The imperative of not being earnest

I had a client once who was an earnest young chap. He was so earnest that, unbeknownst to him, his nickname at the agency was Shackleton. He was earnest beyond his years, prematurely earnest, a young urban professional fogey.
One day whilst crossing the car park en route to a meeting, we paused at his 3 Series BMW for him to retrieve his briefcase from the boot. It was like he had done a supermarket sweep at the City Airport branch of Waterstones. There were a dozen hard back management bestsell