Happiness Equals Reality Minus Expectations

I recently visited a power plant that had modified one of its coal-fired lines to allow it to handle wood chips. I asked the process engineer if the switch had resulted in any . He was happy to report that the wood chips were no more challenging to handle than the coal he had previously handled. As he was expressing his happiness, however, I observed an operator using a steel rod to break an arch that had plugged the inlet to a transfer chute. He wasn’t happy.

The conversation reminded me of an episode of National Public Radio’s “Car Talk” where a caller described a problem that she was having with her poorly engineered car. The hosts, Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers, explained that the problem could be elucidated by applying a simple mathematical formula: “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” They noted that if the last term was too large, the equation became negative.