From harsh life experiences we all know that:

S. Travaglia, University of Waikato, New Zealand

(swearing, chuckle)

The Pessimist's guide to Engineer--talk. (what they say - what they mean)

"That's interesting" -- Shit! I've never seen anything remotely like that before.

"We'll just run diagnostics" -- I wonder if that'll give us a clue.

"So we've eliminated XXX" -- It's probably XXX, but it's bloody hard to get at.

"I've just powered it down" -- I tripped over that bloody power cord again.

"Ok, that's good" -- What the hell was that noise?!?

"We've noticed some failure evidence" -- Something's burning...

"If you'll just..." -- I don't want to be the one to blame when it crashes.

"Yes, you'd expect to see that..." -- Hell, that's stuffed as well!

"We'll just fit a revision" -- We'll put the same version in from a different tape.