Lost on the very last question in trivia tonight to the millionaire, all because I couldn’t remember what you give someone on your third anniversary. Probably because I have never gotten to the point where I have had a third anniversary. Or a second even. Wow, I thought my inability to have a lasting relationship was my strength in trivia and not my eventual downfall. That and missing a Boulevard beer question, which is really, really embarrassing and has caused my liver to attempt to disown me.
I know that I usually keep a rule of not talking about work but I have been dealing with something over the past couple of weeks that I just need to write about. Now like most offices we have an official dress code that is vaguely enforced. It’s not like when I worked in downtown Chicago where I wore a suit and tie every day even though all I did was walk into my cube and work on a computer all day. All I have to do now is throw on a shirt with a collar and be sure that I am wearing pants. Well, for the past few weeks we have been getting emails touting how we are having a special jeans day and we all get to feel special by wearing jeans to the office.
All of which makes me feel like I’m back in high school. Seriously, throughout my twelve years of catholic schooling having a jeans day was a really big deal because you finally didn’t have to wear a uniform. But I’m not a kid anymore (at least chronologically, my desire to own G.I. Joe figures not withstanding) and wearing jeans really doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not like anyone would complain if I started wearing jeans to begin with. Hell, I wrote in here a year ago my plan to start dressing up to see what the reaction would be. Wearing a tie would worry people more than wearing jeans. A suit would make people stop me in the hall. A top hat and tails, complete with gloves and a walking cane, would probably result in the security guards chasing me around campus on their Segways.
I have one other reason I really don’t want to wear jeans to the office. Back when I was at the good ole neighborhood nuclear power plant I wore jeans to work. It made sense then but to be honest I really don’t want to be reminded of that time. I’ve moved on in my career to the point where I no longer have to wear radiation detectors at all times or work in a room where the safety instructions were, and I quote here, “If the alarm sounds you have a minute to get out of the room before the Cardox goes off and you’ll die.” I’m happy that I now have to wear a dress shirt and look like a professional. Otherwise I might as well just work from home.
One other dress code story from my old job. When I started there they really didn’t have a written policy. My boss once joked that he never inforced the rules because he could never find them, though he did remind us at times what might be best for our career. Well, after a while they actually printed the rules so we, being detail oriented engineers, went through them with a fine-toothed comb. One stated that “skorts of appropriate length” were allowed, which caused five of us to yell in unison
“What the hell is a skort? How can I know if it’s the appropriate length if I don’t even know what it is?”
That’s what you get when you have an engineering department that honestly consisted entirely of guys with glasses. And probably why you really should avoid having such a department.
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