try on gloves

I'm reading a text where this phrase appears, and I can't make out its meaning from the context. Can somebody shed some light on this idiom? I think it's supposed to be something negative, as in "he lost two jobs in a row because he couldn't resist trying on gloves while on duty."

Perhaps he was a night watchman at a clothing store? :)

It's just trying on clothes... putting clothes on to see whether or not they fit properly and whether they look good or not. It's not negative per se, but in this case it probably distracted him from whatever he was actually supposed to be doing.

I could also be an obscure literary allusion to something. Perhaps if you give us more context, someone can figure it out.