Coping Test

Thursday night was BritishAmerican Business’ Transatlantic Business Awards Dinner. An annual event at the Pierre Hotel in New York’s Upper East Side, where tables go for over 25, even 50,000 dollars; high powered businessmen drink wine and scotch, eat well, and watch four honourees accept awards for their contribution to international business relations. The whole thing is fucking swish: black tie, precision planning and the utmost professional conduct throughout. How exciting! It’s the biggest event in the BritishAmerican Business events calendar. Forewarned by my colleagues that - having never been to a black tie event of this calibre before - I would be enthralled by the precision and class of the night, I decided to use the evening as a benchmark. Perhaps being surrounded by bravado and success would finally spark my latent passion for business.

Metaphorical litmus paper having been dipped in the acid of a world class business awards dinner, I can now officially declare the evening thoroughly vom-tastic. The whole thing made me literally sick. From leaving the office at 4pm to leaving the Pierre at around 11pm, I had a slightly pukey sensation at the back of my throat. While I sat infront of my $5000 dinner, listening to some of the most powerful men in the business and financial sector making blasé comments about the state of the euro-zone, having a casual chuckle at the expense of starving Greeks, my gag reflex threatened to completely give in. In fact I would have loved nothing more than to have personally thrown up on the expensive tux of every attendee.

Getting driven from the office was very strange. Speeding down 5^th avenue in a black town car with leather seats, the driver apologizing for the state of the traffic, felt surreal.  In the end I had to close the scenario for the night (which I had had open on my knee, memorising the names and faces of the guests of honour), and get out my notebook instead. The only words I had time to scribble down before we turned on to 61^st were ‘So I quit. I don’t feel snazzy’.

My sense of unease increased when I stopped at the Pierre, and had the door opened for me by the hotel doorman, and shut behind me by my driver. Intentionally swinging my crinkled h&m plastic bag by my side for all to see, and feeling slightly rebellious, I walked inside.

I wasn’t hit by an aura of money and class when I walked in. My first reaction to the building was how antiquated it seemed. Attempts had been made to bring the tiled entrance hall and old chandeliers up to date with some abstract art on the walls, and a large wooden carving in the lobby, which I’m fairly sure was of Vishnu. I’d apologise for my potential inaccuracy, but I doubt it was positioned there with worship in mind, and I’m sure the person who bought it didn’t have much preference as to which oriental god greeted their guests, so I feel unlikely to have offended them by not being 100% sure. Given its setting, rather than looking trendy or up to date it looked, frankly, colonial.

Preparation for the night began after a quick ‘touch up’ in the ‘powder room’. I don’t think I’d ever heard anyone use that phrase without a hint of sarcasm before in my life. Everyone else seemed to know what they were doing. I slapped on some mascara, more to fit in than out of actual want, and then had nothing else to do really, so sat in the corner and watched everyone else put their faces on. Had a sandwich too. Ham. It was good. The time then came to set up the registration desks, and circle round the ballroom to make sure all the programmes were laid straight on the chairs and to straighten up after the catering staff, as apparently they can sometimes be ‘slapdash’. I got chatting to an old Spanish waiter during the sound check (‘It’s like being in the movies, no? I don’t feel like I’m at work, I feel like I’m in the theatre!’) Positive as the old guy was, rather than make me feel happy and jovial about my surroundings he just reminded me that he was being paid to be there. That sounds very very very ungrateful. And it probably is. I tried to stifle these thoughts, but being completely truthful, that was my gut reaction. His use of the word ‘movies’ and ‘theatre’ in a comical foreign accent, while wearing a white, Manuel-style waiters jacket again made the high-ceilinged ballroom, complete with columns and red curtains, feel intensely old fashioned. I wondered how long he had worked there. And whether his father or his grandfather had come to the States, from Puerto Rico, or Mexico, or Dominica. References to the euro-zone and the economic crisis aside, the whole night could just as easily have happened 60 or 90 years ago. Despite not feeling that the awards were much to be proud of, I was still irked that no women were being honoured at all.

In fact, greeting guests, I noticed very few women entered the reception at all without a male chaperone. I noticed a lot of things which I found very strange actually, for example, about half an hour after registration opened, a woman asked me if I knew of a discreet place she could change her shoes. I was flummoxed. There was a chair right behind her. She had tights on. How much discretion was needed? In fairness, she didn’t realise she was asking someone with what I must assume are lower standards than most for such proceedings. Leaving Reading Festival early one year with two split wellies, I found it necessary to sit down in the edge of the concourse at St Pancras International, get out my shoes, dry socks and baby wipes from my rucksack, and clean and dry my muddy feet before getting on the train home. I still maintain such action was preferable to squelching the length of the world’s longest champagne bar. I directed her to the restroom with the look of a confused child who’s just been asked the square root of pi.

I probably found the whole evening more absurd than it actually was, because I was thinking so hard about how to fit in, analysing and trying to identify accepted behavior with almost autistic precision. I wasn’t sure the British Ambassador, or the chairman of Standard Chartered would appreciate being welcomed to their awards dinner by a smirky girl who drops her t’s, so I tried my very best to be a refined and well-spoken New Yorker. I’m not certain how well this went. I will admit that I’m not the most comfortable of people in any sophisticated situation. I’m the one who feels uncomfortable being waited on in Pizza Hut. (‘No no, don’t worry about rectifying my order, that’s an extra walk for you … Well no I can’t drink the apple juice, but I’ll just drink from the water jug … well if you’re absolutely sure…’). No matter where I am in it, I never deal well with hierarchy. Which is why I warmed instantly to the guest in the red bow-tie who chatted openly to me and high-fived his wife when she pronounced my name right. It’s a pity he’s probably one of the men responsible in the current breakdown of the western economy. 

I’m conscious of appearing (as JP puts it in the new series of Fresh Meat) as a ‘money racist’. I mean, I was brought up knowing Margaret Thatcher to be an evil woman before I even knew who she was, and I do find it hard to put down an Irvine Welsh novel... As a Brit, I’m preoccupied with class, right? But class and money are not inextricably linked. I don’t begrudge these men their hard-earned millions. I begrudge the extra tens and hundreds of millions they made after that, by exploiting their political leverage and crippling the banking system. I begrudge their continued flippancy towards the downturn they’ve created, and their steadfast claims that it takes ‘courage’ (rather than a blind sense of entitlement) to uphold the values they extol in this current climate. When I booked my plane tickets home for Christmas, I was faced with a big banner from Virgin Atlantic: ‘Did you know you’ve just paid the highest air-tax in the world, to the British government? Make a difference, sign our petition today.’ This was news to me, and the knowledge didn’t make me feel robbed. It gave me a warm feeling of patriotism. Don’t give in to the bigwigs, Dave. If I can afford it, they can.