The Glamorous Life of a Systems Engineer (SE)

Hello World, especially the SEs. We all work very closely with our beloved high-tech sales reps. From time to time, we have heard them make some outrageous claims. Not just the usual, “my SE will make it work” or “our solutions are plug-n-play”, but things that are truly off the chart. I polled a few of my good friends, and together we came up with a list of some of the most outlandish statements. Enjoy! – And please, please, please send me some of your favorite anecdotes too!

“You will never need another cybersecurity solution again.” [Or at least not until this rep moves on to the next company.]

“Our products cannot be hacked.” [Challenge accepted!]

“Our trans-oceanic fibers will transmit your data to Japan at twice the speed of light.” [Uhh… someone didn’t take high school physics!]

“We can guarantee 100% uptime.” [Well, I guess if you round five-nines, you get 100%. But still…]

“Our Wi-Fi routers will let you download the entire Internet in under a minute.” [Including porn? Asking for a friend.]

“With our AI-driven network management system, your users will never complain again.” [You’ve obviously never met my users.]

“The ROI for this AI system is instantaneous because you won’t need an Ops team.” [Absolutely! Let’s replace years of human experience with a fancy algorithm.]

“You won’t need to spend any more money on cybersecurity training for your staff; our product does it all.” [Buy this product and cross your fingers – who needs trained professionals?!]

“Don’t worry about how it works, just know that our solution is highly advanced.” [Ahhh… the old “trust us, it’s magic” approach.]

Stay tuned for more nerdy columns about my experiences as an SE.