原创 How can you identify a real engineer?

My recent blog An engineer's approach to packing a dshwasher generated several interesting insights. Barton Meeks explained how his daughter—a ceramic artist—attacked the dishwasher-packing problem by creating a beautiful set of dishes custom-designed to fit her dishwasher.

Aubrey Kagan shared, "Because I don't have the facility to make my own plates, the last time we bought a dishwasher I took along a few of my problematic dishware items to try them out for fit in the store."

All I can say is, "Wow!" Taking my dishes along to the store is something that would simply never have struck me. I would add that if it had struck me, we wouldn't have purchased the expensive piece of %$#! we ended up with, but let's not go there.

Aubrey went on to say, "I also take a few empty suitcases along to see how they would fit in the trunk of a new car." Once again I have to say, "Wow!" If ever I heard about a pragmatic approach to a problem that made me think, "That person truly is an engineer," this would rank right up there in the top 10.

All of this let me to ponder the question: How do you know if you are in the presence of a real engineer?

I'm not talking about the usual stereotypes here, like the hunched shoulders, or nervous twitches, or awkward shyness in social situations. (Do you remember the old joke? Q: How do you know if an engineer is outgoing and gregarious? A: He looks at your shoes rather than his own!)

No! What I'm talking about is that je ne sais quoi that sets us engineers apart from the rest of the world—that certain something that marks us as being different from the hoi polloi, that indefinable aura of raw power that marks us as masters (and mistresses) of the multi-universe, that... I'm sorry. I'm afraid I'm getting a little carried away with the excitement of the moment. I guess what I'm really talking about is the "knack."

Can you think of anything you've seen someone do, or heard of someone doing, that has made you say to yourself: "Now, that is someone I call an engineer!"?