You are Chemical Engineer if...

You have a favorite pump manufacturer

You can size distillation columns in your head, but need a pencil and paper to figure the tip on a $45 restaurant bill... ...and think that spending $45 for dinner is exorbitant

You see a good design and still have to change it

You can remember 7 computer passwords but not your anniversary

The microphone or visual aids at a meeting don't work and you rush up to the front to fix it

You've modified your can-opener to be microprocessor driven

You think "cuddling" is simply an unproductive application of heat exchange

You've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator

You've ever described your spouse in terms of MTBF

You stare at an orange juice container because it says CONCENTRATE

You've ever considered installing a scrubber or catalytic converter on your kitchen's chimney

Your idea of good interpersonal communication means getting the decimal point in the right place

You automatically associate the words "sexy" and "beautiful" with "butterfly valve"

You've used coat hangers and duct tape for something other than hanging coats and taping ducts

Your ideal evening consists of fast-forwarding through the latest sci-fi movie looking for technical inaccuracies

You have any of the following personalized items: Hard hat, Safety goggles, Calculator case, Slide rule

You carry on a one-hour debate over the expected results of a test that actually takes five minutes to run

You know the direction the water swirls when you flush when you think of centrifugal separation technique

You cannot write unless the paper has both horizontal and vertical lines

You think the value of a book is directly proportionate to the amount of tables, charts and graphs it contains

You once burned down the lab with your experiment or project

You think you look rather snappy in a tie and short-sleeve shirt

You'd really like to have a T-shirt that says "Chemical Engineers Do It In Fluidised Beds"

You've ever introduced your kids by the wrong name

You have a habit of destroying things in order to see how they work

You think that when people around you yawn, its because they ddn't absorb enough oxygen. Therefore, pressure should be increased.

Your spouse hasn't the foggiest idea what you do at work

Your three-year-old son asks why the sky is blue and you try to explain atmospheric absorption theory

You have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically

You've explained your position in the company to a junior engineer as "I am a vast oasis of knowledge in a desert of ignorance".

You lost your wedding ring for six months and found it in a box of brass tubing fittings in your desk

You refer to your wife and children as your "pilot units" and your family as "pilot plant".

Your work clothes are almost as old as you are.... ... and so is your car.

You think of the Carnot cycle everytime you turn on your AC unit.

When you look at objects in the distance and think of mean free path.

You explain surface tension to your 10 year old when they ask why you are adding oil to boiling spaghetti.

You have a clock with inverted numbers that runs counter-clockwise in your office and you prefer it that way.

You pick your girlfriends by their gpa.

You refer to your wife as my.spouse@home.com

You have ever thought about how coffee changes colour in the body.

You try to explain entropy to strangers at your table during casual dinner conversation.


Glossary:

1. MTBF - Mean Time Between Failures
2. Carnot Cycle - Kind of Thermodynamic Cycle (you don't want to know, believe me)
3. Entropy - a measure of the number of random ways in which a system may be arranged (reversible or irreversible system). also a thermodynamic term.

Faris Al-Muhandisu: Edited for General Readers.. hehe