The Engineer Boyfriend Demystified

I was getting my haircut when I was first warned about dating engineers. I had never actually dated an engineer before so I pulled myself away from People magazine for a moment (Can you believe Paris Hilton was sent back to jail!?! What gives!) and listened intently. I was told two things. First, that all engineers wore SAS shoes (not knowing if this was a bad or good thing I went home and researched only to find SAS shoes cost a fortune!), and second, that engineers had a tendency to talk your ear off about stuff that normal people just don’t care about. (i.e. How many core processors the XBox has, why plastering aluminum foil to the insides of my bedroom windows will help me sleep better, why weather prediction is notoriously inaccurate, etc etc.) Since I had already figured out how to cope with endless banter around all things scientific and mechanical (make occasional eye contact, nod supporting, throw in the occasional “uh huh…cool…interesting”) I only had to worry about the expensive SAS shoes. Lucky for me MY boyfriend had long ago discovered a line of shoes WAY more expensive then SAS.

I have my revenge of course. Xbox must be turned off in time for Americas’ Next Top Model, HGTV takes precedence ALWAYS and I get to control the radio when we are driving together. Another passive aggressive approach to combating the engineer is to constantly interrupt all dissertations to ask for the one-millionth time if he was an Industrial Engineer or a Mechanical one (I have found that this is by far the number one way to get under their skin – if you know who my boyfriend actually is sametime him and try it for yourself!)

So aside from the lack of attention you receive when the latest issue of ‘Wired’ arrives or when the annual Car Show is in town (over Valentines’ Day I might add!) , dating an Engineer isn’t all that bad especially when stuff you like breaks. Stuff like your blackberry. It has been about two hours since I last dropped my blackberry but the damage was done about two months ago when I accidentally washed it. Since that fateful day in April I have not been able to use my “p” key. Being a Portal specialist, not having a “p” key has caused many problems. “Yes, Mr. Customer, you need to restart the ortal”. “ah, you are looking for the code to the ortlets, right?” You get the icture.

I debated sending my blackberry in for repairs but being a self-proclaimed addict (I already detect a hint of arthritis in my thumb) and the fact that this would have been the 3rd time in a year (I must add that these phones were totally made for men with little consideration given to the female IT professional without a belt!) I decided to work around the “p” key. But this weekend I walked into the office and discovered my precious blackberry painstakingly dissembled into about 15 pieces all across the desk. Yes, my Industrial Engineer of a boyfriend (or was he a Mechanical one, darn, can’t remember!) had taken apart my keypad and was rebuilding it using a post-it note (He explained it to me the purpose of the post-it but I did the nodding thing and don’t remember what it was exactly) that allowed my “p” key to start working again. It was total genius whatever it was.  To thank him I debated sending him a “Thanks! Award” (nothing says true love like a Thanks! Award!) but instead decided to give him something more – an entire blog entry dedicated just to him. Web 2.0 is totally the new language of love – I mean wasn’t Profiles just intended to provide an internal Match.com for IBMers?

So I would like to end this entry by designating today “Go Hug an Engineer Day”. Granted there is only a few hours left in the day for those of us on Central so you better do it quickly. But find your own; my blackberry knight in shining armor is already taken