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Friday, February 20, 2004
2:33 PM

A Very Frightening Jean Pool
My Firm is extremely conservative and, among other things (like Presidents' Day), it does not believe in casual Friday. I think you could almost say the Firm is morally opposed to it. The same goes for "business casual." So while just about every other firm in California (really the entire country), big and small, switched over to quasi-casual dress, we were stuck in our suits, day after day. And if the topic of casual dress or even, God forbid, casual Friday is ever raised, we are treated to stories like "I remember when the Firm was new, people would wear suits to the office six days a week" (thereby reinforcing that not only will we never have casual anything, but we clearly aren't working hard enough either). I guess that is the Firm version of "When I was a kid I had to walk five miles to school in the snow without shoes after eating only bark for breakfast." I really could do without either tale of woe.

Why bore you with this little bit of Firm trivia? Because here I sit in my office in JEANS!! Really. Yes, it is a shocking turn of events (No, Auntie Lo, I'm not going to get fired). Over the years I have learned that there is an occasional exception to the rules ("occasional" means that this is the third time in 5.5 years - I guess that's more like "rarely"). Usually it involves a charity fundraiser. Actually, now that I think about it, it always does. Apparently jeans are ok if and only if they benefit someone else.

Today's charity is Orange County United Way. For the small fee of $5 each and every one of us could wear jeans today. Naturally I jumped at the chance and thereby earned the right to be in jeans today. I was very excited about it all week. And here I am, jeans and all. (I do have a black blazer though lest I feel too un-lawyerly).

But you know what? I'm not loving it. For a couple of reasons.

First of all, I am having a hard time facing the fact that I'm at work. I'm in comfy jeans and a sweater (ok, so I really just brought the blazer with me. It's on the back of my chair) and feel like I really should be at home or doing something fun. In short, I'm not in work mode. I'm in relax mode. Except that I've been working my butt off all day and now my body is completely confused. It keeps asking my brain "What's up with all the work? We're wearing jeans after all!" My body, brain and I are just not used to the concept of jeans in the grown up work world. I'm so confused.

Second of all, I can see why the Firm generally vetos the idea because man oh man is it a slippery slope, and not in a good direction. Apparently wearing "jeans" to work really means wearing "whatever you want" to work. We've got low rider jeans with cropped tops (not good). We have jeans and t-shirts (slightly better but still not great). We have old scraggly looking jeans (never, ever good). We have people who should never, I repeat, never wear jeans wearing jeans (or they have just chosen particularly bad jeans). I'm not even sure that all these people work here but suspect that they just came here today because they heard jeans are allowed and wanted to be in on it. It's a pretty motley crew.

I'm sure that this opportunity will come up again and I'll not only participate, but I will even be excited about it again (as I was today). But next time I'll have a little chat with my body first to make sure it understands what's in store. Because now I'm tired, and my body doesn't seem to be grasping that there is no nap in our future. At all. (sigh)

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