Building services suits you

Are building services engineers ugly? Or do they just lack a touch of style? We make a fashion statement.

It was my turn to speak to the 50 or so project managers assembled to meet their new consultants. The two architects had done their turn and the structural engineer had just finished.

It was all good stuff, but not too much of a hard act to follow; the audience was awake and engaged; I had some reasonable material and only 10 minutes to speak.

The client's director rose to introduce me …"Finally ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce our new services engineer Paddy Conaghan. You can always tell services engineers – because they're the ugly ones."

What? Yes, I had heard right. How bloody rude! I attempted a 'no harm done' smile which I quickly wiped as it seemed to be scaring the audience, settled on a straight face and spluttered through to the end of my talk.

Afterwards I did a surreptitious check of my fellow speakers for signs of non-ugliness. While the architects had scrubbed up well, they still weren't that exciting to behold. The structural engineer looked pleasant enough but had evidently only recently emerged from a hedgerow. I just didn't see whatever it was that was so odd about me.

I have since heard that this was not an original observation by the director but one he has levied before at services engineers in general. It set me wondering.

I looked round the engineers in the office. They were pleasant enough looking, perhaps the odd bad tie or anonymous banker look – but nothing to single them out for scorn.

However, at the Building Services Awards dinner in June (the same night as the England-Portugal match) I think I saw what he might have meant. However, I'm not sure that ugly is the exact word for us.

I still still wear the M&S dinner suit I bought 25 years ago, vowing to wear it on every black tie occasion.

Who would notice if an out of condition sumo wrestler, dressed in a bad suit with a greying Beatle comb-over also happened to be ugly? Probably the sight of a 50-inch gut overflowing a 45-inch waistband may lead people to rash conclusions. The right word, if it exists, is style-less.

I realise I'm on softer ground here than even that bog in Co Sligo which nearly saw me off in '73. I'm no style guru.

I still wear the M&S dinner suit I bought 25 years ago, (vowing then to wear on every black tie occasion until I'm boxed up and sent to meet my Maker in it).

Yes, it still is the same dress shirt with brass studs bought in haste from the gent's outfitter when my wife burnt the frilly floral masterpiece that preceded it.

The only thing is that it all still fits and because none of the ensemble was ever in fashion, it hasn't dated at all. But it's not style. Perhaps that's why I'm a building services engineer.

Had the director spotted that we unwittingly differentiate ourselves through our appearance? Is any professional capital to be had from taking a bit more care about our style? Perhaps architects have achieved more notice from clients and the general public too through greater attention to their wardrobe.

I had always thought that the reason we were regarded askance was because two engineers arguing about the operating pressure regime of a chiller may as well be Martians to other non-protagonists.

Of course not everyone at the Building Services Awards lacked style. I sat contemplating the young man from one of the consulting engineers who returned to collect award after award. Long dark hair, good suit, even- toothed smile – he certainly was the business! Pity for him though to have chosen the Luis Figo look on the night Portugal put England out. I hope he got home all right.