Sometimes, whilst walking through town, someone – man, woman, young, old – wearing a smart, tailored, expensive suit, will give you an imperious look. Or at least what looks like one. On a normal workday, I don’t wear a smart, tailored, expensive suit. I wear a shirt, “smart” trousers and shoes which, on account of my fighting my way through a jungle-like path on the way to the train station, are generally somewhat dirty. And since I shave only once or twice a week, there is a good chance, at a given time of a given day, I will be cultivating something of a stubble. Oh, and I rarely get my hair cut, so, you know, there’s also that.
So the (alleged) imperious look, directed as it is towards myself (allegedly), is a perception of status and a comparative judgement thereof on the part of the imperious looker.
Oh look at you, you mere lowly office worker, you, who has achieved nothing more than banality and averageness, as opposed to me, in my smart, tailored, expensive suit, who probably has a snazzy, shiny car (or three), eats at fancy-pants restaurants and wears inhumanly shiny shoes…
And such.
But oh how it grates on me when I see these groups of Shiny Shoe Folk, with their laptop bags, their Blackberries and their take-out coffees (because they haven’t got time to sit and drink one), walking quickly or standing around, speaking in loud voices, laughing loudly at unfunny “jokes,” with their air of corporate importance, and their apparent total unawareness of the fact that they, like everyone else (teenagers, office workers, gym freaks, etc), are so lacking in uniqueness and individuality, wearing their expensive tailored uniforms, their ties and pin-striped jackets and overstyled hair of sameness, that I, looking up (metaphorically) at them looking down at me, see not something superior and to be aspired to, but rather something to be avoided and ran away from at great speed, only stopping, dripping with sweat and relief, to thank the Lord above that, although my life is less than perfect, I haven’t fallen into the trap of empty corporate promises and regrets and unfulfilled desires, only ever sought after, never truly achieved, but all glossed over with the atomically thin sheen of shiny-shoe-imperiousness.
And I don’t conduct business meetings on the train!
(or in public toilets, on pavements or in lifts)
I, on the other, do indeed conduct business meetings in toilets, lifts, on trains and on the pavement. That said, I am the only person in my company and the meetings tend to be very short and generally quite productive.
But I know what you mean. A life of blue pinstripes, hair wax (to achieve that oh-so-individual ‘bedhead/mohawk kind of nonsense that even looked ridiculous on Beckham back when he was the first to do it), humorless guffawing and an account at Coffee Republic is to be avoided at all costs.
I have had the misfortune to mix with these people (in a work capacity) in the past and I’ve found that the only way to deal with them is to turn into an even more extreme version of yourself; Say all the things you would normally think twice about saying in front of your real friends, make all the jokes and ‘tasteless’ remarks you can possibly think of and above all never polish your shoes!
My left shoe has a permanent squeak! (by the way)
My left foot has a permanent squeak!
I think younger people these days aspire less to being ‘uniform’ wearers than did the generations before. That in itself is a good thing as it means that they are *hopefully* putting less faith in appearances and more on substance.
It always impressed me so much that Einstein didn’t conform to the standards of his time in a fashion sense. He let his hair grow long and wild and chose to wear the same outfit every day as a way to save brain space for more important matters.
There is a saying that you should never trust anyone who is dressed perfectly all the time. To me, a decision to consistently invest time and energy on style and impeccable appearance has always been an indicator that someone is trying to hide a deficiency of character.
Always wise, Flan, always wise!