Absurd

If you've ever been to Vegas and walked down the street with a margarita "to go" in hand you know how weird it feels to be doing something that is totally taboo most anywhere else. Yesterday there was a guy in line for a hotdog at Costco and he was smoking. It has been so so long since I've smelled a cigarette in public that it struck with the same sense of absurdity and incongruity.

I experienced that same "did I just see what I think I saw" feeling a couple days ago when I attended the WESTEC manufacturing trade show. Two floors of the LA convention center were filled with the latest and greatest in machine tools of all sorts including HUGE CNC machining and turning centers, EDM machines, punches and presses, welding equipment, sheet metal fabrication equipment, all sorts of fun stuff for someone like me. Who goes to shows like these? Mostly folks involved in manufacturing and running or working a machine shop--engineers, machine operators, planners, buyers, etc. As you might expect, the air was as thick with testosterone as it was with cutting fluid mist. (Incidentally, I went for the fun of it. I've been wanting to go for years. I was very impressed!)

When I first started as a fresh-out-school engineer one of the backyard mechanic type engineers would regale me with stories of the "good ol' days" when the big exhibitors at the annual industry tradeshow would hire ladies to "entertain" the attendants to try to bring business their way. What do I mean by "entertain?" Exactly what you imagine. Of course, I was a bit incredulous that that sort of thing ever happened and I was sure it didn't really happen these days.

And then I attended WESTEC. Every other vendor had a beautiful woman sitting and smiling pretty behind their booth. One had a pair of women in miniskirts and tight T-shirts working the floor handing out keychains and collecting business cards. Another had an erzats slot machine attended by two scantily clad young ladies. But the doozy, the one that made me doubt what I'd just seen was a life-size, 3-D, machined aluminum replica of a woman's bust sitting on the bed of a Daewoo 5 axis machining center. Inscribed bellow the prominent protrusions was "Daewoo and [something, I forget]--the perfect pair!"

My gosh. I shouldn't have been surprised, of course, but you get to living in such a PC world for so long that this sort of thing just catches you by surprise like the guy lighting up at Costco or the margarita to go. Well, at least no one was being "entertained" that I could tell.