Having an engineering/programmer background myself (and there were a couple projects where I wrote code to export the Word documentation for the printed versions into structured format for import into the online help files the client wanted) I usually got along with everyone.

When I was on a project with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) to accelerate the production of their Crash Facts booklet (“Because it would be nice to get the 1996 Crash Facts booklet into the hands of people who need it before 1998 rolls around…”) I was working with a bunch of PennDOT traffic and highway nerds. It was great! I learned things like why PA no longer had guard rails on its highways (“The lawyer argued that since there was a ‘guard rail,’ his client—God rest his soul—had every reason to believe that his sports car going 80 MPH would be protected if it went off the road. So a letter went out, and overnight—POOF!—every ‘guard rail’ was magically turned into a ‘guide rail.’ Strangely enough, nobody noticed the difference.”) and how much effort goes into making light poles that sheer off if a car hits them dead-on but bend if a car sideswipes them. And dealing with some parent who shows up in the office and tearfully asks, “How many more people have to die at that intersection before you people put up a stoplight?” (“It’s three. That’s not our call, that’s the legislature. How do you tell that to some mom who just lost her kid?”)