Often you will see men working at office desks in shirt-sleeves, sometimes without their ties. They may lean far back in their chairs and even put their feet on the radiator or desk while they talk on the telephone. This also is not meant to be rude. Once we get out of the tense, hurried city streets, we are a loose-jointed, informal, relaxed people.
Our pace is total — either totally hurried, intense, work-absorbed, and competitive
(in play as well as work), or else totally at ease, relaxed, “laid back” and informal, our manner breezy. We tend to swing between these extremes. This is the pendulum you need to understand if you are to understand America and its people.
