Engineers Are Weird

Over the past couple of weeks, the company I work for has gone through a, shall we say, reorganization. This has led to many of the cubicles in our Dilbert-scape needing to be, shall we say, cleaned out down to the bare floor. This has proven no easy task, and it has led me to a greater understanding of a few of the nuances of the engineer personality.

1. Engineers are freaking pack rats

I've never seen anything like it. In the past few years, there have been routine cleaning requests where dumpsters were rolled in, and we were asked to clean out extra equipment and junk from our cubi-cells for tours and such. You'd think these would have eliminated the vast majority of the garbage from our department, but it obviously has not. There are computers made out of vaccuum tubes, black and white televisions, and crusty voltmeters and power supplies that appear to have been used by Edison. I'm relatively sure I saw the key from Ben Franklin's kite. There is junk piled everywhere. Thousands of video and computer cables that would easily be sold at Best Buy for $19.99 a pop, some being used as bailing wire for other assorted crap.

2. Electronic junk is like Crack for engineers

With all of this trash in the hallway, it's been enjoyable for me to watch the pain with which my fellow engineers shuffle past the piles as they move in and out. It's virtually impossible for many of them to give the stuff up in the first place, but then after they've done so, they're drawn to it like Ann Coulter to a slur. They can't resist. I've seen one poor guy hunched over a heap of 3.5" and 5.25" diskettes for the past two days, trying desparately to keep from stuffing them in his mouth and pockets, running frantically for the door. It doesn't matter that the entire pile has a street value of approximately $.03. It's just the thought of throwing away anything computer related or anything with a plug that breaks their lonely, unsociable, short-sleeve-dress-shirted hearts.

3. Engineers never have any brotherly love, even in times of distress

It's a well known fact that engineers are antisocial. This is understood. It's the explanation for our inability to date or mate with regularity or avoid comic book conventions. This inability to relate socially extends to our own predicament. It doesn't matter that we're all in a similar, leaky boat. It doesn't matter that we've all been asked to clean out our trash. It doesn't matter that most of us have worked together for ten years. If you even suggest, "Hey buddy...Yeah you with the black socks and Reeboks...You might want to toss that 1200 baud modem. I'm pretty sure it can't be used in a post-1985 PC" you'll get a tongue lashing. I haven't heard some of these guys speak in 10 years, but now they're fighting over who gets to take home a VCR that weighs approximately 300 pounds or a pile of remote controls for televisions produced in the 70's or (and this is my favorite) several hundred megabytes (the precursor to the gigabyte, for all you youngins) of memory for PCs from the 80's (this one nearly went to blows...and for all you computer geeks out there, the deathmatch was between two guys who both wanted it for their Amigas...I kid you not...)

Now I'm sure some of you are going to think, "Eh...this isn't funny. You're just playing on the Engi-nerd stereotypes for a quick chuckle." But it's the honest truth. And much like the Seinfeld where the dentist turned Jewish so he could tell their jokes, I'm a member of the club so I can take all the shots I want. I really wouldn't have believed all of this until I saw it. I should be selling tickets. I can see the marquee now:

"See two unmarried guys with a combined weight of 700 pounds and 6 remaining strands of hair between them wrestle over crap nobody else in the universe wants, all the while wearing polyester pants, black sneakers and T-shirts featuring their favorite Star Wars character. Get your tickets today!"