The View from a Drawbridge

I must say that I love having an employer that not only allows me to dress like a hobo, but actually expects me to. I come in contact with grease and motor oil entirely too often to wear nice clothes. My shoes are so greasy, in fact, that I leave them here at work. I don’t want to contaminate my house.

I’ve had jobs where you had to dress up in the past, and I always felt like a massive fraud. And a dress code always adds a whole additional level of office politics that I didn’t enjoy at all. There were always factions. Some people were always on the outer. There were constant complaints that one person (usually me) wasn’t dressed quite nicely enough. Or someone had terrible taste, or didn’t iron properly. And there were all these grey areas. How short was too short? Why is a Hawaiian print considered too casual, but a floral print is okay? I used to have a really nicely made silk shirt, but it happened to be tie-dyed. Heaven forfend!

On this job, no one talks about how you dress. No one complains about the state of your shoes as long as they’re close-toed. If you shirt isn’t ever-so-slightly stained, you probably aren’t trying hard enough.

There is one thing that will make you an outsider. If you don’t get your work clothes at the thrift store, people will look at you strangely. And that suits me just fine.