On joining the upper-middle-class (part 2 of an occasional series)

[gominokouhai]

Today: suits. I have worked in the New Town for ten years. Every day I walk past the same people. Only in the last couple of weeks, now that I have a suit on, have they started nodding and smiling at me.

Since I have to wear suits all the time now, I thought I'd broaden my range of shirt colours beyond the standard Henry Ford options, the better to avoid the Nineties movie villain look. Got some blue shirts and some grey shirts (no reason to go crazy, now). The shopguy offered me a shirt with a stripe in it, but I gave him a Look. (Baby steps.) When I wear the blue shirt, every one of my staff mention how nice I look. When I wear the grey shirt, everyone asks me if I'm feeling all right. Wonderful: now I have to learn about colour co-ordination. Currently I'm far too busy learning about gross profit margins, which are fascinating, I can tell you.

The suit I'm currently wearing has very capacious trouser pockets. So capacious are they in fact that they've added a second pocket inside the pocket, so that you have a remote chance of ever finding anything that you put in there. Thoughtful, perhaps, but I'm wondering why they didn't just make it properly in the first place.