Optimist The glass is half full.

Pessimist The glass is half empty.

Project manager/engineer The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

Realist The glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow.

Cynic Wonders who drank the other half.

School teacher It's not about whether the glass is half empty or half full, it's whether there is something in the glass at all.

Anyway... Attitude Its not about whether the glass is half full or half empty, it's about who is paying for the next round.

Professional trainer Does not care if the glass is half full or half empty, he just knows that starting the discussion will give him ten minutes to figure out why his powerpoint presentation or projector is not working.

Ground-down mother of a

persistently demanding

five-year-old Says sweetheart it's whatever you want it to be, just please let mummy have five minutes peace and quiet.

Consultant Let's examine the question, prepare a strategy for an answer, and all for a daily rate of...

Inquisitive troublemaker Wants to know what's in the glass anyhow... and wants the rest of it.

Homebuilder Sees the dirty glass, washes and dries it, then puts it away in a custom oak and etched glass cabinet that he built himself using only hand tools.

Worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning.

Fanatic Thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't.

Entrepreneur Sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential.

Computer specialist Says that next year the glass capacity will double, be half the price, but cost you 50% more for me to give you the answer.

Engineer Says (when the half is tainted) he's glad he put the other half in a redundant glass.

Computer programmer Says the glass is full-empty.

Buddhist Says don't worry, remember the glass is already broken.

Logician Says that where the glass is in process of being filled then it is half full; where it is in the process of being emptied then it is half empty; and where its status in terms of being filled or emptied is unknown then the glass is one in which a boundary between liquid and gas lies exactly midway between the inside bottom and the upper rim, assuming that the glass has parallel sides and rests on a level surface, and where it does not then the liquid/gas boundary lies exactly midway between the upper and lower equal halves of the available total volume of said glass.

Scientist Says a guess based on a visual cue is inaccurate, so mark the glass at the bottom of the meniscus of the content, pour the content into a bigger glass; fill the empty glass with fresh content up to the mark; add the original content back in; if the combined content overflows the lip, the glass was more than half full; if it doesn't reach the top, the glass was more than half empty; if it neither overflows nor fails to reach the top then it was either half-full or half-empty. Now what was the question again?

Dutchman Would suggest to both pay for the glass and share the content. Then tells you he will have the bottom half.

Personal coach knows that the glass goes from full to empty depending on the circumstances, and reminds the drinker that he can always fill the glass when he wishes.

Grammarian Says that while the terms half-full and half-empty are colloquially acceptable the glass can technically be neither since both full and empty are absolute states and therefore are incapable of being halved or modified in any way.

Auditor First checks whether the empty half is material and then designs the audit procedures to obtain sufficient evidence to conclude that the glass is indeed empty.

Waiter will hurry to replace it with a full one. For him there are no doubts: the glass was empty when he took it away; it is full in the bill that he brings you.

Magician will show you the glass with the full half at the top.

Physician Says that the glass is not empty at all - it is half-filled with water and half-filled with air - hence, fully filled on the whole!

Musician Says he/she is unimpressed with the promoter of the concert for not providing more alcohol.

Ineffective organization Would discuss the question during the board of directors meeting, convene a committee to research the problem, and assign tasks for a root cause analysis, usually without a complete explanation of the problem to those assigned the tasks. The directors would consider the problem to be above the pay grade of those assigned root cause analysis tasks.

Reliability Engineer would state that it is dependent on whether the glass had reached its Threshold: half – full, and that would be dependent upon the starting point and the RGT Plan