Leave the fatter end hanging on the right. Cross it over the front of the thin end.
Wrap it around the back, pull it through, cross over the front again, wrap it around the other side, pull it through and that’s how to tie a perfect four-in-hand business ribbon.
The important part of a business ribbon is to wear it over one of those shirts with the stiff flappy parts on the top. Flip the flappy parts up before you dangle the business ribbon and flap the flips back down once it’s tied.
This creates the visual effect of a triangle shooting out of your neck with a rainbowy ribbon waggling beneath it.
To complete this professional look, make sure to wear your pants over the bottom part of your shirt. People will know you’re a schlub if your pants aren’t over your shirt.
Your shoes must be uncomfortable. Not full-on painful like ladies’ rear-stick shoes, but just not as comfortable as the huge variety of readily available shoes made for sports.
The shoes should be brown or black and be slathered with gunk to be made as glisten-ey as possible.
Belts and socks should coordinate.
Now you’re ready.
Onto a train packed full of sad-faced men in business ribbons and sad-faced women in rear-stick shoes, each thinking how sad it is that everyone else on the train doesn’t have a rich inner life like they do.
Then, out. Spurting out of the station, scattering into the streets before filing themselves into various glass-walled skyscrapers to spend the day tapping and typing and worrying about, I dunno, like… brand?
This is usually the part where the work environment would be dissected in Dilbertian animus — bad coffee and awkward “How was your weekend?” small talk and the like. But the office environment is actually pretty OK.
There are chairs and no one asks you to lift anything. You can sit and type, sneak a peek at whatever websites aren’t blocked. Some bosses will let you listen to music with headphones. You’re not going to wrench or burn or slice or break anything and, if you do, hey. Health insurance.
Aside from some “Hell is other people” Sartre stuff if your coworkers suck, it’s an easy life in a world of hard jobs.
And there you are, in a perfect four-in-hand business ribbon wearing your pants over the bottom of your shirt so you don’t look shady. Or you’ll put on some rear-stick shoes and do the even more grievously complicated wardrobe rituals of that whole thing.
And you’ll see another person, a coworker or client or someone else who should know better. This person isn’t wearing a triangle-necked dangle ribbon. Their shoes are supportive and don’t gunk-shine. Their shirt doesn’t even have stiff flappy parts and isn’t partially inside their trousers.
And you’ll look at this person in this world with that outfit.
“Man,” you’ll think. “That’s weird.”
The morning starts in Sears Tower
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