10 jokes only engineers will understand

[James Rogers]

1. Normal people believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.


2. To the optimist, the glass is half-full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half-empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

3. A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"
The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such inept golf!"
The priest said, "Here comes the green-keeper. Let's have a word with him."
He said, "Hello George, what's wrong with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"
The green-keeper replied, "Oh, yes. That's a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."
The group fell silent for a moment.
The priest said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."
The doctor said, "Good idea. I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there's anything he can do for them."
The engineer said, "Why can't they play at night?"

4. What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?
Mechanical engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.

5. The graduate with a science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with an arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

6. Three engineering students were gathered together discussing who must have designed the human body.
One said, "It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints."
Another said, "No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections."
The last one said, "No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

7. Knock knock. Who's there? Interrupting coefficient of friction. Interrupting coefficient of fri.... mmmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu (μ)

8. Two engineering students were walking across a university campus when one said, "Where did you get such a great bike?"
The second engineer replied, "Well, I was walking along yesterday, minding my own business, when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike, threw it to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, "Take what you want."
The first engineer nodded approvingly and said, "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit you anyway."


9. An engineer was crossing a road one day, when a frog called out to him and said, "If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess." He bent over, picked up the frog and put it in his pocket.
The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you for one week and do ANYTHING you want."
Again, the engineer took the frog out, smiled at it and put it back into his pocket.
Finally, the frog asked, "What is the matter? I've told you I'm a beautiful princess and that I'll stay with you for one week and do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"
The engineer said, "Look, I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog, now that's cool."

10. A wife asks her husband, a software engineer...
"Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have eggs, get 6!" A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk. The wife asks him, "Why the hell did you buy 6 cartons of milk?" He replied, "They had eggs."

[roccaas]

Sir, on behalf of the SAE, I present you with the scabbard and sword of the engineer....

[Mark W.]

GEEZE - Not only do I know what that is , but I think I could remember how to use it just out of muscle memory... Sad thing is the people who will know the joke are few and far between these days.

Go back 20-25 years or so, I had my Father-in-law's mounted into a shadow board with a label from an extinguisher "in emergency break glass" and a mallet on a chain. From what I understand it graced his office until retirement - he worked for one of Chrysler's military related plants in Huntsville and said it got a lot of comments there...

[tb33anda3rd]

i have a friend who is an engineer, he was awarded a wall plaque in recognition of a great design, at a large formal meeting. he wanted to hang it in his office but.... the hook to hang it was on the bottom

[nhusa]

Using a slide rule today is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

[Randy in Illinois]

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Funny stuff guys, you dont have to be an engineer to appreciate engineering humor, just work with them for awhile. Thanks for starting my day with a laugh .

[Joe K]

Originally Posted by nhusa

Using a slide rule today is like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

But using a computer to do engineering is like bringing a gun to the dinner table.

The gun is real handy to subdue the data, but one loses the objective of the meal in the splatter beyond 3 significant figures.

Joe K

"An engineer is a person who will do for one dollar what any fool would do for two."

[mshmodela]

Gee, had not seen these kind of joke since I was an under grad EE student... gee i'm old... LoL.

[jrelliott]

Liked your jokes, and the slide rule brings back a lot of memories as the HP calculator was just coming out when I graduated from college with EE with Computer Science. Lot of people may laugh at using a slide rule but look at how many projects were done using them that are still around today. With todays computers parts are designed to the bare margin and no beef to make them last longer because of costs. Do not think the Model A would have lasted this long if designed with a computer. Wife says that us engineers are a different breed.

[Rowdy]

Not an engineer, just a lowly forklift tech. Understand them all perfectly. Working with Crown and Barrett equipment and Wolftech shrinkwrap machines I deal with this all of the time. In the process at work of putiing brakes and the carriages of shrinkwrap machines. Kits that were sent cover 5 different models, with several generations of PLC's. Having to figure out the hard way which parts to use with which machines. Prints that were sent are alittle vague, but after some studying I have it figured out. Rod

[H. L. Chauvin]

FWIW: True Story.

When our local Alumina plant was opening in the late 1950's, the plant manager summoned (5) of his graduate mechanical engineers to study, mechanically analyze, & recommend which brand of vacuum cleaner should be bought for about (10) vacuum cleaners which would be used to vacuum clean the red bauxite out of the carpet in the administration offices.

After (3) days, about 100 sheets of paper showing mechanical calculations, vacuum motor RPM's, mechanical advantage of drive belts, one (1) vacuum cleaner was rated no.1 & the less effective was rated no.7.

In an executive meeting with the board, the engineers spent an hour describing why no. 1 was the best.

Then the meeting room door accidently opened. The janitor said, "Oh, excuse me."

The plant manager told old Joe to come in to see which vacuum cleaner he thought was best.

Joe ran outside, picked up a half bucket full of red bauxite dust, spread it out in a line on the new carper, & proceeded to run each vacuum over this red line.

Then Joe remarked, "See .......... no. 7 is the bestess one out the bunch."

Quite naturally, I was told by old Joe that nobody smiled.

[mshmodela]

Originally Posted by jrelliott

Liked your jokes, and the slide rule brings back a lot of memories as the HP calculator was just coming out when I graduated from college with EE with Computer Science. Lot of people may laugh at using a slide rule but look at how many projects were done using them that are still around today. With todays computers parts are designed to the bare margin and no beef to make them last longer because of costs. Do not think the Model A would have lasted this long if designed with a computer. Wife says that us engineers are a different breed.

LoL, i loved my HP-41c... still can only use a RPN, calculator!!!

[dlfrisch]

I haven't seen a slide rule for some time. I don't even know where mine is or what may have become of it....probably forgot how to use it anyway. It does seem like yesterday though.
Dave

[Pete]

If you want to be the talk of the engineering staff meeting, come in with a 6 inch slide rule in your pocket protector.

[Clem Clement]

My Father could not use a slide rule and my kids can't as well. And I've lost my can of talcum powder.

Did I mention my slide rule still has burn marks on it from Thermo tests.

[darrylkmc]

THE GEOLOGIST AND THE ENGINEER

A man floating along in a hot air balloon began to realise he was lost. He reduced his altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a little more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am".

The woman below replied, "You are in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above a late Cambrian volcaniclastic sedimentary sequence, 2.7 kilometres west of the Henty River near one of the major fault structures in the region."

"You must be a geologist", said the balloonist.

"I am." replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well", answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help so far".

The woman below responded,"You must be an engineer".

"I am," replied the balloonist,"but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have risen to where you are through a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise to someone that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem, but you really aren't interested in the information I'm providing.

The fact is you are in exactly the same situation you were before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault".

[Terry,NJ]

I used to work in a large research company with lots of engineers and they were always making small errors on sketches that we Model makers would catch. They rarely said anything, but you could tell that they did not like being caught in an error by Lowly machinists.
Terry

[bettlesr]

Still have my 6" K&E log-log-duplex decitrig sliderule. Can't find my pocket protecter anymore though! My 94 year old father still has his full size K&E with leather case from his school days.

[Joe K]

Originally Posted by mshmodela

LoL, i loved my HP-41c... still can only use a RPN, calculator!!!

Still have the K&E "Deci-duplex-trig-log-log" that I used in my Freshman year. Still have the Texas Instruments SR50 Scientific Calculator I used in my sophmore year. Still have the Hewlett Packard HP25 (not "C") that I used my junior and senior years. Still have the HP 41CVX that I bought somewhat afterwards after being spoiled by the company HP41C.

No printer or light pen or accessory memory for that.

And still use regularly an HP32S which is a little more portable in my briefcase than the HP41CVX.

Say no to algebraic notation on the calculator - RPN is a lifestyle choice. But I can see the attraction - and memory IS cheap now.

I see the HP41CVs of various kinds are still pretty popular among the desk engineer crowd. I think the large variety of software modules that can be bought is responsible for that.

And going back and using either the SR50 or the HP25 one realizes how "crude" these advancements were.

Joe K

[Roadster Rich]

And I still "burn" when I remember the night three of us engineer students went to Skidmore college to try to pick up some of those blond Long Island girls. When they heard what college we were from, they laughed and walked away saying "where are those sliderules you always wear on your belts".