Tying a Half-Windsor

I was sitting in my Prius in the parking lot of the bank I worked for in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. It was late November in 2010 and not cold enough yet to snow: the dark clouds stretching across the sky that afternoon spat down cold, choppy droplets of rain. I was talking on the phone to Jason, one of my oldest friends. He was asking me about how my job at the bank had been going.

“It’s been really good. The people are really nice and I have been learning so much about banking and lending. I can’t believe how interesting it is and how much I enjoy it. I have an interview coming up for another promotion–it is scheduled for a week from today.”

“That’s great!” Jason replied. “You are going to be fabulous. They are fools if they don’t pick you.”

We continued to talk a while and Jason noticed a sad inflection in my voice. I finally admitted while I was very excited about the opportunities I had been given at work, I was struggling and very stressed by one facet of the job: the professional dress and presentation which was required of me working in the financial services industry.

“I didn’t know how to tie a tie before this job: I have been teaching myself via Google. And I am still getting the hang of shaving. And I don’t know what the hell to do with my hair. It sounds stupid, but it is so stressful trying to figure out how I am supposed to look. I can’t walk into this interview looking like an awkward teenager.” I vented.

“Well, can’t you just watch a YouTube video or something? I mean, you are not the first person to transition,” Jason replied.

I was stunned by this response and how it made me feel. I remember looking at the wet leaves on the birch trees in the small patch of forest near the parking lot, trying to think of something to say.

Two years after I transitioned genders, I had transitioned careers, concluding eight years of coffee shop management and starting my new professional life in the financial services industry. I was looking into my future and I could not see how my life in retail would change much from its current state: manual labor, long hours, always working weekends and holidays, coming in when someone else called out. A former employee of mine had gone to work at a bank’s operations center just down the road from the coffee shop I was managing at the time. When she came in to say hello one day, I asked her how the new job was. I was surprised to observe her excitement and positivity about working at the bank. Several months later, when I was at the end of my retail rope, I decided to take a chance and submit my resume to the same bank. About one month later, I was hired.

There were many challenges I anticipated about this change: I was new to financial services, I was new to this organization, and I was still relatively new to New Jersey. I took a substantial pay cut to start at the bank because I knew there were a lot more opportunities for me to advance in a number of different directions. My then-husband was still early in the process of recovering from his spinal surgery and was not working. He had been against my decision to change jobs, but I decided to listen to my gut and do it anyway. I had taken a gamble and it had to pay off. I was determined to succeed and overcome any obstacle.

Early on, I discovered many of the skills I had developed in retail transitioned easily to my new job of answering phones for the Bank: it was a fast paced environment where you had to think on your feet, just like working a rush at a busy espresso bar. I was good at calming down belligerent customers–another talent I had honed by working long lines of uncaffeinated future TV/movie stars in Los Angeles cafes. I discovered how much I enjoyed learning about processes and regulations as I completed my initial training and then began in my free time at work to read everything I could find about bank operations and the regulatory rules that guided many of those operations.

Like I was trying to explain to Jason, the biggest challenge of my new career, the challenge I had not at all anticipated, was dressing and looking professional. Dressing as a coffee shop manager is a relatively genderless affair: you usually want to be wearing pants that don’t stain or that you don’t care about staining and a comfortable shirt. When I transitioned at work as a coffee shop manager, what I wore didn’t change at all. My hair was under a hat most of the time and shaving was only required in as much as you didn’t want to have enough facial hair to need to wear a beard net. And there was certainly no occasion to wear a suit or tie.

The interview process itself I felt fairly confident about. I had gained invaluable training about interviewing by hanging around with Jason when we lived together in LA. A friend of ours, a very accomplished professional, spent a few evenings giving Jason interview training and tips as Jason prepared to interview with a large multinational company. I initially came to attend these training sessions because I had nothing else to do: I would sit and listen, drinking beer as I watched Jason rehearse and prepare for his upcoming interviews. I was happy working in coffee at the time and was not thinking at all about my own professional path. But the next time I prepared to be interviewed when I left LA for Arizona a few years later, I immediately thought back to those training sessions and the advice our friend had given Jason. I hadn’t realized I had taken away so much from advice that wasn’t directed at me.

I could deal with not getting a promotion because there was someone who was better qualified or someone who interviewed better than me. But I did not want to miss out on a promotion because I couldn’t dress the part. I was 29 years old. In the short span of years since my transition, I had tried to pick up everything I could from the men I knew, like my brother and my father-in-law, about how to navigate the sartorial demands of my new profession. Most men, including my friend Jason, had years to deal with the transition to manhood. In these years, they were allotted time to look awkward and young.

I realize now I should have been furious at Jason’s glib response. As one of my oldest friends, I should have had the confidence to tell him what he said was hurtful and also not helpful. But I was still in the period of my life where I listened to myself last and assumed if I had a problem, it was of my own making. I had wanted to be a man and now I was one. I was going to have to deal with that and, as my conversation with Jason seemed to demonstrate, no one was going to want to hear me complain about it.

So I went home that night, turned on more YouTube videos, surfed the internet reading other advice from transguys, and continued to practice for my interview. And I got the promotion. It was a team lead for the loan servicing group. I had two bosses during my time in that role. The second boss was named Monica. And I need to end this story with something kind Monica did for me, which stands in stark relief to most everything else I was experiencing that time in my life.

While I was not out as trans during that period of my professional career, I did not keep it a secret that I was a novice to professional dress. It was easy to attribute to having worked in coffee since I had graduated college. I have a natural tendency to self-deprecate and would often quip I was fortunate to get myself dressed at all. I had mentioned to Monica in passing that I had taught myself to teach the only tie knot I knew, the four-in-hand, by watching a YouTube video about it over and over again.

Monica was a great boss and always took pride in helping me develop for my next potential role at the bank. After working together for several months, I was afforded the opportunity to interview for my next promotion. This time I would be buying my first suit (previous interviews had been done in jackets and slacks found at second-hand stores). The bank’s signature color was green, and so I would be buying a new green necktie for the interview.

Monica’s husband Steve also worked at the bank operations center. A few days before my big interview, Monica called me over to her desk and let me know Steve was going to come by to see me. She had remembered me saying I had taught myself how to tie my own ties. I often wore ties to work, so Monica had the chance to regularly observe my handiwork (or lack thereof). Steve’s signature knot was a half-windsor, she told me. She thought Steve should teach me how to do a half-windsor so I could feel extra confident for my interview.

Steve did come by that day and practiced the half-windsor with me until I could do it on my own. I was so nervous and slightly embarrassed that I had to be taught such a thing, but Steve acted like it was completely normal and no big deal. If his dad hadn’t taught him, Steve said to me, he would never had learned. Someone has to teach us these things, he said as he asked me to try the knot again so he could see how I did.

Eight years later, I still can tie a pretty good half-windsor. And every time I wear a necktie, I do just that.

I have no idea how or if Monica knew just how much I needed that help. It took approximately fifteen minutes out of Steve’s day, but it will stay with me for the rest of my life. After I did that interview and got my next promotion, I eventually left the bank to get my MBA. My graduate degree combined with my experience at the bank led to my current career, which I love, of consulting with financial institutions.

I don’t know exactly what would have been different if I hadn’t had Monica as a boss and mentor or if Steve hadn’t ever taught me to tie a half-windsor. But I will never forget that two people took time out of their day to teach me something, to help me with something, that would not have impacted their lives one way or the other.

I am so thankful that when I tie a half-windsor, I can think of this invaluable kindness, instead of a stupid Youtube video.