I was at work today when, in the midst of debugging a microcontroller, I thought about those over-used sayings in corporate America. I think that every large company has them — hackneyed phrases long since worn out yet still repeated by seemingly everybody.

At my company, the current favorite seems to be, “When the rubber meets the road.”

Does your company have any such banal quips? What are they?

It’s Quiet.

Upon looking through my mail from the past week, I discovered a letter from the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency. I ripped through the envelope and read the contents. “Congratulations!!” the enclosed letter began (yes, it had two exclamation points). “You have successfully passed the ENGINEERING INTERN examination.”

Will I ever go on to get my PE? (Professional Engineer for you non-engineers in the audience) Maybe, maybe not. I might do it on a lark many years down the road, but there is no hurry.

That reminds me of something else I realized during the past week: I’m actually using things I learned at school in my job! Some of the knowledge is even stuff that I thought I would never touch again — specifically, electromagnetics. Wow!

Those of you who know me well know that I have a thing for Porsches. I like reading about them, I like going to the dealerships, and I like buying things with the crest. I’ve been to the Porsche headquarters in Stuttgart. I had the privilege to tour the factory (getting on the tour, especially without reservations, was a bit of a coup). I’ve had the pleasure of driving a Porsche on several occasions, too. By all measures, I’m a fanatic. There’s just one minor piece of this scene that’s missing:

I don’t own one… yet.

Fortunately, the solution to that problem is rather straightforward: buy one! Of course, that involves a lot of searching newspapers and browsing the web. Invariably, that eventually leads to the Porsche web site. Mmmm…

There, on the site, you can build your own Porsche (but avert your eyes from the price). You can order Porsche-branded merchandise. You can even get the specs on the latest Porsche bicycles (really!). A new feature, in fact the one that prompted this post, is to watch a series of films about the new 911: the type 997.

The main film is what really made me smile. Sure, the acting is a little stiff, but they hit the nail right on the head. I think that the boy in the film shares a parallel mindset with myself. Towards the end, the narrator says the following lines:

“It’s a funny thing about a Porsche. There’s the moment you know you want one, there’s the moment you first own one, and for the truly afflicted, there’s the decade or two that passes in between.”So true. I’ve wanted one for roughly a decade now, so maybe the time will be soon. The only big problem preventing such an acquisition is that I don’t have a place to put it. Maybe that will change in the near term as well…I’ll give you one more example of my fanaticism before finishing this post. While in Stuttgart at Porsche, I felt obligated to look in the Porsche gift shop. Inside, I found one of the neatest, most eccentric Porsche souvenirs ever. I found a children’s book about a Porsche tractor! In German! Which I don’t speak! And I bought it! Woo!!! It’s obvious from looking through the book that the author loves his Porsche tractor. From the drawings, it also appears that the world has never seen a happier Porsche tractor. It’s smiling on every page except for when it hits a tree. It’s kinda sad in that one. I can’t blame it, though. I’d be happy being a Porsche too, so long as I wasn’t driven into a freak’n apple tree.

For an idea of what a real Porsche tractor looks like, glance at this eBay auction. For a collection of absolutely brilliant Porsche writing, I highly recommend Porsching, particularly the “When You Wish Upon a Star” series. Good entertainment — maybe even for a non-Porschephile!

Go on, watch the movie. It will stream for you, or, if you have a high-speed connection, you can download it(38MB, zipped QT).

This evening, I went to a meeting of the local chapter of INCOSE, basically the professional organization for systems engineers. The meeting was held at my company’s headquarters, but the attendants were from all over the Twin Cities — even from our traditional rival. The main purpose of the meeting was to provide a forum for a presentation by one of my company’s Human Factors professionals.

The guy, a PhD psychologist, started the presentation with a slide showing an indeterminate object. It harkened of a Rorschach “ink blot,” but was not of that group (incidentally, follow that link; it might be handy someday). The presenter asked us in the audience what we thought the blob was. I looked at it for a few seconds before I saw a figure emerge. What I perceived made me chuckle: I saw a Klingon Bird of Prey! I kept that to myself, but it didn’t matter; a few seconds later, one of the other attendees shouted out “It’s a Bird of Prey!” The room shared a good laugh. No doubt many others in attendance saw the same. It turned out that the blob was really an off-angle view of Popeye. If any doubt had been left in my mind, that incident would have proved that I was in a room with a bunch of engineers.

Speaking of which, I am lucky to be working in a company stuffed with smart people. Damn smart people. I was lucky to go through high school and college with many smart people, so it’s great that I can begin my career surrounded by intelligence. Even more important than raw IQ, these people (and indeed, nearly everybody I associated with in school) are personable, sociable, creative, and upbeat. I hope to learn and improve myself by working in such an environment.