where are your gloves and your helmet?

For what it's worth, the oath in question was written at the prompting of a gathering of past presidents of the Engineering Institute of Canada, as part of their response to a bridge disaster caused by a combination of engineering error and corporate cheap-assness- sorry, 'economizing'. They wanted to create an engineering standard of ethics and reinforce it through a ceremony and a physical reminder. The engineers who swear that Obligation are given an iron ring to wear on their working hand, as a constant reminder, at the end of it. Popular myth has it that the rings are/were made from the girders of the aforementioned disastrous bridge, but that's not the case- I think, however, that Gordon was unaware of that part being a myth when he filled Alyx in on what he knew of the whole situation. So I expect there's that bit of something ringing in Rand's situation as well.