Arrogant Engineers 37

[sbozy25]

Ok... So someone tell me why this is.....

I notice it with most customers and suppliers I work with, as well as my-self from time to time. I even notice it in these forums.

What is it that makes engineers so arrogant? I was asked this earlier today by someone that thougth i was being arrogant because I told them a convesion from mm to inches was easy. In these forums, if you read most of our posts... you will even notice there is a sence of this arrogance in a good portion of the responses....

Is it because we are for the most part well educated and that makes us this way? Or is it that we are all "nerds" and do not have the best interpersonal communication skills? Or are we just a large group of cocky know it alls?

I don't know, perhaps arrogance is not the word I am looking for, but you all know what I am getting at.

 

[SomptingGuy]

One more data point...

Most engineers are (for want of a better word) shy. We don't shout our mouths off about every subject, only when we know we are on solid ground. Hence we are seen by non-engineers to be "always right". This is where the arrogance comes from.

 

[jistre]

Not me. I'm just an arrogant SOB.

What? Someone had to say it to bring the smiles!

 

[prohammy]

To quote a very wise man (me!)

Arrogance is the easiest way to deal with idiots.

Taa Daa

Kevin

“It is a mathematical fact that fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class." ~Author Unknown

"If two wrongs don't make a right, try three." ~Author Unknown

 

[TheTick]

Arrogance is usually intelligence viewed through the lens of mediocrity.

 

[EddyC]

Where I live (1/2 hr outside New York City), almost everyone is arrogant. Modesty is considered a liability around here and will probably not get you a new job. I wish it wasn't so.

 

[livingston]

I have had my moments of arrogance. I venture to say that it is usually with people who think my degree is 'just a piece of paper' and value my education less than I do. After all, I was there.......

 

[rerig]

The more I learn, the more I realize what I don’t know.
When I do know something, I tend to correct others that insist what is wrong isn’t.
If they didn’t insist, I probably wouldn’t have corrected them.
Is correcting a Self-righteous A**H*** being Arrogant? Maybe.

I studied long & hard to gain this knowledge. Now that I am older I have a hard time holding my tongue when someone, attempting to be something they are not, holds court and spouts forth incorrect blather. (bs) It’s wrong and could be dangerous. Buddy, I’m calling your bluff. Gotcha!

We have a shop full of Repair Technicians that are very skillful and I don’t talk down to them. They might ask me to do it myself. I have 10 thumbs. I do communicate, not necessarily at a lower level, but using their language. (In college my girl friend was studying to be a Dental Technician. She studied Calculus also. It is the white stuff you scrape off of teeth.)

I don’t think I appear arrogant. That is one of my wife’s functions…Arrogant Police. She has started to refuse to watch any technical movies or TV shows with me. So now I keep my mouth shut. You would think after 34 years I could express my opinion about the technical competence of a director of a technical movie. So we watch Doctor shows. My brother has been a Paramedic for 30 years. He is not allowed to watch Doctor shows. When we get together all we watch are Cop Shows. My daughter is in the Police Academe. Pretty soon all we will be able to watch will be sports.
NOW YOU ARE TALKING ARROGANCE!

Rerig
If I were arrogant I wouldn't go by rerig.

 

[Sideswiper]

I'm an engineer and I think most engineers fit the stereotype of being arrogant. When explaining something to people, some engineers tend to stress the easy parts and gloss over the hard parts, while simultaneously leaving out chunks of information. It's like the engineer can't remember when they didn't know it.

So here's my screenplay. I guess the working title is "Arrogant Engineer".

Engineer: After I fix the hemtopic regagulator...
Normal: What's that?
Engineer: It stop the spurdastic from achieving combabulary phase A. Understand?
Normal: No.
Engineer: It stops the SPURDASTIC (gestures wildly) from ACHIEVING combablary PHASE A.
Normal: Uh… (looks around scared)
Engineer: Look, I’ll make it easier. You know what two plus two is, right? What addition is?
Normal: Of course I do!
Engineer: Hey, I’m just making sure buddy. You didn’t know what a spurdastic was, so I’m trying to go slowly…
Normal: OK, fine, thank you… (swallowing his pride)
Engineer: Well the answer is four. That’s why we have four spurdastics. Now imagine if they got real hot. I mean really hot. That would be bad, right?
Normal: Four spurdastics?
Engineer: Heat is bad, right?
Normal: I guess so.
Engineer: That’s why combabulary phase A is bad. You know what bad is, right?
Normal: Uh, I have a meeting to go to, we’ll pick this up another time.

(NORMAL walks away.)

Normal: Arrogant sonofapoodle!

 

[Lion06]

star for sideswiper. I hope I am not the only one who found that funny!!

 

[ScottyUK]

TheTick,

Star for you. Hope you don't mind if I borrow that occasionally!

I wonder if part of the reason engineers are perceived as arrogant is that we understand most people's work so much better than they understand ours? I can speak basic legalese to lawyers, high school maths to accountants, curse and swear along with the fitters and speak fluent bullsh*t to managers. If they were listening to me talking to another engineer I suspect they would think I was speaking in tongues. We are considerably more versatile than most professions and I think that because we have a level of expertise in so many fields it perhaps brings out insecurities in others who can't match either the breadth or depth of knowledge in the average engineer.


----------------------------------

I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem...

 

[geekEE]

Oh please. Any moron knows that combabulary phase B is much worse than combabulary phase A.

 

[debodine]

geekEE, you should be more clear. As one claiming to be an engineer, you have a responsibility to be accurate and complete.

Your statement is true only for longitudinal axis spurdastics. As anyone with REAL experience knows, lateral axis spurdastics only enter combabulary phase B in the presence of tachyons, and even then the magnitude of the phase B deviations does not approach the value of the phase A deviations.

Only in a longitudinal axis spurdastic does the combabulary phase B deviation exceed the phase A, but of course it does so by two orders of magnitude so I give you credit for at least being correct there.

So next time, make it clear you were speaking of LONGITUDINAL AXIS spurdastics, and you won't have to be corrected in a public forum such as this by someone as humble and meek as myself!

)

debodine

 

[Sideswiper]

Ha ha ha! I think debodine made my point better than I did. That's rich.

 

[csd72]

debodine,

Can you please explain the bit between spurdastics and spurdastics, its all dutch to me.

I take it the regulator stops the thing from overheating.

As mentioned before communication is one of those soft skills that is essential for engineers in practice. If you cant dumb down what you say then you really need to figure out how you can, or find a position where you dont have to deal with people.

csd

 

[oldfieldguy]

We either have to 'dumb it down' for our audiences or we have to instill in them the confidence that we not only know what we're doing but that we also have their best interests in mind.

That's the 'perfect world' scenario. It pops up occasionally.

The real world scenario is more likely to be like working for manager or client who not only does not understand what we're trying to do, but he also has expectations far out of line with reality. I try to deal with these as gently and tactfully as possible, but somewhere along the line it sometimes becomes impossible and I have asked more than one 'manager' exactly what act of legislation recently repealed Ohm's Law...

old field guy

 

[SomptingGuy]

Try explaining central heating to ones spouse who insists on switching the heating on when feeling cold and opening windows when feeling hot! In the end I gave up. Couldn't face all those arguments about why I thought I knew what I was talking about. I chose to pay a higher heating bill instead and stay quiet.

 

[csd72]

SomptingGuy,

I know exactly what you are talking about. I have given up trying to explain to my wife about the false economy of frequently turning fluorescent lights on/off and the miniscule amount that LEDs use up.

csd

 

[SomptingGuy]

Don't get me started!

On holiday once in Wales (where it's always cold) we had a small electric heater to make the bedroom bearable before bed time. I was scolded for leaving the light on in the room while the heater was running. Almost ended up on the sofa!

 

[csd72]

SomptingGuy,

It depends which part of Wales. I have been to Pembrokeshire twice and I had at least once day of about 30C each time.

csd

 

[geekEE]

debodine, hahaha, if you were any more humble and meek, I'd have to slap you.

SomptingGuy, that sounds like my ex-girlfriend. If she was cold, she set the heat to the maximum setting. I tried explaining that that wouldn't warm the room any faster than setting it to a comfortable setting, but she never changed her ways.