Week 50 - Super Suits

Super Suits

Matthew Ryan Fischer

“Tighten that tie, soldier. We dress for success here.”

Jacob begrudgingly tightened his tie, but he didn’t do a very good job of it. He had done exactly what had been asked of him, but he was pretty sure he had left it crooked. There was no mirror there to check his handiwork, but the look on Ronnie’s face pretty much confirmed Jacob’s silent victory.

Jacob hated his boss Ronnie. Jacob had several bosses, but Ronnie was the closest one to his level, which meant he had to deal with Ronnie daily. Ronnie was a real “Yay Rah!” sort of team player. It was super annoying. Jacob did his job, but he was far from excited by it. There was nothing to get excited about when what he did was answer phone calls all day and talk to people about stocks and bonds and their company retirement plan options. It was dry and it was boring and Jacob thought Ronnie had no right to get excited about it.

Why were they even wearing suits at this job? Jacob was sure there must have been some productivity study that proved that men in suits worked harder than men in blue jeans. Jacob couldn’t bring himself to believe that that was right. He was pretty sure at least some part of his hatred for his job came from the fact that he was uncomfortable all day. No one was coming in the office to see him in a suit. No one was going to be impressed by Jacob’s style. And he certainly wasn’t getting an esteem or productivity boost from wearing it. Suit or no suit, he was probably going to do a fairly average job no matter what. But what did he really know anyway? It wasn’t like they were going to listen to him.

The building Jacob worked in was in an older part of downtown. It was an old skyscraper, built before skyscrapers were really skyscrapers at all. Twenty stories or less. But it was still tall enough. It was made out of stone. It might have been limestone, but Jacob didn’t know his stones. Did they even make buildings out of limestone? He wasn’t sure. He never studied enough in school. It was the type of stone building that was used to build either a library or a government courthouse.  It looked like all the other old buildings that had been built at least a hundred years ago. Jacob didn’t know much about history, but he knew a lot of buildings like this were old and had been built because of some public works program during the Depression. That was the image in his mind anyway. He made almost no effort to research any of this or figure it out.

The staircases were incredibly small. Especially on his side of the building. They were narrow and the ceiling was low. It was like they built the building for skinny short people. Sure, people were probably shorter and skinnier in the past, but they couldn’t have been this short or skinny. It was like someone built the building to be an annoying joke. Ride an elevator that could fit four and took ten minutes to go six levels, or run the stairs and risk hitting his head every level and not being able to pass someone. These were not good choices. But staying at his cubicle desk during his mandatory breaks was an even more terrible one.

So off he went, often taking the too-small stairs.

Sometimes he left the office and instead turned left. Down this hall there was an entire set of offices that had been closed off and shut down. Downsizing or downturn in the economy or something. There had been a magazine on this floor for years, but that was before Jacob’s time. He only knew about it because coworkers talked about it. The people at the magazine had been nice enough. Their product, not so much. But the past was the past and Jacob didn’t worry too much about a defunct magazine company.

Most of the doors on this end of the building were locked, but all the halls were still open. He could look in the windows and dream about what used to take place inside. He had hopes there would be a printing press left behind. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like he was going to break in and use it. He just thought it would have been interesting to see.

The ceilings were too low over here too. There was water damage. Broken plaster. Basic old building stuff. The landlords, whoever they were, clearly weren’t too worried about upkeep.

Jacob came to this end of the building when he wanted to wander and be left alone. No one ever came over here. This side of the building was empty. Empty and alone and free from bother – that part was nice at least. The cell reception sucked, so that was a pain. There were only so many old pictures and paintings and empty offices for one to look at. It was a nice change of pace, and respite from the masses, but that was about it. It was not an everyday place to waste his breaks.

Jacob worked on in a cubicle farm – twenty low-level employees all on the phone, all able to hear one another talking, all able to police each other and make sure they others were actually working. Jacob hated that. Their side of the office was low traffic area. Small consolation.

The trafficked area of the office was around the corner, where a wall had been torn out and another office space had been annexed. It was a much better office space. They had the break room. The copiers. The supply room. The bigwigs had offices on this side. The middle management too. There was another set of stairs and another slow elevator. But it was closer to their offices, so it was one more minor advantage. And like any minor advantage at any office job, people wasted way too much effort fighting for it.

This was the side of the office to be in. The phone operatives, as always, had drawn the short end of the stick.

Their stairs were on the east side of the building. This was the side to exit on. The first floor exit on this side of the building was near the parking garage.

There was a security check as he entered or left. That was easy. What he found was coming off the elevator you could only turn left and security could instantly see you. But if you came down the stairs, the door opened in a small alcove and you were out of sight from the security desk. There was another door that opened on the opposite side of the alcove. He could exit the stairs and quickly duck through the other door and no one was any the wiser. This door led to the basement. There was a lot of machinery down there – heating and cooling, and a slew of industrial machinery that Jacob wasn’t sure what it really did. Maybe it was left over from a different era. He couldn’t even tell if it was plugged in or doing anything.  Perhaps these were the missing printing presses he had hoped to find. Not that he knew what an industrial printing press really looked like.

Jacob liked to wander here most. There weren’t many people and he got good at avoiding them. He found another stairwell and elevator bay down here too, but never bothered exploring where they led in the building. Jacob liked to come down here to sneak smokes. Especially when it was winter and he didn’t want to go outside in the cold. It was easier to smoke down here and hide the evidence.

One day, while sneaking a cigarette, he was caught by another man in a suit.

“Those things will kill you...”

Jacob turned towards the voice.

“Got an extra?” the man asked.

Jacob did.

Jacob and the man shared a silent moment. The man knew how to smoke in silence. Jacob appreciated that.

“Thanks,” Jacob accidently said.

“For what?”

Jacob laughed, realizing how this would sound.

“For shutting the fuck up and letting me smoke in peace.”

The man gave him a jesting salute.

Jacob took a good look at the man and realized just how outclassed he really was. This man knew how to dress. He was in a fine tailored suit. There were light pinstripes. The lapels were smallish, in a stylish way. The man had cufflinks on his shirt and a tie clip. All the finest. Jacob finally understood what the phrase “dress for success” really meant. This man was had poise and confidence and maybe it was all the society inflicted cliché about what a suit represented, but Jacob was ready to buy stock. He felt a little smaller for not ever wanting to put that sort of time or dedication into his own appearance.

The man began to walk away, then paused and turned back to Jacob.

“Thanks for the cigarette. I might have forgotten to say it before. I can’t recall. But thank you.”

The man was a proper gentleman. One more reason for Jacob to feel small.

“No problem man. You come down here a lot?”

“Sometimes. Today I did.”

“I’m Jacob. Jacob Harris?”

“Really? That’s a coincidence. I’m Jake. Jake Harris.”

“Really? Wow.”

“No,” the man laughed. “That was a joke. Sorry. Winston Cutter.”

“Really? That sounds like a bullshit name.”

“Maybe it is,” was all the man had to say. He didn’t offer a third. Jacob forgot to ask.

“Sweet suit.”

“Thank you. It is.”

 “You must make a lot of money – decked out like that. What do you do?”

“I like to believe I help save the world... But really it’s more like insurance.”

“Yeah, I work in mutual funds,” Jacob lied. It wasn’t a big lie; people in his office did do that, just not him.

Jacob wasn’t sure what he was trying to prove or why he wanted to impress this man, but he did. The man exuded success and Jacob wanted some. He didn’t know how else to put it. He hated his job. Hated his prospects. But this man had something, had that special something. Maybe there was something Jacob could learn. Something he could emulate. Something he could be.

Jacob rambled and told that man as much. He wanted to know the secret. He wanted any tips he could get.

“You’re fixated on a classical conundrum. Does the man make the suit or does the suit make the man?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Mark Twain – ‘the clothes make the man.’ But I like to say the man makes the clothes. Anyone can wear a suit, but will the suit transform the beggar into a master? I’d like to think I could wear anything and be just as successful. I’d like to think you think this looks good, but what you’re really impressed by is something intrinsic to me, not to the fabric I wear.”

Jacob was a little confused by this and it must have showed on his face, for the man changed subjects. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. You want to come upstairs and see what we’re about, come ask for me. I’ll show you around. You might be interested.”

“Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know your suit is for shit. Probably from one of those outlet places where you get a free one if you buy three.”

It was.

“If I believed the clothes make the man, I’d say you’re not worth the trouble. But I believe otherwise. You look to me like a man who could use an upgrade.”

He reached over and tightened Jacob’s tie for him.

“If nothing else, we could teach you how to tie a proper tie.”

With that the man turned and left.

Jacob smiled at the idea of having a future and having strangers gawk and stare at him in a suit like that. Then he realized he never really asked what floor the man worked on and hadn’t actually gotten his real name. This made Jacob smile more. A problem for another day. Maybe they’d run into each other again for another smoke. Right now Jacob filled his mind with visions of tie clips and fancy buttons.