Engineers should not wear suits

Posted by Raul Vera, Engineering Manager - Geo

It's against the laws of nature. If God had wanted engineers to wear suits, he would have given us social skills and motor coordination. I violated this law on Tuesday night, and woe befell me.

Google Maps won the Australian PC Authority Magazine award for Best Web Application (we were co-winners with Facebook). We were naturally thrilled to get this recognition. Our Head of Engineering, Alan Noble and I attended the awards ceremony.

The invite made it clear that this was a gala event, in the Grand Ballroom of the Star City Casino, for which the attire was "Suited and Booted" for men, and "Dressed to Impress" for women. In a fit of conformity, I chose to wear a suit. Once wearing the suit, I couldn't bring myself to take my grotty old backpack, as it really would ruin the look. Bad move.

The awards ceremony was great. The wine hit the spot, the food good, and the people at our table friendly. When the Google Maps award was announced, I went up to accept it and was photographed with the magazine editor, just as I was meant to, then came back and sat down.

So the whole thing was winding down just fine, when I noticed that some of the other award recipients had been given protective boxes to put their heavy, pointy lucite awards into. I looked around for someone distributing the boxes, but the room was emptying. So I picked up the award and my umbrella, and headed out the door. Outside, the issue of PC Authority featuring the award winners was available. So I grabbed one and headed down to the Star City light rail station. I caught the train, put the award, magazine, and umbrella on the seat next to me, and pulled out my book to read. When we reached my station, I plopped the book onto the pile and picked up the lot by basically wrapping it all up in the magazine, then got off the train.

Except the award is heavy, the magazine is slick, and the book was one thing too many. The award slid out the front and fell, pointy end down, onto the train platform, which is made of concrete. Oops. Not so pointy any more. The photo shows the award, with a severely dented corner in front, a rather mangled hole of missing lucite at the back, and grotty scratches on the front right edge.


Why do I blame the suit? Because if I hadn't worn one I would have taken my backpack, and the award would have been safely tucked inside it next to the laptop, not tumbling onto a train platform. Geekiness was conserved, because only a clumsy geek would try to walk while carrying that pile of stuff wrapped in a magazine.

So the suit goes back into the closet until the next funeral.

Ed: Last awards ceremony you get sent to....;)