Let's continue our tour of the unkown side of common professions. Remember, we started it here with the marketing profession.

Now, I am sure you would like to discover the real face of the engineer. Ok, let's go.

The engineer is the guy who draws plans so complex and sophisticated that he is the only one who can decipher them. That's the way he can have something to do in the daylight and ask for an high salary. So the more plans he draws, the better he feels.

The engineer is the guy who knows how things works... in theory. Because, when it comes to practice, he is as lost as everyone. Noone can understand the real fabric of life or make things bend to his will. Economics, business, products, mecanics... in fact nothing really obeys to the human will when it comes to practice. There is always something which goes wrong. For engineers as well as for anybody. I have a long experience of things going wrong, so please believe me, things goes the way THEY want, whatever you may wish, try or pray for. Trying to drive them the way you want is a pure waste of time.

Though, the engineer had been studying a bunch of years in high schools which had taught him that he was the one who could succeed where all others had failed. And those schools had taught big companies all around the world that engineers could do so. So the engineer guy has been hired to make things works. Disregarding the fact, he can't.

So, his job is to convince everyone he isn't lost at all when production schedules turn into complete disaster or when the wonderful electronical new device is doing the contrary of what it should be doing. He has to make people believe that every shit that happens and doesn't fit his plan is just an fortuituous and silly incident. Something caused by the Murphy's law or any other law he could imagine in the moment to justify that he hasn't the control on life...

Something that should be solved by another complex and sophisticated plan.

But the real reason engineers like to make plans is not money or show off with their prestigious job. Nope, engineers are seldom greedy or in search for acknowledgement. The truth is that they love plans because don't like people. They want to avoid the most they can relationships with others human beings. That's why plans look so appealing to them. You can't rely on plans no more than you can rely on people. But plans don't piss you off with their family matters.

That's why engineers don't answer phonecalls or e-mails. That's why they leave the office party at nine. That's why they try so much to look like weirdos by spending all their money in stupid technological gagdets. That's why they choose their clothes to be as repulsive for the human eye as they can. They fear people like hair fear louses. That's why when they are compelled to speak they try to confuse you with an inextricable and boring mumbo jumbo of their own. That's why they find refuge in plans.

I know it's a bit harsh to summarize the engineer's job to just making plans, but I guess it's another trick of the engineers to get avoided by people. What they really do during their days in office is a something so secret no one could guess.