Engineer Humour

Quick Reference

• Shipwreck
• Engineers' Terminology
• Metrics
• Marry An Engineer!

Shipwreck

Outside of beautiful scenery, a spring-fed pool, bananas and coconuts, there was little else. He lost all hope and for hours on end, sat under same palm tree. One day, after several months had passed, a gorgeous woman in a small rowboat appeared.

"I'm from the other side of the island," she said. "Were you on the cruise ship, too?"

"Yes, I was," he answered. "But where did you get that rowboat?" "Well, I whittled the oars from gum tree branches, wove the reinforced gunnel from palm branches and made the keel and stern from a Eucalyptus tree."

"But what on earth did you use for tools?" asked the man.

"There was a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed on the south side of the island. I discovered that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into forgeable ductile iron. But tell me," she said. "Where have you been living all this time? I don't see any shelter."

"I've just been sleeping on the beach," he told her.

"Would you like to come to my place?" she asked. The engineer nodded dumbly.

She expertly rowed them around to her side of the island and tied up the boat with a handsome strand of hand-woven hemp topped with a neat back splice. They walked up a winding stone walk she had laid and around a Palm tree. There stood an exquisite bungalow painted in blue and white.

"It's not much, but I call it home." Inside, she asked him to sit and offered him a drink.

"No, thanks," said the man. "One more coconut juice and I'll throw up!"

"It's not coconut juice," the woman replied. "I have a crude still out back, so we can have authentic Pina Coladas."

Trying to hide his amazement, the man accepted the drink and they sat down on her couch to talk. After they had exchanged stories, the woman said, "Tell me, have you always had a beard?"

"No," said the man, "I was clean shaven all of my life until I ended up on this island."

"Well if you'd like to shave, there's a razor upstairs in the bathroom cabinet."

The man, no longer questioning anything, went upstairs to the bathroom and shaved with an intricate bone-and-shell device honed razor sharp. Next he showered - not even attempting to fathom a guess as to how she managed to get warm water into the bathroom - and went back downstairs. He couldn't help but admire the masterfully carved banister as he walked.

"You look great," said the woman. "I think I'll go up and slip into something more comfortable."

As she did, the man continued to sip his Pina Colada. After a short time, the woman, smelling faintly of gardenias, returned wearing a revealing gown fashioned out of pounded palm fronds.

"Tell me," she asked, "we've both been out here for a very long time with no companionship. You know what I mean. Have you been lonely...is there anything that you really, really miss? Something that all men and woman need? Something that would be really nice to have right now!"

"Yes there is!" the man replied, shucking off his shyness. "There is something I've wanted to do for so long. But on this island all alone, it was just...well, it was impossible..."

"Well, it's not impossible, any more," the woman said seductively.

The man, practically panting in excitement, said breathlessly: "You mean you actually figured out some way we can check our e-mail here?"

Engineers' Terminology

A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES ARE BEING TRIED

We are still pissing in the wind.

EXTENSIVE REPORT IS BEING PREPARED ON A FRESH APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM

We just hired three kids fresh out of college.

CLOSE PROJECT COORDINATION

We know who to blame.

MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGH

It works OK, but looks very hi-tech.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION IS DELIVERED ASSURED

We are so far behind schedule the customer is happy to get it delivered.

PRELIMINARY OPERATIONAL TESTS WERE INCONCLUSIVE

The darn thing blew up when we threw the switch.

TEST RESULTS WERE EXTREMELY GRATIFYING

We are so surprised that the stupid thing works.

THE ENTIRE CONCEPT WILL HAVE TO BE ABANDONED

The only person who understood the thing quit.

IT IS IN THE PROCESS

It is so wrapped up in red tape that the situation is about hopeless.

WE WILL LOOK INTO IT

Forget it! We have enough problems for now.

PLEASE NOTE AND INITIAL

Let's spread the responsibility for the screw up.

GIVE US THE BENEFIT OF YOUR THINKING

We'll listen to what you have to say as long as it doesn't interfere with what we've already done.

GIVE US YOUR INTERPRETATION

I can't wait to hear this bull!

SEE ME or LET'S DISCUSS

Come into my office, I'm lonely.

ALL NEW

Parts not interchangeable with the previous design.

RUGGED

Too damn heavy to lift!

LIGHTWEIGHT

Lighter than RUGGED.

YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT

One finally worked.

ENERGY SAVING

Achieved when the power switch is off.

LOW MAINTENANCE

Impossible to fix if broken.

Metrics

The software engineering community has been placing a great deal of emphasis lately on metrics and their use in software development. The following metrics are probably among the most valuable for a software project:

• The Pizza Metric

  How:

  Count the number of pizza boxes in the lab.

  What:

  Measures the amount of schedule under-estimation. If people are spending enough after-hours time working on the project that they need to have meals delivered to the office, then there has obviously been a mis-estimation somewhere.

• The Aspirin Metric

  How: Maintain a centrally-located aspirin bottle for use by the team. At the beginning and end of each month, count the number of aspirin remaining aspirin in the bottle. What: Measures stress suffered by the team during the project. This most likely indicates poor project design in the early phases, which causes over-expenditure of effort later on. In the early phases, high aspirin-usage probably indicates that the product's goals or other parameters were poorly defined.

• The Beer Metric

  How:

  Invite the team to a beer bash each Friday. Record the total bar bill.

  What:

  Closely related to the Aspirin Metric, the Beer Metric measures the frustration level of the team. Among other things, this may indicate that the technical challenge is more difficult than anticipated.

• The Creeping Feature Metric

  How:

  Count the number of features added to the project after the design has been signed off, but that were not requested by any requirements definition.

  What:

  This measures schedule slack. If the team has time to add features that are not necessary, then there was too much time allocated to a schedule task.

• The "Duck!" Metric

  How:

  This one is tricky, but a likely metric would be to count the number of engineers that leave the room when a marketing person enters. This is only valid after a requirements document has been finalized.

  What:

  Measures the completeness of the initial requirements. If too many requirements changes are made after the product has been designed, then the engineering team will be wary of marketing, for fear of receiving yet another change to a design which met all initial specifications.

• The Status Report Metric

  How:

  Count the total number of words dedicated to the project in each engineer's status report.

  What:

  This is a simple way to estimate the smoothness with which the project is running. If things are going well, an item will likely read, "I talked to Fred; the widgets are on schedule." If things are not going as well, it will say, "I finally got in touch with Fred after talking to his phone mail for nine days straight. It appears that the widgets will be delayed due to snow in the Ozarks, which will cause the whoozits schedule to be put on hold until widgets arrive. If the whoozits schedule slips by three weeks, then the entire project is in danger of missing the July deadline."

Marry An Engineer!

DOCTOR

LAWYER

1. You seriously expect an honest, trusting relationship with someone who gets paid for lying? Once again, this is not a problem with your Engineer spouse. He doesn't have enough social skills to lie convincingly.
2. An additional drawback is when the divorce happens with a lawyer, you will get nothing.

SALES

HAZARDOUS PROFESSIONS

Your husband, if he is not dead by some accident, will likely be crippled with a back injury, etc., just about the time you are at your sexual peak. The only hazards that your engineer husband will face is losing his eyesight by staring at the terminal for too long. This hazard actually has some benefits. For one, he will not notice that you are getting older, since you will be a blur. He will remember you as when he first met you, because the memory will be the only way he can see you. Also, when a beautiful girl walks by, and you ask "Honey, were you looking at her?," he'll honestly be able to say that he didn't even see her.

TEACHER

MINISTER