The White Glove Treatment
For those teenagers who were ever been shipped off to spend his high school years in a military boarding school they are well aware of what a white-glove treatment means. At military schools across the country, the cadet corps dedicate several hours after Saturday morning mess scrubbing their floors with old toothbrushes and polishing their woodwork just to pass the white glove inspection.
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The Inspection
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Whether you were a high school cadet or a "boot" (new recruit) in the Marine Corps, the meaning of a white-glove treatment was the same. It may seem ridiculous for a commanding officer doing his best to swipe the most remote areas of a room with a pure white glove in an attempt to find the faintest smudge of grime, but it's not to him. When a raw recruit enters military service chances are he or she knows little about proper discipline. Forcing them to clean their barracks to the point of insanity is one way the staff train troops to follow orders without question.
In the Business World
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The term white glove treatment, likely because of the strict guidelines demanded by the military, has spilled over to the business world. But here the term has nothing to do with cleaning; rather it refers to the meticulously high standards in which a company will be treated. Little things like giving advice for free and offering personal representatives are just a couple of the benefits that a business owner can expect when receiving the white-glove treatment.
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In the Arts World
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Within the world of art, a white-glove treatment means those delicate paintings will not be touched by human fingers. Oils from the skin can damage art work worth millions, and curators of museums are very strict with this policy.
Anthropology
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Anthropologists wear cotton gloves, usually not white for long, when they perform work on their artifacts. They do this because the bones are subject to contamination by human touch. Anthropologists are highly trained scientists, and skewing any results by contamination could provide unreliable conclusions for their findings.
Law Enforcement
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Although you probably won't see crime-scene investigators wearing pure white gloves as they process a murder scene, you will see them with latex gloves. The theory and reasoning is the same as for the art curator or the anthropologist: they cannot contaminate the crime scene and maintain their credibility in the courtroom.
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