Engineering Joke

aibarr
Wed, 29 Mar 2006 17:40:17 +0000

An MIT engineering senior is interviewing at a firm and gets around to talking numbers with the HR guy.

The HR guy says, “So, do you have any salary requirements?”

The MIT engineer replies, “Oh, something around 75K a year would be acceptable to me, depending upon the benefits package you’re offering.”

HR dude replies, “Hmm… what would you say to a package of 5 weeks vacation annually, 14 paid holidays, medical and dental coverage in full, 20% annual matching contributions to your 401K, fully covered annual week-long company conferences to Puerto Vallarta, and a company car leased every two years… Perhaps a brand new BMW 6-series convertible?”

The MIT senior’s jaw drops and he snaps out of his engineer slouch to choke, “Wha… are you kidding??”

The HR guy says, “Well, yes. But you started it.”



Three engineers are cruising in an old Fiat 500 when the car suddenly stalls out and dies. They pull over. The mechanical engineer immediately exclaims, “I’ll bet it’s a problem with either the valves or the piston!” The elec says, “No, you’re completely wrong. My guess is it’s either the spark plugs or the battery!” The software engineer says, “Here, let’s close all the windows, all get out of the car, get back in again, open the windows back up, and see if that fixes it.”



An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence.

The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, “A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution.”

The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, “This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd.”

The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, “I define myself to be on the outside!”



During the time of the French revolution, a priest, a lawyer, and an engineer find themselves rounded up for execution. The priest is the first to go. They stick his head in the guillotine, pull the rope, and nothing happens. The priest claims that it’s divine intervention that’s saved him, and he’s released. The lawyer is the next to go. They stick his head in the guillotine, pull the rope, and nothing happens. The lawyer says that they can’t execute him twice for the same crime and skips off, a free man. The engineer is next. As he’s being led to the guillotine, he looks up at the release mechanism and says, “Oh, wait a minute… I see your problem.”



Tangentially civ-related:

A guy in LA picks up a dusty oil lamp while dumpster diving along Venice Beach. He polishes it a bit with his Grateful Dead shirt and out pops a genie. The genie says, “I’m a bit different, you only get one wish.” The guy says, “Oh, cool. It’d be really groovy if there were a highway from here to Hawai’i. How about that?” The genie says, “That’s ridiculous. Do you have any idea how deep those piers would have to go? Have you ever tried to build a long-span bridge before? Multiply that times… like… several thousand, and that’s how difficult it would be to build a highway from here to Hawai’i. Can’t be done. Impossible.” The guy says, “Okay, man, no big deal… How about, I’d really like to understand women.” The genie thinks for a minute and says, “That highway. You want two lanes or four?”



An oldie but a goodie:

Three engineers and three accountants are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy a ticket and watch as the three engineers only buy one ticket.

“How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?” asks an accountant.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answered an engineer.

They all board the train. The accountants take their respective seats but all three engineers cram into a rest room and close the door behind them.

Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says, “Tickets, please!” The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on.

The accountants see this and agree it is a clever idea. So after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money.

When they get to the station, they buy one ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don’t buy a ticket at all.

“How are you going to travel without a ticket?” says one perplexed accountant.

“Watch and you’ll see,” answered an engineer.

When they board the train all three accountants cram into a restroom and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs.

Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding. He knocks on the door and says, “Tickets, please!”



An architect, an artist and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or a mistress. The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship. The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there. The engineer said, “I like both.”

“Both?”

Engineer: “Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done.”



Five surgeons were taking a coffee break and were discussing their work.

The first said, “I think accountants are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is numbered.”

The second said, “I think librarians are the easiest to operate on. You open them up and everything inside is in alphabetical order.”

The third said, “I like to operate on electricians. You open them up and everything inside is color-coded.”

The fourth one said, “I like to operate on lawyers. They’re heartless spineless, gutless, and their heads and their butts are interchangeable.”

The fifth surgeon says “I like engineers. They always understand when you have a few parts left over at the end.”



An engineer died and reported to the pearly gates. An intern angel, filling in for St. Peter, checked his dossier and grimly said, “Ah, you’re an engineer; you’re in the wrong place.”

So the engineer was cast down to the gates of hell and was let in. Pretty soon, the engineer became gravely dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and began designing and building improvements. After a while, the underworld had air conditioning, flush toilets, and escalators, and the engineer was becoming a pretty popular guy among the demons.

One day, God called Satan up on the telephone and asked with a sneer, “So, how’s it going down there in hell?”

Satan laughed and replied, “Hey, things are going great. We’ve got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there’s no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next.”

God’s face clouded over and he exploded, “What? You’ve got an engineer? That’s a mistake; he should never have gotten down there; send him up here.”

Satan shook his head, “No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I’m keeping him.”

God was as mad as he had ever been, “This is not the way things are supposed to work and you know it. Send him back up here or I’ll sue.”

Satan laughed uproariously, “Yeah, right. And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?”



There was a doctor, a civil engineer, and a computer scientist sitting around late one evening, and they got to discussing which was the oldest profession. The doctor pointed out that according to Biblical tradition, God created Eve from Adam’s rib. This obviously required surgery, so therefore that was the oldest profession in the world.

The engineer countered with an earlier passage in the Bible that stated that God created order from the chaos, and that was most certainly the biggest and best civil engineering example ever, and also proved that his profession was the oldest profession.

The computer scientist leaned back in her chair, and with a sly smile responded, “Yes, but who do you think created the chaos?”