Engineering jokes

Most of these are courtesy (proximately) of David Oliver. He gave me lots of 'em and I took the ones I liked the best, thus giving David a golden opportunity to evaluate my sense of humor.

Two male engineering students were walking across 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. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all her clothes and said, 'Take what you want, buddy.'"

The second engineer nodded approvingly. "Good choice; the clothes probably wouldn't have fit."

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.

A pastor, a doctor and an engineer are stuck on the fourth tee one morning, waiting for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumes, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!"

The doctor chimes in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!"

About this time the greenskeeper wanders by, and the pastor calls him over. "Hey, George, what's the deal with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greenskeeper replies, "Oh, yes, that's a group of blind firefighters. They lost their sight saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime."

There is a silence. Then the pastor says, "That's so sad. I think I'll say a special prayer for them tonight."

The doctor adds, "Good idea. And I'm going to contact my ophthalmologist buddy and see if there's anything he can do for them."

The engineer looks at the greenskeeper with a face writ large with innocent curiosity. "So, why can't these guys play at night?"

[Note: I first heard that joke years ago when Tony Randall told it on Letterman about a priest, a Baptist preacher and a rabbi. He gave the punch line to the rabbi.]

Q. What is the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

A. Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets.

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.

--Scott Adams, The Dilbert Principle

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 spoke up again and said, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a beautiful princess, I will stay with you for one week."

The engineer took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and returned it to the pocket.

The frog then cried out, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with you 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, that I'll stay with you for a week, and that I'll 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."

And my own contribution to the current collection:

A mechanical engineer, an electrical engineer and a civil engineer have all agreed that God is an engineer, but they are arguing about His precise field of specialization.

"Look at those muscles and bone structure," enthuses the mechanical engineer, "the range of movement in the appendages, the power in the thighs and buttocks combined with the delicacy and precision of the fingers and eyes -- He's got to be a mechanical engineer."

"You're out of your mind," responds the electrical engineer scornfully. "We can't even begin to approach the complexity of the brain and nervous system. Coordination and intepretation of massive input streams in real time, accessibility of stored data by associative reference -- no question, absolutely clear, God's a double-E."

The civil engineer calmly shakes his head. "He's a civil engineer, guys, and I can prove it."

"We'd love to hear you try."

"Just think of it this way: who but a civil engineer would have run a toxic waste line smack through the middle of a recreational facility?"