Business clothes and printer cartridges

I made it through both the business trip and printing my taxes without buying "new" stuff.

I went to Cartridge World and got the printer cartridge re-filled for about half the price of buying a new one. The IRS prefers that people file electronically, but most people have to pay extra to e-file. Therefore, I fill out the PDF-based forms on the IRS web-site, print them out, and send them to the IRS where they pay somebody to type the information into their computers. What a waste of paper, time and money.

I managed not to buy any new business clothes either. I noticed before the trip that the VP that I would be traveling with also uses a laptop backpack, so no need to feel self-conscious about that. We would have two days of meetings with the client so I packed the two shirts I own that I feel confident are sufficiently professional (button-down long-sleeved shirts with real collars) and one spare shirt (more causal but good enough for work). Dressing for the first day was no problem. However, in ironing my shirts I discovered that the second collared shirt had a spot on it right in the middle near the buttons. I knew from the first day of meetings that we would be meeting with some of the same people the second day and that people at the client company dress more formally than at our company. So I didn't want to wear the same shirt and the more casual shirt wouldn't be appropriate. I considered buying a new shirt for the second day. I almost justified it by thinking that having only one shirt that I can wear to meet with customers isn't going to work, so I would need to buy another one at some point anyhow. However, if I waited until I got home, I could get one at a re-sale store. If I bought a shirt on short notice I would almost certainly need to buy new. Fortunately, I also had a white cardigan sweater with me and it had been quite cold in the meeting room. I decided that I would wear the shirt with the spot with the sweater over it and I would keep the sweater buttoned. I did this with no problem.

A week later I had a local meeting with a different client. I wore the un-spotted collared shirt, but I noticed a very small spot on it, unlikely to be noticed by anybody else. I had the sweater with me, but it was too hot to wear it. The clip-on visitor badge they gave me to wear covered it up very well. Now that I'm back home I can look for some new-to-me business shirts at a re-sale store, when I find the time.