'...One kind of weird thing, and this is not just with tailors. I feel awkwardly self-conscious around service people of any description (house-cleaners, pool-service people, tradesmen etc.), and the closer the service to my actual person the more acutely I feel this sensation. Does anybody else get that? I think it's a high-prole reaction to the uncomfortable sensation of implied (and frankly unmerited) superiority on the part of the customer which chafes my egalitarian instincts. I sort of assume that upper-middle and upper class and people are just used to directing "the help" and take no notice of the relationship which makes me so distinctly uncomfortable. Worse, being conscious of my discomfort makes me feel even more ridiculous -- it's just very embarrassing...'
eg, I know exactly how you feel, when I'm staying in a hotel for example I'll make the beds before I leave for the day, in a restaurant I'll pick the plates up stack them and pass them to the waiter/waitress...
Last edited by formby (2008-05-02 03:47:12)
^ Of course, those who are so pompous as to use servants are blithely unaware of the sneer that comes with the bowing and scarping of the servants. "Does your lordship require...?" is said not always with respect. I find the best way to take the puff out of pompous people, is to start being excruciatingly polite and subservient to them. They always get the point.
When your tailor is immersed in making other clients' suits and you need a suit made at the last minute, if he can't comply with your imperious demands, do not hurl obscenities at him lest he toss your cloth to an English tailor who cannot make even pronounce spalla camicia.
Don't insult your tailor's wife by belittling her as merely an office manager selling pricey Italian bespoke shirts.
When your intimidating tailor botches your suit, do not ask other tailors to fix it simply because you're afraid to take the suit back to the original tailor.