A typical arrogant engineer.
  • Engineers are too stupid to recognize that they are idiots
  • Condition starts from early childhood: lead researcher
  • General public overwhelmingly agrees with findings

CALGARY, Alberta – Overconfident, incompetent, unaware, abrasive, arrogant, and most times incoherent. It may come as no surprise that these adjectives (and some that could not be published in the interests of keeping 2P News family friendly), were part of the concluding remarks in a study published this morning by the Journal of Interesting Studies.

The 420-page report, brought to you by the team who published a study titled, 93.4% of geologists are over-qualified, concluded that the vast majority of engineering professionals, no matter their discipline or industry, have significant difficulties recognizing their own incompetence. This leads to significantly inflated self assessments and false superiority. Put a simpler way, engineers are too stupid to even understand that they are idiots.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Hikock, explains further,

intelligence 2
Dr. Hikock

“Well, it all starts from early childhood. Most would-be engineers, although not formally trained in the science of engineering, are over-confident and believe they know far more than they do, when really they are just plain stupid. That’s why so many of them dismantle perfectly functioning toys only to not be able to reassemble them in working order. This process creates bitter children, and this bitterness only festers as they enter middle and high school when they are ostracized by the opposite sex while in search for love.

For most engineers, their career was chosen not to help mankind, as it should be, but rather in hopes of being put on some sort of self-proclaimed professional pedestal from which they can ignorantly look down on lesser beings. We see this at professional conferences and technical summits where ‘peacocking’ is obvious to anyone observing the crowd. This problem runs deep, very deep, and it must be addressed as early as possible.” – Dr. Hikock, clinical psychologist

The study also found that many incompetent engineers typically rise to positions in management, where they no longer perform any engineering work. This might seem like the right career move for most professions, but engineers make terrible managers. Their introverted, biased, angry-god complex makes communication and team management very difficult. This caught the study’s authors by surprise. It led to the conclusion that the majority of engineers will fail miserably at this level too, which pretty much makes them useless in almost every capacity.

According to feedback from the international WOOPs forums, the scathing study has many engineering professionals enraged over the findings. The fact that engineers have so much technical knowledge and analytical ability crammed into their heads that they have zero common sense was the obvious sore spot. Yet there are even more non-engineers who fully support the study and its authors.

"Cindy" - not her real name
“Cindy” – not her real name

“I work with engineers all day long, and I categorically loathe them. My boss and his boss (the VP) are both engineers and watching those 2 buffoons on a daily basis is a comedy – it’s like watching a bad 70s sitcom and my colleagues and I are the laugh track. The VP runs a department with 29 staff, but I honestly believe that he couldn’t run a bath. Moron. Oh, but wait, he has a master’s degree in Agricultural Development Engineering, awwww isn’t that special? And we work in the oil business… jackass.

The world would be a much better place with far fewer engineers – let’s get all of them on an island so that they can outsmart each other to death. Yu Mii, don’t get me started. – “Cindy” speaking under conditions of anonymity

Although 2P News Editor-in-Chief Darcy Flowman (a Professional Engineer who holds undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees – a true story) was reluctant to publish this news story this morning, it took fellow 2P News co-founder just 3 pints of Moosepeace beer to convince him otherwise.

When asked for his thoughts on the study’s findings, Dr. Flowman smugly replied, “I am all things engineer… Hear me shout! I need not answer your foolish questions.”

4 COMMENTS

  1. I have many engineers as clients and I love them! I charge them double my usual rate and they never complain. After reading this article I’m going to try triple.

  2. Haha, great article. I love this quote: “..it’s like watching a bad 70s sitcom and my colleagues and I are the laugh track.” Classic.

    • Hahaha. Thanks, Barker – I like that line, too.

      I’m not sure in what capacity you work with engineers (perhaps you are one), but it can really seem like a really bad sitcom. A pilot, that never got past the first pilot show.

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