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.
Angry 365 Days a Year 
It must be a cosmic/planetary coincidence with attire in the work place. Yesterday I tore a brand new pair of slacks on a piece of Fu$@ing S%*T office chair in the data center.
A pair of slacks that I just got Saturday and really liked. Well lets just say my trying to dribble the chair like a basketball sort of was disturbing to the other people around in the data center. Luckily when they saw the gash cut across the back of my slacks they said “Why didn’t somebody throw that chair away.”
I even had to go to the nurse to see if the razor sharp edge pierced the fat on my arse. THAT WAS A LOT OF FUN. You k now it just sort added insult to injury when the office admin said “You know we are not gonna pay for that….”
Sue their arse for the personal injury if they aren’t going to cover the cost of the clothes! Walk with a limp and you should squeeze a cool million out of them.
Can’t you find a local tailor to fix those sleeves for you? Tailoring is often fairly inexpensive. (And I have to get suit-type stuff altered and I still say that. 30 bucks to do multiple modifications on a wool blazer is awesome.)
Also. “French” cuffs? They’re longer, and probably roll up to a better length as a result.
This is hilarious! MEGA hilarious! I have not laughed this hard in years 🙂 Ah, now my stomach hurts. I started laughing from the first sentence.
Oh, I MUST publicise it on my blog. Hahahaha!
Why don’t you say all this on video?!
You can always get yourself a sewing machine and run the shirts up yourself. And who knows how many other people have the problem of sleeves too long, or not long enough, you could always turn it into a side business.
I have the opposite problem, I have extra long ape arms.
Solution?
Order shirts online. Online stores carry all sorts of strangly sized shirts, and are rather affordable as well!
my new company (Danger, Inc) is shirt-crazy. every couple of weeks it seems there’s a new friggin’ shirt. on any given day you can see the whole shirt history of the company just by walking the halls because everybody drinks the kool-aid, er, i mean, wears the hideous things. if it’s not shirts, it’s shoulder bags. if it’s not bags, it’s hats or jackets or key chains. ack! my new policy is NO COMPANY SHIRTS IN PUBLIC! ever. i wear them only for painting the house.
Suroor: Thanks for the suggestion, this would be a good candidate for a video
Michelle: that would requires some basic manual competence – something which I am totally lacking.
Devlin: Maybe we should team up – I’ll send you any shirts I get with sleeves too long for me and you can send me the ones that are too short for you.
Tom: I think you’re right – company shirts should be limited to work and non-public activities like painting.
Candice: I’m to cheap to pay for alterations 🙂 Plus I have some french cuffs which give me the same problem because they’re made slightly longer because they’re designed to be rolled up!
Doh. Well I dunno then. My usual problem in dressing is the one other girls tend to hate me for.
Ok, now I’m intrigued 😀 You can’t leave it at that Candice!
I’m a bit top-heavy for a skinny person. In the “get a coke habit, lose ten or fifteen pounds and could do porn kind of way.” Means I haven’t bought a dress since I was seventeen or so (mid 20s now) and my suit-type stuff is four sizes different between jacket and pants. I’ve figured out how to dress around it though.
“I’m too cheap for alterations.”
Therein lies your problem.
Cheap shirts suck ass. I used to buy cheaper shirts. I got my really nice shirts when my wife got me a Christmas present a few years back. She also bought some extra nice ties from Hugo Boss, about 100$ a pop.
The secret to looking great in a suit is the tie. You can have a cheap shirt on, as long as you wear a really expensive tie that matches, you’re gold.
When you wear the nice shirts, they feel good, not cramped. And they have nice details on them, that you tend to notice if you wear them a lot. The buttons are thick, the fabric is nice and thick. The most I paid for a shirt was 125 $CAD. They were on special. Originally, they were 200$.
In fashion you get what you pay for.
Or you could go to Taiwan or Thailand and get your suits and shirts tailor made. I rather prefer buying designers. Because good white and colored shirts with black suits rarely go out of fashion. Some people can wear a good suit for 20 years, if they take care of it.
Cheers, my thoughts on shirts. This comment is so good, I’m turning it into a post.
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Candice: I think you need to stop hanging out with horrible judgemental people!
Range: What can I say? I’m cheap – I can’t conceive of paying that much for a shirt.
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Angry, my friend, I’m a programmer, I have very few chick friends so it’s quite fine. 🙂
I bet you’re popular with the guy programmers, they hardly ever get to spend time with females 🙂
I like dirt cheap too, but sometimes you just can’t get what you want that way. On other news, I got a 22″ LCD widescreen Viewsonic panel for about 350USD. Now that is cheap!
Either popular or a threat. In college (round one, as I’m a part-timer these days) I had a posse for a while. Now that was fun.
range: damn, that’s good. I gotta update my setup to twin lcds at some point.
candice; Aposse! That’s something I’ve always wanted 🙂
Yep, Mr Angry, I am in electronic heaven over here. The phones and small electronics are direct from Japan, so they are supposed to be a bit more advanced. I don’t really know, I just got an old Moto Razr phone because I was cheap.
Computers are damn cheap here, I spent about 1000CAD$ on my desktop. It has the following:
AMD dualcore 3800+
2 gigs of RAM
1 Terabyte of data storage (that is 1000 GB for all you punks!)
256MB PCI-Ex video card
Lan Li brushed aluminum tower
That price included my laptop repair and replacement HD for the laptop, 100 GB for 100 CAD$, Logitech X-230 speakers, Logitech S510 cordless desktop. I have a spare LCD screen just sitting at home, I might just set up a two LCD screen setup. However, 22″ widescreen is huge and my other screen is only 17″ normal LCD.
Gawd-damn! That’s some mighty fine kit!
Go to Bangkok. Get your clothes tailor made! They’re so cheap you wont even care! I’ll find you the name of the shop i have! maybe he’ll do it online for you!
I think having an excuse for a holiday in Bangkok is better than ordering online!
Alrite gotit http://www.crowntailor.com is the website.
Cool – they better give you a free shirt next time for the plug 😀
Really hope so too! hahahahah in that case, dont forget to mention “Robin” :D, but no in all seriousness, they’re my reason for havin a holiday in bkk like u say. Wait, plus the cheap items, massages, drinks. Just about everything!