You Might Be an Engineer if ...


A team of you and your co-workers have set out to modify the antenna
on the radio in your work area for better reception
All your sentences begin with "what if"
At Christmas, it goes without saying that you will be the one to find
the burnt-out bulb in the string
Buying flowers for your girlfriend or spending the money to upgrade
your RAM is a moral dilemma
Dilbert is your hero
Everyone else on the Alaskan cruise is on deck peering at the scenery,
and you are still on a personal tour of the engine room
In college you thought Spring Break was a metal fatigue failure
On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning the pages
faster than someone else who is reading a John Grisham novel
People groan at the party when you pick out the music
The blinking 12:00 on someone's VCR draws you in like a tractor beam
to fix it
The only jokes you receive are through e-mail
The salespeople at Circuit City can't answer any of your questions
The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music never enters
your mind
When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
talking with customers and you butt in to correct him and spend next
twenty minutes answering the customers' questions, while the
salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head
You are able to argue persuasively that Ross Perot's phrase
"electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information
superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man still uses
hand-drawn pie charts
You are always late to meetings
You are at an air show and know how fast the skydivers are falling
You are aware that computers are actually only good for playing games,
but are afraid to say so out loud
You are convinced you can build a phazer from your garage door opener
and your camera's flash attachment
You are currently gathering the components to build your own nuclear
reactor
You are next in line on death row in a French prison and you find that
the guillotine is not working properly so you offer to fix it
You are still drinking Mr Pibb
You are wine tasting and find yourself paying more attention to the
cork screws than the '84 Chardonnay
You bought your wife a new CD ROM for her birthday
You bought your wife's valentine gift at orchard supply
You can name at least six Star Trek episodes
You can quote scenes from any Monty Python movie
You can type 70 words a minute but can't read your own handwriting
You can understand anything Al Gore says
You can't fit any more colored pens in your shirt pocket
You can't remember where you parked your car for the 3rd time this
week
You can't write unless the paper has both horizontal and vertical
lines
You carry a list for everything except the groceries
You carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test
that actually takes five minutes to run
You comment to your wife that her straight hair is nice and parallel
You disdain people who use low baud rates
You do Darth Vader or Battlestar Gallactica impersonations by talking
into a spinning fan
You drive a gremlin with a "Beam me up Scotty" bumper sticker
You ever burned down the gymnasium with your science fair project
You ever forgot to get a haircut ... for 6 months
You find yourself at the airport on your vacation studying the baggage
handling equipment
You go on the rides at Disneyland and sit backwards in the chairs to
see how they do the special effects
You have "Dilbert" comics displayed anywhere in your work area
You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster you own
turns bread into charcoal
You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work
You have ever debated who was a better captain: Kirk or Piccard
You have ever owned a calculator with no equals key and know what RPN
stands for
You have ever purchased an electronic appliance "as-is"
You have ever saved the power cord from a broken appliance
You have ever taken the back off your TV just to see what's inside
You have introduced your kids by the wrong name
You have memorized the Discovery Channel program schedule but have
seen most of the shows already
You have modified your can opener to be microprocessor driven
You have more friends on the Internet than in real life
You have never backed up your hard drive
You have never bought any new underwear or socks for yourself since
you got married
You have used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than
hanging coats and taping ducts
You introduce your wife/husband as "mylady@home.wife/husband"
You just don't have the heart to throw away the 100-in-1 electronics
kit you got for your ninth birthday
You know how to take the cover off your computer, and what size
screwdriver to use
You know the altitude limits for turning on and off electronic
equipment on commercial flights
You know the direction the water swirls when you flush
You know what http:// stands for
You look forward to Christmas only to put together the kids' toys
You need a checklist to turn on the TV
You order pizza over the Internet and pay for it through your home
banking software
You own "Official Star Trek" anything
You own one or more white short-sleeve dress shirts
You rearrange the dishwasher to maximize the packing factor
You remember half a dozen passwords and your ten-digit Compuserve
address, but you have to call your niece "kiddo"
You rooted for HAL, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey
You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile
tires
You see a good design and still have to change it
You spend more time on your home computer than in your car
You spent more on your calculator than on your wedding ring
You still own a slide rule and you know how to work it
You talk about the high resolution and picture-in-picture capability
of your big screen TV while everybody is watching the Superbowl
You talk about trellis code modulation at parties
You think a pocket protector is a fashion accessory
You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget
to send your father a birthday card
You think Sales and Marketing are Satan's children
You think that when people around you yawn, it's because they didn't
get enough sleep
You think your computer looks better without the cover
You thought the contraption ET used to phone home was stupid
You thought the real heroes of "Apollo 13" were the mission
controllers
You use a CAD package to design your son's Pine Wood Derby car
You walk around with your hands in your two front pockets 99% of the
time
You want an 24X CD ROM for Christmas
You wear black socks with white tennis shoes (or vice versa)
You window shop at Radio Shack
You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon
You're in the back seat of your car, she's looking wistfully at the
moon, and you're trying to locate a geosynchronous satellite
You've already calculated how much you make per second
You've ever tried to repair a $5 radio
Your four basic food groups are: 1. Caffeine, 2. Fat, 3. Sugar, 4.
Chocolate
Your checkbook always balances
Your dress clothes come from Sears
Your father sat 2 inches in front of your family's first color TV with
a magnifying lens to see how they made the colors, and you grew up
thinking that was normal
Your favorite actor is R2D2
Your favorite character on Gilligan's Island was "The Professor"
Your favorite James Bond character is "Q," the guy who makes the
gadgets
Your favorite place in San Francisco is the Exploratorium
Your favorite television show is New Yankee Workshop
Your girlfriend says the way you dress is no reflection on her
Your idea of a "good read" is the Edmund Scientific catalog
Your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the
decimal point in the right place
Your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest
sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies
Your Internet bill is higher than your long distance charges
Your IQ is a higher number than your weight
Your kids refer to you as The Man Who Sleeps with Mommy
Your laptop computer costs more than your car
Your spouse sends you an email instead of calling you to dinner
Your three-year-old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to
explain atmospheric absorption theory
Your wardrobe looks like you shop at Goodwill Industries
Your wife hasn't the foggiest idea what you do at work
Your wife thinks your taste in ties is bizarre
Your wrist watch has more computing power than a 300Mhz Pentium
Your wristwatch has more buttons than a telephone