But don’t take my word for it.
During his latest stand-up tour (it’s hilarious by the way) John Cleese tells the story of the Python team heading to NZ in the late 1960‘s. Eric Idle ordered a three-egg omelette in the hotel for breakfast. He got exactly what he ordered. An omelette. With three fried eggs sitting on top of it. A three-egg omelette.
Like I say, New Zealand is a funny place.
I was in Wellington for work a few years back. I’d only recently arrived in Sydney from London and my company asked me to pop to NZ to work on a small project in their NZ office.
After London I found Sydney an incredibly laid-back and relaxed place to work. London in the 90‘s was all pin-striped suits, bright pink shirts with gold cufflinks and spotty ties. It was dreadful. The Gordon Gecko wanna-be’s spent most of their weekends hunting out the most gaudy shirt-tie-sock-cufflink combo they could find, and most of their weekdays bragging about how much it had cost them. The more awful they looked, the more expensive it was. I doubt it’s changed much over there. Your average City of London worker-bee thinks that spending a few hundred quid on pink spotty socks with a French name makes him cosmopolitan.
After London I found Sydney an incredibly laid-back and relaxed place to work. London in the 90‘s was all pin-striped suits, bright pink shirts with gold cufflinks and spotty ties. It was dreadful. The Gordon Gecko wanna-be’s spent most of their weekends hunting out the most gaudy shirt-tie-sock-cufflink combo they could find, and most of their weekdays bragging about how much it had cost them. The more awful they looked, the more expensive it was. I doubt it’s changed much over there. Your average City of London worker-bee thinks that spending a few hundred quid on pink spotty socks with a French name makes him cosmopolitan.
Sydney is far more chilled out. Some people don't even wear ties at work. When I first got here I was stunned. And relieved. Ties are, by and large, the most useless piece of clothing ever invented. Of course, that’s not strictly true. When ties were invented in about 2-billion BC they were very useful. They kept the neck of the shirt closed. But since most decent shirts these days have buttons that do that job perfectly adequately, ties are just there for show. Or to show off. Essentially they are completely pointless. They serve no purpose at all. None. God knows why people bother with them. It baffles me. Ties are a complete waste of money ... and of silk, cotton or - heaven forbid - leather.
I rocked up in Wellington under the assumption that New Zealand - being even further away from stuffy and snooty London than Sydney - would be even more laid back. I had no idea how it was remotely possible to be 'more laid back than Sydney', but I just naturally assumed that the Kiwis had managed it. I assumed that they’d created a blissful faraway land where stress was non-existent and convention and etiquette had been thrown overboard halfway across The Tasman Sea.
Never mind ties, I half-expected the locals to be wandering around the office in their dressing gowns and slippers. I hadn’t packed a single tie. Not one. Or cufflinks. Stuff that. I’d chucked a few t-shirts in my suitcase just in case the natives raised an eyebrow at me wandering around the office in my boardshorts with no shirt on. But I doubted they would care. It was New Zealand. I was a million miles from London. I was free. I could hang loose and chill. Even at work. Right?
Wrong.
New Zealand is one of the most formal places on Earth. At work I mean. They go nuts in the evenings. In the evenings they let their hair right down those Kiwis. But in the office it’s totally different. In that office they all had ties on. Even the women. Some of the men were in dinner suits. It was that formal.
When the boss saw me rock up in my open neck shirt, with no tie and with a few buttons undone, he went white. Whiter than white. He went whatever colour is found to the left of white on the pantone colour chart. I thought he was going to pass out. He couldn’t cope. I don’t think he’d ever seen a real life human-being without a tie before. Maybe he’d seen one in a book. But not in the flesh. Not showing flesh. My neck was open to the elements. My Adam’s apple was out. It was borderline pornographic.
When the boss saw me rock up in my open neck shirt, with no tie and with a few buttons undone, he went white. Whiter than white. He went whatever colour is found to the left of white on the pantone colour chart. I thought he was going to pass out. He couldn’t cope. I don’t think he’d ever seen a real life human-being without a tie before. Maybe he’d seen one in a book. But not in the flesh. Not showing flesh. My neck was open to the elements. My Adam’s apple was out. It was borderline pornographic.
I was rather relieved that I wasn’t in my slippers. He’d have spontaneously combusted.
The poor chap was flummoxed. Stumped. He ushered me into a meeting room for ‘a chat’, out of sight of the other workers. Although I noticed that they were peeking over the partitions to get a look at me and my lack of tie. It was clear that they thought I’d wandered in off the street. Looking for food probably. I wasn’t in a tie. I couldn’t afford one. I probably couldn’t afford food either. The mood in the office had transformed in an instant from ‘efficient formailty’ to ‘overwhelming pity’. And I could senses that it was well on its way to ‘unbridled anger’ if I didn’t cover up quick. And put a tie on.
In the meeting room with Mr On-the-verge-of-a-meltdown it was suggested that I pop back to my hotel so that I could dress more appropriately. A tie, it turned out, was essential for an average Wellington work-day. Essential. I would quite simply not be able to push the requisite amount of paper around my desk for the requisite amount of time if I wasn’t wearing a tie. Tie-less I would be rendered completely useless.
I told him that I didn’t have a tie with me. He clearly thought I said that I’d just eaten 3 small babies for breakfast. He had that I’m-sitting-opposite-someone-who-eats-small-babies-for-breakfast look.
You know a place is a bit odd when you're sitting in a temporary office tapping away on a computer and you catch your reflection in the screen of the computer. And you're wearing someone else's tie.
He’d asked around the office. He had to. The choice was simple, and stark; let someone work alone in a temporary office for a day without a tie ... or ... email the entire office and ask if anyone has a spare tie with them that they could lend to the bloke from across The Tasman who’d rocked up virtually naked.
I waited in the meeting room as the email was sent and as donors arrived. With ties. In the end I had plenty of ties to choose from. Most people had a spare one with them. Or a spare two. Just in case they lost theirs at lunchtime I suppose. I suspect that losing a tie at lunchtime is classed as a complete catastrophe in Wellington.
In New Zealand losing a tie is more serious than losing your virginity. Or your marbles.
The relief was palpable. You could sense it, touch it, taste it. Equilibrium was restored to the office as soon as I tied my tie with a double sheep shank knot, or whatever. Only when it was tied and my top button was done-up was I allowed out of the meeting room.
That was just my first day on the far side of The Tasman.
On my second day I almost died. Almost.
But that's for next week.
Hope you have a great Easter long-weekend.
Pip pip
I waited in the meeting room as the email was sent and as donors arrived. With ties. In the end I had plenty of ties to choose from. Most people had a spare one with them. Or a spare two. Just in case they lost theirs at lunchtime I suppose. I suspect that losing a tie at lunchtime is classed as a complete catastrophe in Wellington.
In New Zealand losing a tie is more serious than losing your virginity. Or your marbles.
The relief was palpable. You could sense it, touch it, taste it. Equilibrium was restored to the office as soon as I tied my tie with a double sheep shank knot, or whatever. Only when it was tied and my top button was done-up was I allowed out of the meeting room.
That was just my first day on the far side of The Tasman.
On my second day I almost died. Almost.
But that's for next week.
Hope you have a great Easter long-weekend.
Pip pip
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