If my contacts haven't often helped me in my writing career, they have all done a great deal to help me make money. While I lament that these two things seem to be forever sundered I am grateful for the opportunities that I have had. Case in point: industry awards valet.
Last September A friend of mine found out from someone at her internship that some random college student was looking for people to do valet at the Emmys. My friend sent this person’s email address to me and I was able to get on the list of drivers. All I needed to provide was my driver’s license number, and then I just needed to show up on time and in uniform. I even owned up to the fact that I was not comfortable driving a stick shift, but the random college student in charge of these things told me that my limited skills would not keep me from performing the job.
I have no idea if they checked my driving record. They didn’t seem to mind that I could only drive half the cars that needed to be parked. But Jiminy Crickets they were concerned about socks.
The uniform for drivers hired by this particular valet company, and I would guess many others, is a white button-down shirt with long sleeves (no three-quarter sleeves), black slacks (no black jeans), entirely black shoes, and black socks. Evidently, you can only ask people to pay attention to three components of their outfit. Requiring more than that will inevitably lead to incidents of dress code violation, and in this case, the first thing to go is the socks.
I arrived at the Nokia Center exactly at 1pm, as requested. There, dozens of other drivers and I were given black polyester vests and matching ties. When everyone had on his or her ill-fitting valet accoutrements, the Boss of the Outfit (not the random college student, who still had not presented herself) gathered us all around him and started lecturing us on socks.
He explained that white socks would show up while we were running, which would look terrible and embarrass the company. I tried to imagine a scenario in which I would run in this garage, and could only surmise that running would be required after I crashed someone’s Porsche so terribly that I would need to flee on foot. I panicked at this thought, but supposed that the guests would not be allowed to bring their weapons into the event. Therefore, the angry owner of the Porche would have to retrieve his gun from the flaming vehicle before shooting me, allowing me to get away unscathed. Unless the Boss of the Outfit, who did not have to pass through any security screens, had a gun on him right now and felt that death by shooting was an appropriate punishment for such transgressions. Which I thought might be possible, because he was now lining everyone up and demanding to see their socks.
Luckily, I had noted all the details of the dress code and could proudly pull up my slacks and display black socks. But not all of the valet drivers could boast such a claim. And there is nothing funnier than watching a grown man trying to hide his white gym socks from the watchful eye of the Boss of the Outfit. A couple guys tried to hide in the line, but they were called out, their ankles inspected. A couple others tried to lazily pull up their pants legs just a little, and so quickly, that the luminosity of their white socks might be overlooked. But no such luck. The Boss of the Outfit cannot be duped. More than one poor driver was sent home for not being properly dressed.
Take note, friends. If the job requires black socks, you’d better get yourself a pair.
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