Of Baguio, Mobile-Advertisements and “The Proper Business Attire”
When I was looking for a job, I was twice asked to return in my “proper business attire”. Sure, to some it sounded like a reasonable request but walking-around-wearing-debilitating-long-sleeved-shirts-and-suffocating-ties-in-the-sweltering-30-degree-heat-of-Manila-while-knowing-that-the-employees-in-the-company-you’re-applying-to-wear-jeans-and-art-deco-shirts-to-work was just too much of an unbelievable proposition to me that 100 % of the time I was asked to come back in the frigging “proper business attire”, I didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, It wasn’t that I had no interest in the job nor was I wearing customized t-shirts or poser looking Vans-Off-The-Wall apparel, I was, to my mind anyway, wearing proper business attire (read: button-down polo shirt, slacks and leather shoes). I just really couldn’t get down with the idea of doing “business” in the most uncomfortable manner possible.
Another thing, what could be more of a mobile-advertisement for job seeking than to be in “the proper business attire”? Honestly, they might have as well asked the unemployed to wear placards saying we were looking for jobs! The sheer number of walking zombies in “proper business attire” with their envelope-cum-folders in hand was staggering! The number was even more so than that of the art-deco-jeans-wearing-employed.
Sure, in Baguio I often times wore “the proper business attire” but for god sakes this was Manila! Surely, us highlanders were exempt from this mandate? After all, we are at an unfair disadvantage, aren’t we? No amount of ten-minute-saunas could ever replace a lifetime of living in this roasting urban jungle, di ba? And never could 8-hour-well-airconditioned-mall-marathons ever take the place of a life span in cool Baguio…
In retrospect, I think I needed a little more time to adjust in this climate. And in the long run, I might be forced to wear “the proper business attire” but for now I was just too used to 16-degree-heat-waves-and-hail-forming-weather to be able to grasp the concept of “the proper business attire”.
Don’t get me wrong, It wasn’t that I had no interest in the job nor was I wearing customized t-shirts or poser looking Vans-Off-The-Wall apparel, I was, to my mind anyway, wearing proper business attire (read: button-down polo shirt, slacks and leather shoes). I just really couldn’t get down with the idea of doing “business” in the most uncomfortable manner possible.
Another thing, what could be more of a mobile-advertisement for job seeking than to be in “the proper business attire”? Honestly, they might have as well asked the unemployed to wear placards saying we were looking for jobs! The sheer number of walking zombies in “proper business attire” with their envelope-cum-folders in hand was staggering! The number was even more so than that of the art-deco-jeans-wearing-employed.
Sure, in Baguio I often times wore “the proper business attire” but for god sakes this was Manila! Surely, us highlanders were exempt from this mandate? After all, we are at an unfair disadvantage, aren’t we? No amount of ten-minute-saunas could ever replace a lifetime of living in this roasting urban jungle, di ba? And never could 8-hour-well-airconditioned-mall-marathons ever take the place of a life span in cool Baguio…
In retrospect, I think I needed a little more time to adjust in this climate. And in the long run, I might be forced to wear “the proper business attire” but for now I was just too used to 16-degree-heat-waves-and-hail-forming-weather to be able to grasp the concept of “the proper business attire”.
posted by silver surfer at 11:37 PM
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