Generally speaking, I have always believed that we engineers tend to be quite rude and several examples are mentioned by Goleman his world-known bestseller. Under finantial pressure, behind the schedule, exhausted and with too much caffeine in the blood, very few use to say hello/goodbye or please/cheers. Even less come with a big smile and a warm handshake.
However, are engineers (and students of engineering) homogeneous all around the world? According to "Dilbert's principle", scientists, engineers and programmers are simply not good at socializing but googling about engineering on the net shows a differential fact: US, UK and Portuguese fora and blogs are at least politically correct whilst Spanish, Italian and Latin American ones are full of slang, insults, complaints and insane rivalry between universities, between degrees or between companies.
Certainly, we should overcome these deffects because not only can the jerk engineers harm others but they do damage themselves. Emotional disabilities are insidious. The jerks are blind and deaf to their social deficiencies but every one of them will be eager to recognize and point out these mistakes in others.
In conclusion, my main emotional purpose for the New Year will be to resist the pandemic pessimism and the bad manners.
The emotional handicap of some engineers
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Try marrying one. They can be very kind when they perceive a need. But convincing them of a need is h-e-double toothpicks. (That means "hell.")
ReplyDeleteMaybe that is the reason why I am engaged to a business administrator: she is supposed to know about marketing and people needs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the book "Why the software sucks". The programmers (and software engineer as me) are politically uncorrect because the politically correct is see as a useless cost: it the solution is'nt good the first step for a better solution is say "This solution sucks!". In Italy the rivality between studies and university is linked (in my opinion) to lack of effective concurrency of universities in the legal value.
ReplyDeleteIn USA and in Europe generally there's a difference of value between a little university and a greta university. In Italy the legal value of the laurea (degree) between Politecnico di Milano, Pisa, Bologna and others is the same and it'sn right. The slang and insults are a surrogate of the good competition.
Bye