Wednesday, August 10, 2011

A funny for you

My son-in-law is an agricultural engineer and designs engines for big agricultural implements. Think John Deere, but a different company.

The last couple of days he was out of town at a trade show for his company where one of his designs was featured. He holds five different patents (for his company) on this engine, one of which is for the cooling system. Of the two features that were displayed for this particular piece of machinery, Rex's designs were discussed at length, whereas the other feature was just mentioned in passing.

Later, Rex was wandering around the booths and happened upon a salesman for a distributorship of these implements. The salesman volunteered comments about the cooling system, saying, "They really made a big deal over this cooling system, but I'm not really sure about the validity. Now, if it had been designed in Europe, maybe it'd be a big deal. But it was designed here in the states and I've heard that another company is working on it too and not having any luck. Who knows if it even works like they say."

Rex said, "I know the engineer who designed this and I'm quite sure that I got it right. It's been in testing for over three years."

Open mouth, insert foot. Heck, insert both feet.

I would have loved to see the look on that salesman's face when he realized he was insulting the designer directly to the designer's face - without realizing it. The problem with the other company is that they're not trying to see if it works the way Rex designed it, but they're trying to re-design it so they can by-pass his patent and manufacture it themselves without paying the patent-infringement fees.

9 comments:

BB said...

Good comeback by your son. Woo hoo! You never know who you're talking to in public do you?

Pat said...

That's funny! Moral of the story: Watch what you say....especially in public!

Southhamsdarling said...

Don't you just love moments like that?! When my daughter was over here, she was in a queue for an icecream, and a little boy said to his mummy, "look at that ugly dog over there." It was my daughter's dog,and she told him so. His mummy said to him, "that'll teach you!". Hee hee!! Hope your recovery is going well my friend.

labbie1 said...

Great comeback! LOL

orchid0324 said...

Oh,that's SO interesting and educational♬♬♬
They are "comeback" in English!!!
Haha, this can be a good moral lesson. One of my neighbors is a kind of busybody, I remember she talked a terrible gossip not knowing the person she was mentioning is her close behind (*^_^*)

Further notice later,
LOVE, your friend Orchid.

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

Loved that your son in-law was able to catch the salesman out and had such a good come back would have loved to see the guys face when he realised he had his foot in his mouth.

SkippyMom said...

GO REX! :round of applause: :)

Kathy's Klothesline said...

Those moments are too sweet to let pass by!

Unknown said...

Hahaha! That was funny! And I learned something great! I wish you had told me before about Rex being an inventor. I'm on that path and haven't heard a word from the patent office in months! Of course, my invention is nothing complicated like machinery but it's still nice to know some one who knows something about the USPTO!