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Dating Help For Nuclear Geeks
An anonymous reader writes "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has taken pity on it's loverlorn engineers and is now offering to help find dates for them. From the article: 'Jim McDermott, chief human capital officer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks he's found a foolproof way to convince young engineers to come to his agency: Find them dates. "There are incentives, and then there are incentives," McDermott told a crowd of human resources officials at the HCMF Conference in Arlington, Va., earlier today. "When we’re hiring, we say, 'Is there a significant other in the picture'; If there’s no significant other, I tell them, 'We can help.''"
I'm disappointed - this was a perfect opportunity for a Bender quote
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
You laugh, but many people meet their significant other in the workplace. If they could just promise coed social activities, I know _many_ people that would be attracted to their workplace.
I recently graduated college with an engineering degree and just MEETING people was a huge bitch. The short version is that everything is working against the engineer early on:
1 - Most people you meet are engineers/computer scientists. This means 90% male. We had 12 girls in my graduating high school magnet program (114 total), we had 30 in college (BS, 300 graduating), and we have THREE, yes THREE in graduate school (graduating 30).
2 - Engineering is harder than most majors. On average, you have less time to sacrifice to the the deity of relationships. If women are craving a time commitment, you can be out-competed by almost everyone.
3 - Engineering is harder than most majors. Your lack of time is a fairly direct translation to 'lack of time to work', which moves directly to 'lack of money'. I made something like $10K at college in my 4 years working 12-15 hours/week. A date more expensive than Olive Garden is just not in the budget. Couple this with the fact that most engineers are not wasteful with money.
The short version is that most engineering majors don't meet any girls, and cannot offer time or nice things to the girls that they do meet. To some matter, personality starts to play a factor, but you start off at a pretty serious disadvantage.
Of course, I was hunting. I attended just about every social gathering I was invited to, including everything free from campus, for the first 2 years of college. I sacrificing HUGE amounts of time to this effort, and my grades dipped noticeably (worth it!) from As to B-'s (Cs would put me on probation). When I found my partner, my grades shot up to close to straight As again, as being in a relationship required half of the time commitment of looking for one, and I found a woman that wasn't constantly needy, as those flock to business/art majors with nothing but time on their hands.
However, all of that changes after college. After college, many engineers have to move away from the support network, but have a glut of both time and money. The average EE starting salary is 55K, or "more than 60% households in the US." With clever money management techniques, an engineer can be living in his own house (20% down) a short 2 years after graduation, and not supporting a family with excess income. However, what they don't have is a way of meeting intelligent/interesting girls, aside from clubbing or internet dating. Many engineers fall back on the programs that their company puts on to meet people. Harris has a 'Young Professionals' group that is pretty much dedicated to the task of "you will have friends and meet people if you decide to work for us", and I expect other companies to follow suit in the future.
Anyways, just providing coed gatherings/functions at the same salary/job could probably hire away about 30% of the engineers in my company.
Yes. It is THAT important.