Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Stupid business shirts

A recurring frustration of mine is the impossibility of finding a business shirt that actually conforms to my body proportions. The main problem is sleeve length - sleeves are almost always too long for my stubby arms. Then, if I roll up the cuffs, the sleeves are too short. This is a small thing to be sure but have you ever noticed how often it's the small things that push you over the edge?

You can be dragged into the boss' office and unfairly abused for something that wasn't your fault but you sit there and take it because it's the boss. You can get stuck in some pointless, boring meeting with some idiot droning on and on and you can feel your brains leaking out your ears and your spirit slowly dying but you don't slap some sense into them because that would be bad office politics. But then you get back your desk and some fucker has moved your pen six inches from where you left it and you EXPLODE!

"Who's been touching my shit? This is my desk! My stuff! Nobody touches my stuff!"

And that one little outburst earns you the nickname "office psycho." Not that it's happened to me. Much. There was a little incident where I adjusted my shirt cuffs for the fiftieth time during the day and it was still uncomfortable and I kinda lost it. But I didn't shout. I just kind of hissed, "Shit! Stupid fucking shirt!"

You know those magic moments when a previously noisy area goes suddenly quiet and you've chosen that exact moment to say something which means everyone around you hear what you said? Yeah, that was my day. Side note: I think the funniest example of this is Vince Vaughan in "The Wedding Crashers" having a whole church hear him say "I'm a cocksman!" At least I wasn't proclaiming my sexual prowess. Not this time, anyway.

So I'm thinking my only solution to a life of frustration is travelling to somewhere in South East Asia where I can have shirts custom made for less than a K-Mart special. And I'll write the trip off as a business expense. Of course, there will be the problem with the material I choose for the shirts going out of fashion. This means I'll have to go overseas several times a year. It's a cross I'll have to bear.

Yeah right - this from someone who hasn't travelled overseas in ten years. I can dream.

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