Monday, February 22, 2010

Dress well , whether you like it or not.

I don't know why I was reminded of this now and I am not sure if I have already blogged about it but I am going to write about it anyway.

There have been many such embarassing moments in my life ( and hopefully in others' lives too , why should I be the only one!) and this particular incident was very awkward. This was when I had been to Mexico city a year and a half back. I had 3 flights to catch with very long breaks at the airports and I even met my friend Lalitha and her husband at San Francisco during a very long break( around 9 hours) before heading to Mexico city. All in all from the time I left my house till the time I got to the hotel, it must have taken me around 45 hours or close to 2 days.

Reached the hotel at 6am in the morning on a Sunday and had a quick breakfast and then slept. I had no idea which universe I was in coz' of the sluggishness that encumbered every cell of my body. Finally when I got up it was late afternoon and had a light lunch and waited for my Project Manager's call. He was from the land of Texas and if you jump hard from there, you will land in Mexico city. We spoke finally around 6pm and planned to meet later for dinner.

Now I am not / I wasn't till I met this person , very wary about what I wore for dinner at such hotels when I end up staying there. Who wants to even think about this after a typically hard day's work ? You just want to gobble something and hit the sack. As it is , I was tired and when the time came, I was in my tracks and went down to meet Mr PM at the lobby. So here I was in this tracks and there I suddenly see this grey haired huge Texan ( probably twice my size in height and weight!) - ( I found later that he is in his early 50s) who looked very experienced and was in a spick and span black dinner suit. I wanted to rush back immediately at Usain Bolt's pace but he saw me and recognised me.

(Within me , i kept saying, dude, what the !) We exchanged pleasantries but believe me, it wasn't pleasant at all. I was determined that very moment that I would be dressed more than decently for the morning. Dinner followed and he was and is such a wonderful person. Was extremely glad when we took leave at the lift and I felt extremely awkward. Next day, I spent 10 mins extra with the coat and I think he complimented saying I was looking good and presentable and thats when I told him that the previous night , I was so damn tired that my head was throbbing continuously.

Anyway, the trip was excellent and I got to know Mr PM better. You can read my Tequila experience somewhere in my blogs. Moral of this particular story however was - dress well especially when you are meeting someone professionally even if its a Sunday night and you are hopelessly jetlagged,whether you like it or not !

2 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Dude..this dress well stuff totally sucks! Ask me, I had to wear formals all weekdays for last 30 days!!