Of late, I have been telling various people about what it is like to be a DNA engineer – where, before you qualify or finish school, it is in your blood. I do not mean that the young child built things out of stuff, thus indicating engineering traits; I mean that the child, from young, had certain held beliefs, perhaps unknown even to parents, which were that of an engineer.

I will give some characteristics and examples of this. But oh! As an engineer, I ask, would you be interested? Perhaps not. But read on. You will learn and be entertained.

The first trait of engineers: a woman I very much love (who, sadly, says she does not love me) says of me: “You like things done your way!” Wrong. Engineers like things done. Period. Everything in the physical world produces problems. Engineers like solving problems. This must not be done in a vague way. For example, last weekend, I had guests who had a young teenage girl staying with them. The guests and I had to go to a function and she could not come. She would be home alone for the morning – in an unfamiliar city, in an unfamiliar house, with four dogs.

My lady guest said to her: “I’m sure you’ll be fine; we’ll be back soon.” Machoy the engineer said: “Okay, here’s my business card – any problems just call my cell. “The dogs bark often unexpectedly, don’t worry. They’ve never bitten anybody living in the house. If anybody gets onto the property and scares you, scream loudly and the dogs will attack them. If you feel threatened in any way, go into the room, lock the door and wait. “The windows are laminate glass and can’t be broken. Food is in the kitchen, as well as juice. I’m sure you know how to use the TV.”

See the difference between the engineer and the lady guest? The engineer gives a whole action plan, which may not be needed for a number of real, possible circumstances. The lady guest just discounts the probability of the possible circumstances.

Second trait of (most) engineers: they want things to happen on time. Do not get me wrong; they are not fixated about this – they accept traffic delays and so on. But when (as happens to me) people are late – as in 30 minutes plus – without phoning ahead, my immediate reaction is that Something Must Be Wrong. I cannot conceive of a world where people are just like . . . late. I also cannot understand the world where the phone rings and the person is there but chooses not to answer. Why? For all they know, it could be a call from government, saying war has been declared. Or you have won the lotto. Why not throw all caution to the winds and answer it? If you do not want to be bothered, divert the phone.

Third trait of (most engineers): they analyse all problems, regardless of the necessity for this. My farmer friend, Steve, recently had a fault on the Eskom power supply to his farm. The standby diesel genset started, so he had power. He looked at the Eskom power pole and the drop-out fuses seemed okay. Some starlings had built a nest on the cross arm, so the view of one fuse was obscured. He called me. We talked through the display on his genset control panel and concluded that one of the phases was missing. Eskom was called and confirmed that the drop-out fuse surrounded by nesting starlings had operated. So, we discussed why the starlings nested on the cross arm. We concluded that, being table grape season, the starlings were attracted to the farm. The drop-out fuses of the power pole were a warm location for a temporary nest. Thus, table grapes cause drop-out fuses to fail. Ah, engineers.