Jericho: Uniformity

My employers decided to "test" a Friday Jeans Day concept until Labor Day. Most of the offices in my firm have a casual Friday to begin with, but the main office is "Business Casual" 24/7. Why not allow a casual Friday? They want to maintain a more professional image. I'm not sure who they are trying to impress. Clients aren't allowed on most of the floors. In the six years I've been here, I've probably seen less than ten actual clients - most of them were lost, trying to find the conference room floor.

Business Casual is such a joke, it's so vague. Most people have no idea what it means. I hate to say it but the females seem to be the worst offenders. While Blue Jeans are verbotten, blue denim skirts are common. Mid-drift baring clothes are against the rules, but I have seen variations on sheer and low cut that have nearly gone so far as to be belly button revealing. While it's not listed, gold and silver lame' should be outlawed in the workplace!

Either way, if our Jean Day "experiment" is successful, they may allow us to wear jeans again next year on Fridays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. That's right, in the hottest months of the year they may allow really heavy pants. Sigh!

All of this brings to my mind the whole school uniform debate. I went to Catholic school from K to 12. From First through Eighth grade, I had a uniform. In High School, the boys had a dress code (nearly as vague as "business casual") and the girls had a uniform - a very enlightened idea.

I hated the whole deal. I've pretty much hated clothes my entire life. Since college I would probably rather just run around nude than wear clothes. Wearing uncomfortable clothes based on someone else's idea of what clothes should and should not be is just beyond me.

We were told in grade school that uniforms meant that kids wouldn't make fun of other kids for wearing the wrong kinds of clothes. Bull! Apparently the adults were not as creative as the kids. I got made fun of because I didn't wear the right kinds of light blue shirt. I wore polyester blends, while the cool guys wore oxfords. That's right, kids will make fun of other kids no matter what - putting them in uncomfortable clothes will not stop that.

The girls had it worse. They had to wear skirts or jumpers. Not TOO bad, except they had to be plaid and a very specific plaid! If I'm not mistaken, the plaid my grade school used can be found here, plaid #55. So, these things were kinda pricey and hard to find. These days it's easier to find school uniforms. We didn't have the Internet back then. We had JC Penny and if they were out, you were screwed.

Often, because the clothes were at least durable, poor kids wore the jumpers and skirts their older sister wore, or, worse, clothes got passed from family to family. A girl might be the forth or fifth owner of a well loved jumper.

Did the girls catch hell? Sure they did - kids are cruel. Old clothes always attract comments. The white shirts worn with the jumper caused the same problems I went through with my shirts. Then there were always the boys - skirts are infinitely fascinating objects to boys. Girls often found their skirts flying around at chin level due to a boy taking a peek on a previously undeclared "Dress Up Day".

High School just made this whole thing sillier. To begin with, I started high school in 1986 - the height of "80s Fashion". That's right, every girl wanted to be Madonna and every boy wanted to be a combination of Billy Idol, Boy George and Michael Jackson. Kids become even more self conscious in High School. Clothes become a way to display identity and individuality. The guys were constantly drawing fire from the Principal's Office for breaking the "Dress Code" - how one could break something so vague is beyond me. We probably would have been better off having an actual uniform.

The girls were both violators and victims in this scenario. Just because the girls in my high school were supposed to wear a white shirt and navy blue skirt didn't mean they couldn't find variations. Certain girls wore their skirts too short. Skirt measuring seemed to be a favorite pastime of the nuns. Other girls liked to wear sheer shirts with colorful bras or shirts unbuttoned far too low, etc.

Then there were sweaters! Living in STL, Fall is cold and wet and Winter can be bitter indeed. So, in a drafty school building, sweaters were not only allowed but encouraged. At times, it appeared as if there were no dress code for girls at all since they were all in very different colored and textured sweaters. Sometime around 1988, a whole trend of super long sweaters showed up. Girls were wearing sweaters longer than their skirts. That threw up some dust around my school.

Then, there were "jams" - which amounted to brightly colored, really long, um ... shorts. Catholic school girls learned in grade school that boys like to flip up skirts, to counter this, and for general comfort, most girls wore shorts under their skirts. The jams trend splashed neon blues and greens over most of my school. At some point, this became a no-no. One of our disciplinarians took it upon himself to inspect the girls for these contraband shorts by having the girls ..... wait for it ..... lift their skirts! He gathered a group of girls in a class room and told each one to lift'em. Most girls wore shorts, but not all. This lead to another dust up and the retirement of this particular figure. I imagine by now the plate in his head is rusting peacefully in some coffin at Jefferson Barracks cemetery.

I've heard all the arguments about school uniforms and I've heard all the arguments about school dress codes and I have lived through both. I have also heard all the arguments about dress codes in the workplace. It's my opinion that outside the military, any environment where a uniform has protective features and any workplace one might find in a mall, uniforms and dress codes are pointless wastes of time.