I have a microwave made by Cylinda. As all microwaves these days, it has a digital display and a touch interface. But, unlike most of the microwaves these days, it doesn’t have a clock.
The digital display is always active. And all the time except when you warm something in the microwave, it shows four white zeroes. They don’t switch off when you stop the microwave. They shine all night long, brightening up my kitchen room, attracting swarms of fruit flies (don’t ask).
After you warmed up your delicious vegetarian soup, it beeps three times, which is great. Then you open the door, take your food and close the door. You go to your table, sit and prepare to watch your favorite Kurzgezagt video - and suddenly your microwave friend beeps on you! And the four digits transform into a LOC sign. “What? What do you expect from me?”. It does nothing else. You come and check if it’s closed well. It looks like it is. You open the door and close it again. Nothing happens. Then you go and sit again, take a spoon of your soup - now it is slightly cold… “Beep! Loc!” - says the microwave friend.
Someone meant something with it. It makes no sense to me. They put this logic - instead of the logic switching off the digital numbers after some time, and instead of a watch. Why?!
For some reason, during my long career as a software engineer, I’ve seen a lot of people for whom technical knowledge is the knowledge. They are very proud of themselves being able to deal with complex issues by decomposing them into smaller pieces. They know all the algorithms and meta-algorithms for dealing with those, and all the patterns in software engineering. And they feel very proud of that, and look down at anyone who hasn’t learned these.
Even more surprising to me are those people who don’t have technical knowledge themselves - and feel themselves incomplete because of that. They often mention it in the talks, calling themselves stupid, or not smart enough.
Many of those aren’t stupid at all. When you give them a simple puzzle, the one which doesn’t require any previous knowledge, and just goes with structural pattern matching, as Pentamino, they solve it no problem. And yet, even if you point out that they did it, they still say “nah, that was just a coincidence”, or “I don’t think it was fast, this guy with technical would do it even faster.”
If you have ever been in a room with a bunch of normal people and a software engineer, you probably immediately notice them. They sometimes even feel the room. They just don’t know what to do. Small talk is a skill. Meeting new people without being annoying, too distant, interrogating or self-focused is a skill. And even if we take away social skills, there are many pieces of knowledge in every area which are unique to that area. Do you, my fellow engineers, really think you could do law just right now? Or biology? Or psychology? I bet you couldn’t sit on a cashier to sell a candy to a random guy without making them angry.
Your technical education doesn’t make you better than everyone else. Anyone really. Everywhere there are people who are great at what they do - and we, as technical people, need to learn how to appreciate them - and help them in the things they are worse than us. After all, our civilization is about sharing and collaboration - and if anyone says to you otherwise, or even more, shows you otherwise with their actions - kick them in the buttocks. Say I told you to do so.