I do hope that people at work don't read my blog ... if they do then they'll know some of my secrets! So this one is being put out there so everyone can benefit from it and maybe you can do it too!
When you have to dress in business clothing there's a whole process that is involved, as some of you know. The big thing is ironing the clothes - the pants and especially the shirts. This is mostly for the guys but I think the girls might be able to find this useful as well. There comes a time in people's professional lives that you just can't and don't want to sit there for hours ironing dress shirts that you just got out of the laundry. Sure you can take them straight out of the dryer and hang them, but they aren't crisp and they don't have those iron lines on the sleeves and or legs of the pants.
Dry cleaning you say? I've been down that road before and although it's a good place to take your dress clothes to be cleaned and ironed, it often gets pricey at about $2.50 a shirt. So if you buy a $50 shirt and wear it a lot, then you're going to end up paying more for the cleaning and ironing of that shirt in the long run than the actual purchase price. I know a lot of us aren't that loaded (but I soon will be thanks to Monica!) so we have to find other means.
There have been days where I would have sweatshop type labor since I needed my clothes ironed. I would pay my niece and/or nephew $20 for all my shirts, there was a good amount of shirts so it was cheaper than the dry cleaning. The problem with that was they would constantly complain that there were too many shirts, or they didn't get the wrinkles out.
The following rational isn't going to make sense to some people but it did to me at the time I was doing it. Instead of washing my dress shirts and ironing them, I would just buy new ones and use those for about a week, then they would go into the pile of clothes that need to be washed and ironed. This only went on for a few weeks as I started to run out of money, and ended up with way more dress shirts than I needed.
So the solution to all of this madness is quite easy. It's not sitting down on a Sunday aftenoon and ironing all your work clothes, noooo that's the hard way out! Quite possibly the best solution, but also the hardest. Well for me it takes me about 5-10 minutes a shirt as I try to get it nice and clean with the iron and the lines on the sleeves, so it takes a while!
Now the results will vary, but it's better when you have the white button down shirts instead of the colored ones. The reason being is that the colored shirts are remembered moreso than the white ones, and the one shirts have more combinations that can be made. What combinations is he talking about?
Monday comes and you only have one shirt ironed, luckily it's a white button down shirt that you happened to iron and is clean. Nice and fresh, so you go into work wearing that and black slacks ... see the pants are not as important because people don't look at your pants as much as they do with the shirt.
Tuesday shows it's ugly head and you find that no shirts are fresh and clean anymore! You see that white shirt you wore yesterday, but do you dare wear it again? Yes you do, but this time you add a nice tie to the mix! Ahhhh brand new outfit, the white shirt loses focus as it's a common fact that guys have more white shirts than other shirts, so it could just be another white shirt and not the white shirt you wore yesterday.
Halfway there, Wednesday is here. So now you have the option of keeping the shirt and just changing the tie color, or you can go a little further. In the colder months, you can add a sweater on top of the white shirt to, again bring out a brand new outfit.
Thursday comes and there is that white shirt sitting there, make sure there aren't any food stains or odors coming from the shirt, if there is ... then you have to ditch this plan and actually iron another shirt. But if you're still alright and the shirt looks clean, then add a simple sweater vest to it to jazz it up. No one will be the wiser and no one will notice that it's the same white shirt since Monday. Guaranteed!
Friday, almost home free! Put that clean looking white shirt on one more time, don't put a tie on, don't put a sweater on or a vest even, we're going to go a step up and add a nice suit jacket to the onsamble! If you want to make the best impression, add a different colored tie too. See now the white shirt again is forgotten and the only thing people can focus on is you're wearing a suit on a Friday! Wow you must be a real good employee when you're wearing a suit (and possibly a tie) to the last workday of the week. Either that or you must be meeting with someone important or you yourself are very important!
You see what we just did here, we were able to pull of wearing the same white button down shirt for a five day work week without having to iron. It's just like a magician, you need to direct the attention away from the meat of he trick. So divert the attention away from the white shirt with the sweaters, the ties, the vest and the suit jacket. Remember the key thing is to keep the shirt stain and odor free, that's the key. If there is a stain, it will easily be remembered ... "hey Bob, didn't you stop that slice of pizza on yourself yesterday? That stain looks like it's in the same spot" ... bam your cover is blown!
There you have it, if you can pull this off, come Friday when you're heading home, you'll feel this sense of accomplishment, just make sure that you wash that shirt well during laundry day because going more than one week will not be good. It will take David Cooperfield to pull that off and I don't think we're even close to that level. Don't get overconfident, that's what causes the downfall of most people trying this.
+ mon
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 at 6:31PM 