Everything I Know, I Learned From a Man in a Waistcoat

As the longest-serving employee of a geriatric theater publisher, librarian/archivist Malcolm Henkel guarded his trove of play scripts, cassette tapes and performance memorabilia like a bearded Sybil in an Angela Lansbury t-shirt. On his electric typewriter he tapped out orders for rare programs and signed posters, which he dispatched – by fax – to an auction house in Paris. He spent patient hours in phone queues for returns at the Donmar, the coil of receiver wire wrapped round an elegant little finger. Lunch acquired artform status under Malcolm’s watch, and he was seldom to be located in the office or its vicinity between the hours of midday and two-thirty.

Despite his reservoir of knowledge, Malcolm’s best life advice was imparted not verbally but by example. The rewards for following such example were clear: You, too, can make your hobby into your work. You, too, can incorporate a discretionary forward-slash into your job title. And you, too, can be paid to indulge a near-maniacal hoarding compulsion.

Here’s what I learned from Malcolm:

1.) Waistcoats will be worn.

They will also be assertive in hue, labyrinthine in pattern and several in number.

2.) Denim cut-offs are workplace-appropriate.

Unless you are ruled by the type of regressive management that considers playful commentary sufficient preamble to an outright ban, meaning April’s approach no longer heralds the promise of septuagenarian thigh-glimpse, but only the usual tax returns and rain.

3.) Five decades before it was a song by The Clash, “London Calling” was the title of a Noel Coward musical.

And as the subject line for an internal e-newsletter, it lacks both wit and originality.

4.) An all-over body tan, and the precise manner by which it was acquired, should preclude a gentleman from sharing his holiday snaps of Sharm el-Sheikh.

5.) Well-thought-out facial hair is worth a thousand words.

Including “kindly psychoanalyst,” “distracted academic” and “rehearsing Chekhov.”

6.) There will always be someone who knows how to replace the toner cartridge.

So back away, look sideways, and whistle.

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Image via GQ.