and Words
All smiles, I know what it takes to fool this town
I’ll do it ’til the sun goes down
And all through the nighttime
Oh, yeah
Oh, yeah, I’ll tell you what you wanna hear
Leave my sunglasses on while I shed a tear
It’s never the right time
Yeah, yeah
I put my armor on, show you how strong I am
I put my armor on, I’ll show you that I am
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
Professionally, I’ve always worked as a computer geek. It started in 1991 when I came to Microsoft. As such, we had no official dress code; they didn’t impose any restrictions. Most dressed comfortably. For me, that mostly meant jeans or shorts and t-shirts. Occasionally, I wore tank tops. Other times, I wore long pants (like khakis). However, the shirts that amused me most were the superhero shirts. Afterall, who wouldn’t want to be a superhero?
Over the years, I’ve attended my share of meetings. Naturally, we occasionally chatted about topics other than work. During one such meeting, we observed as I wore a Superman shirt, and a teammate wore a Batman shirt. As we packed up our belongings to leave that meeting, I made a suggestion in semi-serious jest. I said, “We should coordinate a day when we all dress like superheroes”.
As time went on and this repeated itself again, I’d continue to make that suggestion. The idea tickled me. A number of us would coordinate dressing up whimsically, in a world of quasi make-believe. On one day, I threw out an incentive. “If you can get enough people to participate, I’ll come dressed as Wonder Woman.” And yes, I meant it.
I grew up watching the Wonder Woman show on television in the 1970’s. I won’t tell you that I watched it consistently, but I watched it whenever I noticed it as I channel surfed. In those days, we could not yet record television shows, so I needed to consume it while it aired. Ironically, I had just moved to Florida from Puerto Rico and was still learning English; I failed to understand much of the dialogue. However, like many boys my age, I developed a crush on Lynda Carter.
As for the actual team event, this naturally warrants an agreement and defining the figurative fine print. First, we didn’t expect costumes or cosplay; we’re merely talking about getting a shirt with a superhero logo (and naturally wearing it). Next, ‘Enough people’ meant most of our group. Our team numbered about 20 people; we needed to get 11 of us to participate. Once we got enough people onboard, then yes, on that designated day, I’d wear a Wonder Woman shirt. No, it won’t be a costume.
And just like that it all started, the idea of “Dress-Like-A-Superhero Day”. I planted the seed; my job was done. Subsequently, someone picked a particular day in June; though honestly, I don’t remember precisely who picked the date. The rest of my team coordinated and schemed. We wondered if we would reach critical mass. They coordinated polls and tracked who planned to participate in an Excel spreadsheet. I simply sat back and watched while I planned on which shirt I’d wear on a particular day.
As we got closer to the date, we collectively reached critical mass. Yes, it will indeed be an event.
That day started normally. We each conducted our tasks much in the same ways that we conducted them on any other day. Typically, that entailed attending a standup meeting, where we would each talk through our current activity and its progress. As engineers, this definitely meant that we spent time programming, this may involve writing new code or debugging existing code to find the cause of a problem. When I came in that morning, I raised my desk and set up my desk treadmill. For years, I have walked while I worked in order to get my steps; today would be no exception.
Everything else was precisely the same, with the tiny exception that I wore a Wonder Woman shirt, complete with headband and red cape. As more people arrived at work, we examined each other’s outfits. We all giggled as we marveled at our respective choices for superheroes. For lunch, we decided to walk as a group to The Commons, which was more centrally located on campus; this was about a 10-minute walk.
We each got food from a number of different vendors, much like a private food court, and then sat together. As I waited for my food, I noticed that one vendor had a collection of retro metal lunch boxes over their condiment station. One of those lunch boxes was for Wonder Woman. I’m sure it had been there for a while, though it amused me that I only noticed it today.
As the day wrapped, we congregated in one of our lounges to pose for a group picture. The final tally? Fifteen goofy engineers participated in this event. The characters spanned both DC and Marvel. I am both grateful and humbled by my teammates. How else could you inject fun into an ordinary workday? And yes, I still have the pictures to prove it. Though as I look at the date, I found it hard to believe that this occurred nearly eight years ago.
About a year later, they released the movie Wonder Woman with Gal Gadot. It did not disappoint. The film permeated that retro World War I era feel; the weather consistently mirrored the dark mood of the film, save for the scenes on the island of Themyscira, which were consistently sunny. Gadot played Diana (and hence Wonder Woman) deliciously. Specifically, Diana oscillates between naïveté, fearlessness, and profound optimism. How could you not cheer as she defeats Ares and discovers her role in the world?
I recently came upon this rendition of Unstoppable by Sia, composed to clips from the Wonder Woman movie. This song both inspires and highlights those very same values on all of us, not just women. We can all be naïve and fearless; these qualities are not mutually exclusive. It elicits a raw sense of empowerment, one which Diana exudes but doesn’t flaunt.
Though more importantly, it reminds me of a day when friends and I decided to walk on those footsteps. It was a day when we didn’t take ourselves too seriously. We celebrated our collective goofiness and each other’s company. As I look at that picture of the group of us and each of us individually, I reflect on my friendship with each of them. They’re each different and powerful in their own respect.
They’re indeed superheroes, one and all.