…Maketh the Man
On Tuesday night, I went looking for a mobile phone as a Christmas present. As per usual for the week before Christmas, the shops were packed with people seeking gifts, and as I’ve come to expect from phone shops, I got roundly ignored by the sales staff.
Seriously, what is it with phone stores? Most stores have sales assistants who will at least come by and tell you they’ll be right with you, but phone store staff seem to delight in leaving people to their own devices. Maybe they just focus on the cashed-up teenagers who they think they can interest in the latest million-SMS-per-month deal.
Anyway, I decided to conduct an experiment tonight. On Tuesday, I looked as I typically do over summer: T-shirt, old jeans, about a week’s worth of facial hair. (For me, sadly, that doesn’t actually mean a hell of a lot.) So I figured that today I’d dress up a little: better pair of jeans, shirt with a collar, clean shaven.
I didn’t even take two paces inside the entrance of the (just as busy as Tuesday) phone store before a sales guy came over and started asking me how I was doing, and what I was looking for. It was actually quite incredible. It was as though he stopped whatever it is that mobile phone salespeople do when they’re not serving customers (ie about 97% of the time) and came straight over… because my shirt had a collar!
I’m going to use this. If I can harness the power of the collar, I can save hours of time by jumping straight past the slovenly members of the proletariat and getting straight in with the salespeople. I could use the time freed up by that to rule the world!
Wait, that would be the same world that still seems to be sending the message your appearance matters way more than anything else, such as what sort of person you are
loud and clear. Screw it.