Up in the air

I recently had the rather dubious honour of enjoying a 2 hour plane trip with some young engineers. Of course there were a lot more passengers as well, but I was surrounded by these enthusiastic young people who chattered away solidly throughout the flight.
Shortly after take-off I reclined my chair and snuggled down for what I hoped would be a quiet nap, lulled to sleep by the drone of the aircraft's engines. The best I managed however, was to drift in and out of near-oblivion, punctuated by starts of wide-eyed shock.
The reason for this had nothing to do with aircraft failure, but rather the previously mentioned engineers. It soon became all too obvious that this was one of their first trips in the air.

As evidence of this, I present two golden titbits overheard while sharing cabin space.

Jewel nr 1:
"Look down there! There's no sign of anyone. How can they complain that there are too many people in the world when there's all this empty space!"
My eyes flew open when I heard this one! Not only in startlement at the comment itself, but also to glance down at the arid Karoo landscape passing far below. What scares me more is that that particular comment was followed by sounds of agreement as the spokesperson's fellow engineers glanced out the windows too.
Er... right, sure, there's plenty of space down there. Pity about the sheer lack of resources and infrastructure needed to support any kind of human habitation though. But then again, being an engineer, perhaps this person already had gloriously detailed blueprints drawn up in their mind's eye of how exactly to establish a colony in what might very well amount to a Martian landscape. One can but hope... or despair.

Jewel number 2:

"Isn't it amazing?! There's no sign of any roads, but I know one can drive from Cape Town to Johannesburg!" ... said in that breathless gasping voice I'd come to dread over the past half an hour.
Yep, you heard it here first folks: there's an actual tarred road somewhere out there connecting two of our major cities. Who'd've thought...
I resisted the urge to thump my head against the bulkhead through sheer determination. If I'd had a South African atlas handy I would have shared it with my fellow travelers in a heartbeat. Then again, perhaps a lesson in geography and map-reading would be called for at first.


I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that somehow these people had qualified in such a highly technical field as engineering, and yet appeared to fail dismally at grasping basic 'common knowledge' principles!

The darkly entertained side of me still ponders what engineering discipline these youngsters were in. I don't know whether I should hope for chemical, civil, electrical or whatever, as after due consideration, I think they could do as much harm in any of them.

And no, none of them were blond.
Heaven defend us against such skilled professionals.