Blessed Be The TIES That Bind

Ahh, the perils of leadership and semi-public exposure.
I attended my mandatory ethics training session yesterday afternoon and noted, with some pleasure, that the format for the session has been changed from years past. The old written ethics case studies and follow-up questions have been replaced by a slickly-produced DVD featuring actors portraying the case studies with no little bit of panache and overacting. This is a welcome change and all well and good, but the DVD was introduced by two very senior corporate officials, both of whom committed what I consider to be a cardinal sin of pre-recorded presentations: they ignored proper dress code.
Said officials addressed the cameras from the refuge of mahogany-lined offices, dressed in fine silk pinstriped suits, every hair on their heads immaculately combed and placed. After all, these ethics introduction missives were intended to be viewed by every employee of the Corporation, world-wide. Everything was in place, with one hugely glaring omission: both officials’ ties were tied with only Half-Windsor knots. Not only that, but they were poorly-tied Half-Windsors, with the knots cocking the tails of the ties into offsets of 20-30° off-vertical. It might seem like a very simple thing, but it was darned distracting for yours’ truly. Here were two highly-trained, highly-paid corporate executives putting on a display for the entire company and they couldn’t be bothered to tie a proper tie knot. Both of their suit jackets were buttoned, meaning that the length concerns introduced by a Full Windsor were immaterial. It just smacked of unprofessionalism, of Bush leagueism, if that’s even a word (if it’s a novel coinage, you must credit me. *grin*).
I don’t know – maybe I’m weird, but that sort of stuff really bothers me.