Last year, I proudly picked out a nice sweater to wear for St. Patrick’s Day. Normally my wardrobe selection involves grabbing whatever is relatively clean and relatively close as a rush about in the morning, so my proactive move of selecting a outfit the night before was unprecedented and admirable. Upon arrival at the office, I was quite pleased to see that others had gotten in the spirit and were decked out in every shade of green, forest, lime, mint, asparagus and emerald. As I happily exclaimed “Yay! We’re all wearing green!”, a co-worker looked at me sadly and said sympathetically “Oh, MGL… you’re not.”
“Whaddya mean?!” I protested, pointing to my carefully chosen frock. “This is my green sweater!”. A small crowd gathered, and heads appeared likeWhac-a-Moles from office doors. I heard hushed comments and subdued snickers.
“No, it’s not,” my colourful co-worker replied, trying to be discreet as though she was telling me that I had left my pants at home. “Your sweater is brown…” I stammered and looked around as snickers rolled into robust laughter. Thankfully, the brown sweater that stuck out like a dog turd in the fresh green grass was soon dwarfed by the bright red of my face. I skulked back into my office to drown my pain in an early morning green beer.
For the 5-8% of men afflicted by colour blindness, holidays like Paddy’s Day are a nightmare. While others frolic and play like leprechauns, we cautiously tiptoe our way through social situations hoping that we haven’t made a fashionfaux pas, pretending that we notice that the beer and cupcakes are now green instead of whatever colour they normally are. And the awkwardness doesn’t end on March 18th, either- a plethora of other holidays are intertwined with the colours we can’t see, whether it’s red for Valentine’s Day, the red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, orange and black for Halloween, red and green for Christmas, or blue and white for Hanukkah, not to mention the all important green forEid-al-Fitr.
For my chromatically challenged peeps, don’t despair! I offer you hope and promise for a better tomorrow. Coping with poor colour recognition skills in a rainbow world isn’t easy, but these tips can help you make it through:
- Buy the mannequin - Those ensembles on store displays were put together with care and attention to detail, so you know that the outfit matches and looks good. If you see a display that you like, buy the whole thing and keep the items together.
- Label your clothes - When you find items that you know match (or, at the very least, don’t clash) label and tag your clothes so you know what items can work together and what ones can’t. It might take a bit of time up front and you’ll almost certainly need to enlist some help from a friend (see #3), but it will help keep you looking good and embarrassment-free.
- Keep it simple - Offices tend to be cesspools of colour-based organizational systems. TPS reports go in blue folders, service requests are to be written in red ink, and all letterhead should be ivory with burnt sienna text.Screw it- those are their rules, not yours. Stick to those colours that you can identify, or use text labels rather than colours to help you organize. If your boss criticizes your approach, remind him that it’s a disability and muse about how you plan to spend the huge cash settlement you’ll get if he doesn’t reasonablyaccommodate you.
- Get trusted advice - Find someone you trust and rely on their judgments and edicts with respect to colours. This may be a friend, your wife, or even a wardrobe consultant. For me, my wife fills this role nicely, but I’ve also got some peeps at work who know my predicament and will let me know if I’m about to go into a client meeting wearing hot pink socks.
- Don’t set yourself up for failure - Actually, maybe those hot pink socks shouldn’t be in my sock pile at all. Avoid items that you know are going to be difficult to match or cause you trouble. For me, this meant throwing out the lovely purple pens that my wife keeps around the house, although only after unknowingly signing numerous important documents (including my Bar Admission forms) in purple ink. There’s no shame in admitting a weakness- Superman hadKryptonite , the Death Star had that thermal exhaust port, and I’ve got magenta.The secret is recognizing it and taking steps to reduce the likelihood of things going terribly wrong.
A happy and colourful St. Patrick’s Day to each and every one of you!
Photo by Diamondduste
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Those of us who aren’t colour blind tend not to think of these things- I’m glad I don’t tend to make fun of people wearing one black sock and one navy sock!
Now, if you can explain to me how so many people can be PATTERN blind, that will be a BIG help!
Once I took a law school summer course taught by Judge Casey from New York, who I believe is the first blind federal judge. The saying “justice is blind” was an obvious one.
But who knew justice might be just color-blind instead?
It’s too bad it isn’t the 70’s still, where bad colour choices and untrimmed body hair was all the rage.
info on ‘Color Blindness’ here - Colour Blindness