Monday, October 31, 2011

The Engineer as Zombie or Vampire

The Sunday New York Times Magazine has an interesting article for Halloween on segmenting the population into two camps - - the zombies or the vampires (article by Heather Havrilesky, "Steve Jobs: Vampire.  Bill Gates: Zombie").  Provided below is the general overview of the segmentation:

Are you a Zombie?
  • Extroverts
  • Like big rowdy crowds
  • Comfortable in clusters and teams - - love to volunteer
  • The true meaning of life can only be determined by a collaborative crowd
  • Love committees and sub-committees
  • Leaders and fanatics
  • Awkward and clumsy
  • They like a good chase
  • Apparently never sleeping
  • Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are examples 
  • Charlie Sheen is a famous zombie who mistakenly think they're vampires
Are you a Vampire?
  • Smooth and charismatic
  • Solitary and antisocial
  • Masters of seduction
  • Narcissists, the artists, the experts, the loners, moody
  • Workaholics and neurotic
  • Internally directed
  • Aloof and a little bit hedonistic
  • Doodle during meetings
  • Love watching old movies and reading books
  • Steve Jobs and A-rod are examples (it's the New York paper)
  • Bill Clinton is a famous vampire who mistakenly think they're zombies
In a world of either zombies or vampires, we (as engineers in the collective) need to settle into one camp or another.  If we don't - - you just end up as dead meat.

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