Some engineer did that

I have a friend who likes to point out things that are not working so well and say “some engineer designed that.” Now, we are not talking about huge things that don’t work – like, say, the Federal government. No, more the everyday sort of things.

For example, I’m turning on the football game and my TV, inexplicably, takes about 15 seconds to “boot up.” During that period there is no picture on the screen, no sound. Just the lamp on the cable box and the lamp on the TV light up, and there is a beep or two. And then, for another 10 to 15 seconds, the picture and sound come on, but you cannot change the channel – so whatever channel was there when you turned it off shows up and you can’t change it. My friend says, “Some engineer did that.”

And she’s right, of course. It’s a lousy design. You know of some other frustrating designs that affect your daily sanity, I’m sure.

One for me is the darn microwave oven. It has a clock that is not backed up, so any time the power fails you have to reset it. It’s a pretty new microwave – a couple of years old. They couldn’t put a cap or a battery on a super-low-standby-power RTC chip? Geez. I’d like to tell you the brand, but I better not. It’s a very big name brand.

Now, I also have a little, not name brand, $9, bedside alarm clock that’s battery powered and that lovely thing lets you change all four of its AA batteries out and when you are done the time is still right there. Thank you!

And another thing. Fonts. In MS Word there are, maybe, 300 fonts. What a dumb thing! Maybe a graphic arts person needs a bunch of fonts – but not that many. And, most of them look the same anyway. I only need four – five tops, and could get away with just two, probably. But, I have 300. What a waste of time and bits. Some software engineer did that one.

Now any EE worth his/her salt will comment that it was the Marketing dude that made these products so very bad — not the engineer. But, I’m sorry, you have to have responsibility for your designs; you just do.

What is some other mis-engineered electronic device that annoys you? Send it to me on Twitter at @JHarris99 or leave a comment to this article below (you will have to be logged in, of course).