Sometimes it's what's outside

RING THIS!!!

They say a woman can never be too rich or too thin, but can a guy wear too much or inappropriately-sized jewelry? And if he’s not from a Westernized culture, but living in the USA and making US bucks, do the rules change?

First a disclaimer, I’m not a gal who’s the least bit into gold or glitter. I may wear a band on each hand but the only bangle on my wrist is a runner’s watch and maybe a GPS (Global Positioning Device) so I can see how far I’ve (and how to get from my long) run. But enough about me, this post is about jewelry and who should wear how much in the work world.

What started all this was an exec I met in person for the very first time. We’d had a great relationship over the phone and traded more than a gig’s worth of e-mail, but when I put out my hand to shake his, there it was- Ruby, Ruby, Ruby. Red and large as Kennedy-head half-dollar, thick as a nickel’s worth of stacked pennies.

I couldn’t keep my eyes off of the thing as we exchanged, Glad to finally meet you in person(s).

Now I had a face to the name, a smile to the laugh and he had a kiwi-sized red ruby ring for the purpose of… ruling the world like some character from Lord of the Rings?

I don’t think so.

So what’s with the ring? I wanted to ask, but I bit my tongue. He spoke of some new technology called AJAX.

“It’s cleaner than Microsoft,” he chuckled and did a pantomime as if he were cleaning a window.

“But does it clean rubies?” I said, hoping he’d tell me about the ring.

“Ruby on Rails ? that’s a good one” he said, thinking I was referring to another new technology.

No the ruby on your hand, I wanted to say, but I wondered if he had dodged talking about the ring on purpose. The big red rock could have belonged to his dead mother, after all, maybe he was wearing it to feel close to her or something.

But special rings should be worn on special occasions, not to business meetings, right?

Men wear dark suits and Khaki pants to work so they don’t stand out. If anything they wear is remarkable, it’s a thin strip of cloth called a tie, and its details are subtle.

“Unless it’s a red power tie,” my second-guessing, shoulder-sitting inner devil interrupted. “Remember those?”

So this is a power ring? I wondered. A recent lecture from my boss played in my head.

If you want to know something, don’t think about asking, ask. This is an era of mandated full-monty, full disclosure.

I’m not there yet, I decided. Instead I thought about the ring as the exec went on and on… We bid our adieu’s and promised to meet again soon.

“But I can hear you so much better over the phone,” I said. He thinks I was making a joke, but I wasn’t…

I did my best to let this ring thing go until….

This afternoon, I was talking with a client about a mutual customer I’d not yet met in person.

“What’s he look like?” I asked.

“Good looking,” said my informant, “6’2”, athletic,” then she hesitated.

“And?”

“Never mind,” she said.

“Never mind what?”

“Just never mind.”

What? I wondered. Bad body odor? A comb over?

“Come on, what is it?” I demanded.

“A ring on each finger,” she said.

“Tiny bands?” I asked, fearing that rubies have become epidemic.

“Nope. Rings with rocks,” she said. “And they didn’t even match, One might have been a ruby, another a pearl, a diamond an emerald. Some in gold, others in white gold or silver.”

“No!” I screamed. “He wore all those to a job interview?”

“He did.”

“Was he professional otherwise?” I asked.

“He was,” she said. “And we do have a corporate policy that champions individual expression.”

“Of course,” I said. “Why would anyone discriminate against men who wear rings?”

“People are people,” she said.

“So when you debriefed the other people who met him, did they like him?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, we talked about the rings,” she said. “Just like you and I are right now.”

“Rings have magical powers!” my husband says when I recount this story. He speaks with the accent of the leprechaun from the Lucky Charms commercial of my childhood.

“Funny!” I say.

I walk over to the entertainment center and turn on a podcast of my favorite radio station.

Guess who’s playing? The Kaiser Chiefs.

What are they playing? Their latest hit… Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.