels will kill all of the technicians, though.". He hadn't thought about that part...

[Rusty914s]

I don't have much experience with engineers but around here is the triple PHDs out of MIT, Harvard, etc. I don't find them arrogant.

I do enjoy being invited to parties and watching them interact with each other...

[recycled sixtie]

Even if you do find that an engineer is arrogant and you tell him he is arrogant I really don't think that he/she will change....he will still wonder why you are avoiding him.

[GH85Carrera]

I used to have a little computer club group that met at my office in the front lobby back in the 1980s and 1990s. I was the only non engineer. One guy was the multiple time engineer of the year at AT&T back in the 80s. Several were engineers at Seagate one was at the FAA.

They were a great group of men. Most were retired or close to retiring. We all tinkered with computers back before the internet.

I wish I had my camera at one meeting. As we were breaking up to go home 5 engineers were standing up and chatting and ALL of them were looking at their shoes.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by livi

Wow. This was obviously a topic that touch a lot of people.

It kinda backfired on the OP's intended trolling, didn't it?
Maybe if he had a degree ....... or a clue.

[recycled sixtie]

You hear it often from some folks that play down a degree or a profession and they have no idea what the educated have to go through. Engineers, doctors, dentists etc have to have internships, experience. I give them all credit as they have studied so hard......and the engineer has to sit down 8 hours a day and crunch numbers. The dentist has to stand all day looking at and working on patients' teeth.

[matt f]

I never complain about engineers while driving over a bridge in the same context that I never ***** about farmers with my mouth full.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally Posted by recycled sixtie

and the engineer has to sit down 8 hours a day and crunch numbers

An 8-hour day is one where I go home really early.

[Gretch]

Originally Posted by Iciclehead

I work with engineers extensively and have somehow sired two of them.....

Their mindset is a perverse combination of personal aptitudes needed to be a good engineer (mathematical skills, high sense of the tangible, fact oriented etc) and the education. Engineering education starts from the place that if they don't do their job right, people die....and the engineer by virtue of their stamp is personally accountable. There is also a huge amount of bonding in engineering (read: rampant alcoholism and co-dependent relationships) and embarking on no end of mischief (in my son's case building a potato cannon capable of shooting several hundred metres and then assaulting the nearby military college with it).

Result of this perverse melange is a group of people who believe in their own god-like powers, who bond more tightly than a bunch of Muslims in a pork factory and who presume everyone else is "lesser".....otherwise they too would have become engineers.

Thankfully there are relatively few female engineers to mate with, otherwise the infestation of engineers would eventually overrun human kind. It also explains why female engineers become irresistible to male engineers at the age of consent and remain that way until about thirty minutes after their clinical death.

Longer if it's a warm day.

Dennis

HA! HA! VERY funny Dennis! well done. I managed a group of (mostly) software engineers and they require a different approach from either artists or "mere mortals".

I do not ascribe to the opinion of the OP but I do think Dennis has identified some personality traits often found in people who pursue an engineering career.

I, like many others, have anecdotal experiences with engineers where the optimum response is to smile knowingly and just walk away......

I think irrespective of what a person does for a living, once identified as one who NEVER takes any advice, it is best to stop trying to give said advice.

Perhaps the flaw in engineering thinking, if there is one, is the belief that the application of logic answers all questions. In undergrad the Jesuits spent 4 years pounding that into our heads, it took another 3 years of grad school to completely remove it......

"I've worked with a lot of good engineers and most of these don't tend to suffer fools which to a bull$hitter could be perceived as arrogance. I have also worked with a whole lot of arrogant guys who spent their time telling people what they knew rather than trying to understand what they didn't know." <= This is true in many walks of life........ Bull****ters REALLY hate it when they are called on it with facts, confidence and experience. AND it is a thing of beauty to behold OR participate in!

In closing, thank god for engineers and for that matter people in general who ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING.