Dress to Impress

Women go crazy for a sharp dressed man

So in my previous post I mentioned that I had been job interviewing lately. This last Wednesday one of my prospective employers and ask me for my salary requirements. I hate this situation quite frankly. I don’t want to undersell myself, but I also don’t want to spout off some ridiculously big number that’s going to totally turn them off. Put on the spot I gave them a number that was a little bit less than my absolute bottom dollar. They said it was a realistic number and said they would be back in touch later that night or the next day. I figured the one saving grace in this situation is given that the hotel is part of a major management company brand, their corporate HR wouldn’t let them pay me less than what their Standard Operating Procedures say is the “minimum” for the position.

It has to be an important phone call to pull me away from lobster!

Wednesday crawls by for me as I rehash the 45 second conversation over and over again. My wife and I meet up and drive to dinner with her parents to celebrate her mother’s birthday. Shortly after we arrive (late) my beautiful new Droid RAZR starts to vibrate and the sound of the TARDIS coming in for a landing starts to warble from my phone. I whip my phone out at the table and seeing the caller ID know instantly that it’s my prospective employer. I slide my finger across the screen to answer it and nothing happens. The touch screen has frozen! I start to stab my finger at the screen trying to get a response and verbally threaten to throw the damn thing against the wall as the call continues to ring and finally goes to voicemail. By this time I have committed to restarting the phone and as it reboots I excuse myself from the table to go listen to the message and hopefully return the call.

Maybe I should start wearing bow ties. One out of 11 Doctors say that bow ties are cool.

The call was everything I hoped for and more. I had trouble not bursting into giddy laughter when she told me the salary, because it was substantially more than what I asked for. I officially accepted the position on the spot, and happily so. I knew that the other property I had been interviewing with wouldn’t be able to beat the number, because of their size and location. So she spelled out the “offer” for me over the phone while I did a quiet little happy dance outside the Red Lobster.

Finished with the call, I strode back into the restaurant. As I rounded the corner to my family’s table I put on a mock “defeated” look on my face and slumped my shoulders. Just to fake them out. I didn’t let the charade last long and the dinner turned from a pure birthday party to a partial celebration of my new position.

Today my dear wife and I went clothes shopping. My current property is a big resort, and fairly informal in dress code. All the managers where khaki slacks and polo t-shirts. This just won’t fly at my new employer. I had two suits already hanging in my closet, which I had worn on my two interviews, but I’m going to be wearing a suit every day to work now, and I don’t get supplied with a uniform. And my selection of ties and dress shirts was also woefully inadequate. My wife and I share a philosophy that you don’t dress for the job you have, you dress for the next job you want. We put that philosophy to work on this particular trip. This was an investment in our future.

You'll like the way you look. You really will!

Thankfully the Men’s Warehouse was having one of their big sales. Went I bought my last two suits it was “Buy One get one 50% off” this time it was “Buy One get One Free”! It was quite the experience, but it’s fun clothe shopping when you’re buying nice stuff, have the money, and you have someone walking you through the whole process. My wife quite enjoys the sight of me in a suit, so despite the final price tag on the excursion, she thoroughly enjoyed herself. She’s also quite looking forward to the prospect of me wearing a suit to work every day.

In the immediate future we’ll need to move. The commute from where we live is just unmanageable for more than a month or so. Even with the strategic use of mass transit, it’ll be horrendous really. However, we were already thinking about moving as we’ve completely outgrown our old place. This new job just changes where we’re looking, and makes it a bit more pressing.

My new hotel besides being fancier, is more than 10 times bigger than my current employer, it’s part of a massive management company. The salary reflects that, my staff is growing tremendously, it’ll be very challenging and exciting. It’ll finally make it worth going off and getting a BS in Hotel Management! And put me on the right track to further advancements. And considering about 3 months every year I’ll be the graveyard manager on duty and this hotel is in a major metropolitan downtown, it should give me plenty of blogging material. So long as I remain discreet.