“Wearing a football shirt makes you more a businessman than wearing a shirt and tie. At least the football shirt isn’t fake.”
Whether this is a rant or an inspiration make up your own mind. It’s Sunday and it’s come at the end of another week full of business for me. It’s been a busy week as a businessman you know. Meetings, client calls, e-mails, copywriting, drafting documents, Word, Excel, phone calls, setting up new websites. I’ve done all that this week. But there is something that annoys me about the modern day business person: Image.
Business meetings in football shirts
Image is a load of bollocks. It’s a brace of balls in a bag. Business is not about image, business is not about “dress to impress”. Business all boils down to individual people and their minds. Decisions are made in our minds, not in a fucking clothes shop. I turn up to business meetings in a Glentoran FC football shirt because I’m not going to be a fake. I’m not going to put a shirt and tie on to look good to others. A Glentoran shirt looks better and it’s real. It’s really me.
Wearing a shirt and tie while working for Internations in Hong Kong
One thing about working in London all those moons ago was that I over dressed. I’d wear a shirt and tie to events, I’d even bought a comb at one point to comb my hair. Things must have got really crazy when I splashed out on a jar of cheap aftershave to impress a client. Again, it’s all excrement from a cow farm, believe me.
The only thing that matters in the business world is decisions made in people’s minds. The brain is mightier than the flashy shirt and tie. When I taught English in Hong Kong, went to business meetings in London and worked at Internations in Hong Kong, I wore a shirt and tie. But I was being fake. I’d rather have had a football shirt on, and my brain works the same whatever I’m wearing.
At a Northern Ireland match in Manchester, England.
For those that meet me in real life, down the pub, in the hostel, at the stadium etc. you might see me wearing a football shirt. Why? Is it for image? Is it to make me look better to others? Is it for me to look down on those who wish they could wear a football shirt?
Wearing my Northern Ireland shirt in Trieste, Italy
No, it’s because I’m a real person. I really love football and I support three teams – AFC Bournemouth, Glentoran FC and Northern Ireland (my country). I don’t give a flying fuck about image. None whatsoever madam – I’m wearing these for myself and my love of football.
When the Northern Irish backpacker met the Northern Ireland football manager in Adana, Turkey
And also – if a person wearing a shirt and tie tells me they are a backpacker, then they are a backpacker. There is no style of fashion of clothing associated with backpacking, corporate business, banking. People and people and we are judged on our minds and our personality and interaction with others – we are not judged by clothing. We can wear what we want but just because some halfwit is wearing a shirt and tie and I’m wearing a football shirt, doesn’t make them any better or worse than me. We are all the same. We are business people.
“Wear jeans to weddings”
Wearing my AFC Bournemouth shirt in Ladonia
Too right Jonny. Fashion stinks! I’m a Metalhead but my genre always makes a statement when it comes to fashion. Just wear a black band shirt and you’re in.
I once wore a Crimson Glory shirt when I was visiting a MILF friend of mine in Sydney and it just made an impact on my clothing. Every time I see someone wearing a Crimson Glory shirt I tell em that I use that shirt for MILF Hunting.
I’d rather put on a Metal band shirt on tour than business shirts. Although there are some nations that I make myself wear Business shirts and Iran was one of them. I even had to post back to Australian my Heavy Metal Vest cause I feared it would get confiscated at the Iranian border. How wrong was I!
But there are some Middle Eastern nations where Metalheads have been busted just for wearing a band shirt.
Hi Martin, Thanks for the comment, totally with you mate!! You rock with your heavy metal shirts and I’ll keep rocking the football shirts! Safe travels. Jonny