Coat and Tie Required

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Well, I wasn't going to talk about shoes today (disappointing, yeah?), somehow I wound up thinking about dress codes and the like. A topic I'm sure Beans will expound upon at length in the comments. Or not, he seems to have a mind of his own.

As to the angry mob in the opening photo, those folks were outside The Chant's regional headquarters in Transylvania demanding to know why Beans hasn't posted lately. They also wanted to know who this felină urină însoţitor fellow was. As I didn't speak the lingo, I had to confess to my people out there that I had no idea but would make inquiries. Yes, they asked the same of LUSH but when I said, "boss's daughter," they all nodded and dispersed.

Nepotism, they understood.

Oh by the way, the guy at the left front? He must be management, he looks pissed off and isn't wearing a tie. The guy right behind him is his brother-in-law, one of the hundreds of vice presidents corporations have. (Well, he might be a government guy, hard to tell the difference.)

Anyhoo, dress codes. When I first embarked on this civilian gig I wore nice slacks and shoes, and a nice button down shirt, short-sleeved in summer, long-sleeved in the winter. (In spring and fall I would mix it up, based on temperature.) For some months I went on like that.

Then I heard of this "casual Friday" concept. Seems that many folks would wear jeans and maybe a t-shirt on that day. Also seemed that many managers of a higher station owned nothing but a single pair of "mom jeans." Which of course, they wore on Fridays. (Hhmm, I did a search on "mom jeans" using Google, seems that their search algorithm has gone completely brain dead. Google search worked much better not that long ago. No doubt the nannies have stormed and taken Google HQ. To be fair, a Duck Duck Go search also sucked. Attractive women in jeans is not "mom jeans." Even if the lady is a mom.)

But I digress.

One day I decided that I would wear jeans to work, on a Friday, because I could. When a colleague noticed, he asked me what was up, I told him that I had decided to participate in "casual Friday" as it seemed the right thing to do.

"Seriously?" he queried.

"Why not?" I replied.

"Why not wear whatever you want whenever you want, screw The Man. We're software developers, the customer expects us to be a bit weird, if we look too corporate, we'll lose our credibility!"

So I wore jeans that very next Monday. Which set The Missus Herself off.

"What are you doing?" she wanted to know.

"Uh, wearing jeans. Why?" I asked knowing what was coming.

"You should dress for the job you want, not the job you have." she said.

"But this is the job I want..."

"Are you insane?" The love of my life wanted to know.

"Probably, why do you ask?"

"You're an idiot!"

"And your point is?"

As you might gather, that went nowhere. I continued to "toe the line" for another couple of years. Then the software work kind of dried up for a bit, so they made me a software tester. On the midnight to 0800 shift.

I was in Seventh Heaven.

No managers, no incessant phone calls, and automated corporate emails which we could simply ignore. All the big boss cared about was getting the job done. He summed up his dress code thusly - "Clothes will be clean and in good repair and will cover all the naughty bits. Oh, no shorts, I hate shorts."

There ya go, simple, direct, and to the point.

Now I'm an integration tester, I think we're supposed to wear pants. At least...

Yup, we see that all the time...