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Sample Entries

Golf is blind.

A pastor, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!"

The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have a word with him."

"Hi George. Say, what's with that group ahead of us? They're rather slow, aren't they?"

The greens keeper replied, "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."

The group was silent for a moment. The pastor said, "That's so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight."

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

The engineer said, "Why can't these guys play at night?"

Paying the piper.

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines.

The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on particular component of the machine and proudly stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded:

One chalk mark -- $.01
Knowing where to put it -- $49,999.99

The bill was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

Liberal arts vs. engineering.

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 a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"

Is God an engineer?

Three engineering students were gathered together discussing the possible designers of 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 said, "Actually it was a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through a recreational area?"

Quality time.

An architect, an artist, and an engineer were discussing whether it was better to spend time with the wife or the mistress.

The architect said he enjoyed time with his wife, building a solid foundation for an enduring relationship.

The artist said he enjoyed time with his mistress, because of the passion and mystery he found there.

The engineer said, "I like both." "Both?" The engineer: "Yeah. If you have a wife and a mistress, they will each assume you are spending time with the other woman, and you can go to the lab and get some work done."

Off with his head.

In some foreign country a priest, a lawyer and an engineer are about to be guillotined.

The priest puts his head on the block, they pull the rope and nothing happens - he declares that he's been saved by divine intervention - so he's let go.

The lawyer is put on the block, and again the rope doesn't release the blade. He claims he can't be executed twice for the same crime, and he is set free too.

They grab the engineer and shove his head into the guillotine, he look up at the release mechanism and says, "Wait a minute, I see your problem..."

Full of hot air.

A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost.

He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me sir, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him a half-hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man below says: "Yes, you are in a hot air balloon about 30 feet above this field which is located at 40.36 degrees north latitude and 58.21 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," says the balloonist.

"I am," replied the man on the ground. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the balloonist, "what you say is undoubtedly technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I am still lost."

The man on the ground says, "You must be a manager."

"Yes, I am," replies the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," says the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You have made a promise, which you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. The fact is that you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now it is somehow my fault."

Bathroom humor.

During the development of the Comet Jetliner, the design engineers were confounded by cracks that caused the wings to fall off during flight. Money was running out and only one completed plane was available to test. The project had entered a crisis stage.

Finally, the engineers had the last plane set on a test stand in the hangar. Hydraulic jacks flexed the wing, simulating flight deflection, until the wing cracked at the root. The engineers tested numerous design variations, but with the same unsatisfactory result.

Finally the janitor, who was passing by and observing the tests, suggested that the engineers drill a series of small-diameter holes along the fracture line.

Desperate for any solution, the engineers tried it, and the solution worked. "Stress relief!" they cried in sudden recognition. Why had nobody thought of it before? Future test flights were successful, and the world had entered the new era of commercial jetliners.

At the celebratory dinner, the engineers presented the janitor with a gold watch and asked him if he had absorbed such great engineering knowledge during years of pushing a broom in an aircraft factory.

"No, sir," he replied. "What I have observed is that toilet paper never tears on the dotted line."

Big man on campus.

Two engineering students meet on campus one day. The first engineer calls out to the other, "Hey, nice bike! Where did you get it?"

'Well, " replies the other, "I was walking to class the other day when this pretty, young coed rides up on this bike. She jumps off, takes off all of her clothes, and says 'You can have ANYTHING you want!'"

"Good choice," says the first, "her clothes wouldn't have fit you anyway."

This is hell.

An engineer dies and reports to the pearly gates. St. Peter checks his dossier and says, "Ah, you're an engineer - you're in the wrong place." So the engineer reports to the gates of hell and is let in. Pretty soon the engineer gets dissatisfied with the level of comfort in hell, and starts designing and building improvements.

After a while they've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and the engineer is a pretty popular guy.

One day God calls Satan up on the telephone and says with a sneer, "So how's it going down there in hell" Satan replies, "Hey, things are going great. We've got air conditioning and flush toilets and escalators, and there's no telling what this engineer is going to come up with next!" God replies, "What? You've got an engineer? That's a mistake - he should never have gotten down there. Send him back up here!"

Satan says, "No way. I like having an engineer on the staff, and I'm keeping him." God replies, "Send him back up here or I'll sue." "Yeah, right," sneers Satan. "And just where are YOU going to get a lawyer?"

Three Engineers and Three Accountants on a Train.

Three engineers and three accountants are traveling by train to a conference. At the station, the three accountants each buy tickets and watch as the three engineers buy only a single ticket.

"How are three people going to travel on only one ticket?" asks an accountant.

"Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.

They all board the train. The accountants take their respective seats but all three engineers cram into a rest room and close the door behind them. Shortly after the train has departed, the conductor comes around collecting tickets. He knocks on the restroom door and says,

"Ticket, please."

The door opens just a crack and a single arm emerges with a ticket in hand. The conductor takes it and moves on. The accountants saw this and agreed it was quite a clever idea. So after the conference, the accountants decide to copy the engineers on the return trip and save some money (being clever with money, and all that). When they get to the station, they buy a single ticket for the return trip. To their astonishment, the engineers don't buy a ticket at all.

"How are you going to travel without a ticket?" says one perplexed accountant.

"Watch and you'll see," answers an engineer.

When they board the train the three accountants cram into a restroom and the three engineers cram into another one nearby. The train departs. Shortly afterward, one of the engineers leaves his restroom and walks over to the restroom where the accountants are hiding.

He knocks on the door and says, "Ticket, please."

An Engineer Finds a Frog.

A boy 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 boy 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 boy 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 do anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?"

The boy said, "Look I'm an engineer. I don't have time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog is cool."

Wanna bet?

A programmer and an engineer are sitting next to each other on a long flight from LA to NY. The programmer leans over to the engineer and asks if he would like to play a fun game. The engineer just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks.

The programmer persists and explains that the game is real easy and a lot of fun. He explains "I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me $5. Then you ask me a question, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $5."

Again, the engineer politely declines and tries to get to sleep.

The programmer, now somewhat agitated, says, 'OK, if you don't know the answer you pay me $5, and if I don't know the answer, I'll pay you $50!"

This catches the engineer's attention, and he see no end to this torment unless he plays, so he agrees to the game. The programmer asks the first question. "What's the distance from the earth to the moon?"

The Engineer doesn't say a word, but reaches into his wallet, pulls out a five dollar bill and hands it to the programmer.

Now, it's the engineer's turn. He asks the programmer "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down on four?"

The programmer looks up at him with a puzzled look. He takes out his laptop computer and searches all of his references. He taps into the airphone with his modem and searches the net and the Library of Congress. Frustrated, he sends e-mail to his co-workers - all to no avail.

After about an hour, he wakes the engineer and hands him $50. The engineer politely takes the $50 and turns away to try to get back to sleep.

The programmer, more than a little miffed, shakes the engineer and asks "Well, so what's the answer?"

Without a word, the engineer reaches into his wallet, hands the programmer $5, and turns away to get back to sleep.

I dream of genie.

A lead hardware engineer, a lead software engineer, and their project manager are taking a walk outdoors during their lunch break when they come upon an old brass lamp. They pick it up and dust it off. Poof - out pops a genie.

"Thank you for releasing me from my lamp-prison. I can grant you 3 wishes. Since there are 3 of you I will grant one wish to each of you."

The hardware engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be sailing a yacht across the Pacific, racing before the wind, with an all-girl crew."

"It is done," said the genie, and poof, the hardware engineer disappears.

The software engineer thinks a moment and says, "I'd like to be riding my Harley with a gang of beautiful women throughout the American Southwest."

"It is done," said the genie, and poof, the software engineer disappears.

The project manager looks at where the other two had been standing and rubs his chin in thought. Then he tells the genie, "I'd like those two back in the office after lunch."

Engineers don't do Windows.

There are three engineers in a car: an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and an Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong.

The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.

Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion, "Why don't we close all the windows, get out, get back in, open the windows again, and maybe it'll work?"

Engineers in the great outdoors.

An engineer, lawyer and CPA go together on a camping trip one summer. After a night of drinking around the campfire, the CPA stood up and said, "Watch this!" He took out a pistol, threw his bottle of bourbon in the air and shot it.

The lawyer, not to be out done said, "That's nothing." He threw his bottle of scotch in the air and shot it blind-folded.

The engineer stood up and said, "That's better, but it's still not worth a damn." He grabbed the pistol, shot the CPA and lawyer, and sat back down to hog all the remaining booze for himself.

Mary had a little lamb.

An engineer, a physicist, and a mathematician are shown a pasture with a herd of sheep, and told to put them inside the smallest possible amount of fence.

The engineer is first. He herds the sheep into a circle and then puts the fence around them, declaring, "A circle will use the least fence for a given area, so this is the best solution."

The physicist is next. She creates a circular fence of infinite radius around the sheep, and then draws the fence tight around the herd, declaring, "This will give the smallest circular fence around the herd."

The mathematician is last. After giving the problem a little thought, he puts a small fence around himself and then declares, "I define myself to be on the outside!"

A day at the races.

An engineer, a mathematician, and a physicist went to the races one Saturday and laid their money down. Commiserating in the bar after the race, the engineer says, "I don't understand why I lost all my money. I measured all the horses and calculated their strength and mechanical advantage and figured out how fast they could run..." The physicist interrupted him: "...but you didn't take individual variations into account. I did a statistical analysis of their previous performances and bet on the horses with the highest probability of winning..."

"So if you're so hot why are you broke?" asked the engineer. But before the argument can grow, the mathematician takes out his pipe and they get a glimpse of his well-fattened wallet. Obviously here was a man who knows something about horses. They both demanded to know his secret. "Well," he says, between puffs on the pipe, "first I assumed all the horses were identical and spherical..."

How to Find the Height of a Building.

An engineering student, a physics student, and a mathematics student were each given $150 and were told to use the money to find out exactly how tall a particular hotel was. All three ran off, extremely keen on how to do this.

The physics student went out, purchased some stopwatches, a number of ball bearings, a calculator, and got some friends. He had them all time the drop of ball bearings from the roof, and he then figured out the height from the time it took for the bearings to accelerate from rest until they impacted with the sidewalk.

The math student waited until the sun was going down. Then she took out her protractor, plumb line, measuring tape, and scratch pad, measured the length of the shadow, found the angle the building's roof made from the ground, and used trigonometry to figure out the height of the building.

These two students bumped into the engineering student the next day, who was nursing a really bad hangover. When asked what he did to find the height of the building he replied: "Well, I walked up to the bell hop, gave him 10 bucks, asked him how tall the hotel was. Then I hit the bar inside for happy hour!"

Fire Emergency.

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying in a hotel while attending a technical seminar.

The engineer wakes up and smells smoke. He goes out into the hallway and sees a fire, so he fills a trash can from his room with water and douses the fire. He goes back to bed.

Later, the physicist wakes up and smells smoke. He opens his door and sees a fire in the hallway. He walks down the hall to a fire hose and after calculating the flame velocity, distance, water pressure, trajectory, and extinguishes the fire with the minimum amount of water and energy needed.

Later, the mathematician wakes up and smells smoke. He goes to the hall, sees the fire and the fire hose. He thinks for a moment and then exclaims, "Ah a solution exists!" and then goes back to bed.

One Way Ticket to Mars.

A NASA official was interviewing professionals to be sent to Mars. Only one could go, but with one catch - he couldn't return to Earth. The first applicant, an engineer, was asked how much he wanted to be paid for going. "One million dollars," he answered, "because I want to donate it to M.I.T."

The next applicant, a doctor, was asked the same question. He asked for two million. "I want to give a million to my family and a million to my church." The last applicant was a lawyer. When asked how much money he wanted, he whispered in the interviewer's ear, "Three million dollars." "Why so much more than the others?" the interviewer queried. "Because if I get $3 million, I'll give you $2 million, I'll keep $1 million, and we'll send the engineer."

The World's First Profession.

A doctor, an engineer, a rabbi and a lawyer were debating who was the world's first professional. The doctor said, "It must have been a doctor. Who else could have helped with the world's first surgery of taking a rib from Adam to create Eve, the first woman?"

"No," said the rabbi. "It must have been a rabbi, since the Lord needed someone to help preach his message to Adam and the world."

"Wait," said the engineer. "The world was created in 6 days from nothing. Do you know what a master engineering feat that must have been to create the whole world into an organized civilized place from utter chaos?"

"And who created the chaos?" said the lawyer.

The difference between a chemist and a chemical engineer

The chemist comes down to the company cafeteria and says to everyone, "I've invented the world's strongest acid. It'll eat through anything. Steel. Aluminum. Lead. Plastic. ANYTHING." This acid is going to make me RICH!" The chemical engineer says, "That's nice. What kind of container do you intend to sell it in?"