The universality of engineering

I wrote an article the other day.

Titled “My rent in America was endorsed to the bearer Abdülmecid”.

While writing it, another memory came to mind.

After the Irish boss of the firm I worked for told me I could stay in the company's house without paying rent, I moved from New Jersey to the town of Mount Vernon in New York.

Some time later, when the summer months arrived, a student from Indiana University chose our firm for an internship.

When the boss asked if he could stay in the house I was using as a temporary lodging, I accepted with pleasure.

He was a very sweet civil engineering student.

He was helping me with tender-proposal processes.

In the evenings, we would walk home together and have things like coffee.

Then, he became friends with someone who lived on the floor below, an Italian-American.

He started hanging out with him. Since the guy looked like a strange, shiftless character, I didn't get too close, but I would see him in the intern's room from time to time.

I realized they were smoking strange, smoky things together.

Then, the next day, I realized that the 500 dollars I had withdrawn from the ATM on my way home were not in my pocket.

I immediately understood that the Italian creep downstairs had stolen the money.

Because I was certain that an intern civil engineering student would never commit petty theft. 

When I called the police, they asked if I had seen it with my own eyes.

When I said I hadn't seen it but was sure, they unfortunately conveyed that they couldn't do anything.

At the meeting the next day, when I told the boss about the incident, I felt that he was shocked.

It turned out that 200 dollars of the intern engineer had also been stolen, and he had told the boss that he suspected me.

Since the boss knew that no engineer, or his own engineer, would ever steal money or, in fact, commit theft, he had brushed it off without even telling me.

When the second theft occurred, it became clear who had stolen the money.

The boss apologized, saying that the mistake was his and that he should have been more sensitive regarding the intern.

Even though he wanted to instruct accounting to deposit my stolen 500 dollars into my account, I did not accept it.

What foolishness on my part.

You are both abroad and your money is limited, and you act like a hero and don't take back your stolen money. 

What happened, happened to my 500 dollars and the intern's 200 dollars.

After the incident came to light, the intern engineer took me to an expensive Red Lobster restaurant.

I understood that his father had also been informed of the incident and, with the truth coming out, had given instructions to treat me to lobster as a way of apologizing.

Even though the intern's father paid for the lobster, it was the most expensive lobster I have ever eaten in my life.