Smart v scruffy: Ladies seem to love a bit of the rough stuff

He had panes of glass in his hand, ready to drop/throw/install as the mood took him.

"Twenty mm or 30mm?" I asked, grateful that I'd been sent to do something useful, rather than being dispatched for a bucket of compressed air or a tin of tartan paint.

"Twenty mm. And don't forget the putty."

Periodically, I find myself in the company of men whose paint-spattered jeans hang low – doing for the backside what Kelly Brook does for cleavage.

And the world moves at a different pace.

Instead of driving the reliable Ford Focus Estate that is life in the polite, civilised, white-collar world of the office, I'm hurled into the souped-up Toyota GT86 CS-R3 Rally Car that is Planet Builder.

There's no longer gentle innuendo at the coffee machine, where pretty ladies coquettishly titter as they tell suave men to 'stick it in' – referring, of course, to the 50p that's about to be exchanged for a mochacchino. Instead, humour hits like a sledge hammer.

And no, I can't repeat the jokes here. But they're 10 times funnier.

Polite enquiries about Breaking Bad are replaced by gags about farts.

Concerns about the General Election are ditched for outrage at footballers.

Humour becomes a blacker shade of dark. The world tilts on its axis, whooping and swirling like a big dipper ride.

Paint is no longer needed to turn the room blue – the language does that itself.

I made my way to Wickes for the panel pins, stopping off at the supermarket to buy a builders' lunch: Gingsters, Tizer and a packet of crisps.

Being a labourer's gopher was like being in an episode of Mr Benn, the 1970s animated TV character who left a fancy-dress costume shop through a magic door to enter a magical world of adventure.

I'll tell you why.

Normally, when I stand in the queue at Sainsbury's in my grey suit and sky blue shirt, I'm as memorable as a beige wall in a beige house in a beige street in Beige Town.

Staff dutifully ignore me, pretending I don't exist like a General Election candidate at the front door.

But as I made it to the till in battered Abercrombie and Fitch sweatpants and a mashed-up, torn-apart tee, the check-out girls reacted as though I was a mix of David Gandy and Brad Kroenig – but fatter, balder and with a nose like Mike Tindall, obviously.

"Can I do anything else for you?" the till operator said, eyes twinkling like diamonds as she leaned across the till to unruffle a fifth carrier bag.

I thought of asking her to pull the ring on my Tizer and purr like Jessica Rabbit, but decided against it.

My change of clothes had been transformative.

Instead of wearing a corporate uniform that said 'distant, remote, cold', I was teleported to a different world by torn cotton scruffs that said 'human, accessible, fun'.

There's a works' do coming up soon, where men in shirts and women in skirts will stand around and talk turkey.

They'll sip warm wine, eat unedifying finger foods and pretend they're interested in state-of-the-nation chit-chat.

Calling cards will be exchanged and people will nod meaningfully at one another, employing the body language of the business person.

I'm not sure what to wear when the do comes around.

I was thinking of ditching my regulation Paul Smith and going dressed as a builder.

I might not close the deal, but I'll be the one having all the fun.