What Not to Wear: The Office

Posted by John

I know I said when I started the Word Cup blog I wasn’t going to let it take away from this blog but clearly it has and for that I am sorry. It’s just that researching the World Cup teams and players is so damn fun so I’m spending all my time doing that. Clearly if you’re not reading that blog, well then you’re just missing out on all the fun.

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It has become necessary for me to come out with another What Not To Wear: Office edition post. Since I wrote the last one I’ve been hyper conscious and hyper offended by what my fellow coworkers wear to work on a daily basis, and I’ve had plenty of people e-mailing me about the shocking things their coworkers are wearing, so again, this might be a little painful for some people but it’s for your own good.

As they say, you should dress for the job you want, not the job you have. I agree with that unless you’re currently like an investment banker and want to become slaughterhouse janitor or something. In that case you should still dress like an investment banker until you actually make that career change. Basically it just comes down to looking like a professional all the time. Whether the job requires a three-piece suit or the office you work in is ultra casual, it’s still about being a professional.

Footwear: For dudes, footwear is largely functional and nothing more. While I admittedly have an unhealthy and unmanly obsession with fine footwear I still acknowledge that most dudes don’t, and I’m fine with that. But even if your foot’s covering is nothing more than a functional slab of leather and rubber, you still have to follow at least a few simple rules:

-Black pants require black shoes; brown and blue pants require brown shoes. Black shoes require a black belt. I’m sorry, these are just laws like gravity; if you try to violate them you are going to fall down. Maybe not literally but figuratively you’ve already fallen and landed on your face in my mind.

-No tassels. Ever. Ever. If you do wear shoes with tassels you might as well get a cardigan, a recliner, and some prune juice because you have more in common with your grandpa than you want.

As much as it pains me and my wallet to see my wife’s collection of 8 different pairs of nearly goddamn identical black flats this is not a referendum on how women are hypocritical for criticizing men for having a need to keep up with the Jones’s with their cars and tools and beer guts and whatnot, while women have the same need to keep up with the bunions with their heels, and boots, and flats, and whatever else, rather this is to acknowledge that for women there’s no question that footwear is often if not always the most important part of the outfit, especially for professional women who try their best to always look professional. To that end they need to be conscious of what their footwear says about their professionalism. For instance, knee high boots have a place in society, but in general if you’re wearing them to work you will definitely look like a professional, just not the type of professional you really want to. Save them for happy hour, or a night out on the town, walking the streets or whatever.

The Office Sweater: Personally I am cold all the time, especially in the meat locker that doubles as my office. Most humans are comfortable between 68 and 72 degrees. I know I’m comfortable on the high end of that scale but I cannot understand how some people, all of whom work in my office, are more comfortable at 54 degrees. It’s painful. But I know that and so I dress appropriately for it. Consequently I wear the same uniform to work everyday: wife beater, undershirt, dress shirt, sweater. Yeah, four shirts seem excessive but I’m not going to apologize for it. Do you think I want to wear a sweater to work in August? No, I don’t, but that’s the reality I live in so get off my back.

On a side note, when you wear a wife beater as your first layer of defense against office coldness everyday you can’t own too many of them. So I went to Target not too long ago to pick up another package and bought the same brand and same size I always wear but for some goddamn reason the quality control manager at this one particular Fruit of the Loom plant must have been dropping a huge deuce when this one particular package came off the loom because these particular beaters were anything but standard size. I noticed immediately when I put the first one on that it was far too tight but I just assumed it needed to stretch out a little bit and I was already running late so I just went with it. Boy, that could not have been a bigger mistake. I didn’t even get to work before the thing was constricting my body like a goddamn midget UFC fighter trying to get me in a grappling submission move. It was horrible and only got worse as the day went on. I couldn’t go into the bathroom enough to try to stretch that goddamn thing out and give me some breathing room but it was all for not. It would just ride up higher and higher until I felt like I was wearing a goddamn pushup bra. All I could think was, is this what it’s like? Is this what it is to be a woman? Dear god this is the worst day of my life.

At any rate, the point I’m trying to make is, I dress not for outside temperatures but inside ones, though not everyone shares the same outlook as I do. Everyone works with the people who are cold all the time but dress as if it’s going to be 80 and sunny inside everyday then come to work and the first thing out of their mouth is, “Boy, it sure is chilly in here today.” Consequently these people think they’re smart by keeping an Office Sweater at their desk to combat the cold. That seems logical on the surface but the problems with it are unending. First of all, they put that Office Sweater on every goddamn day. Why? Because the office has never been and will never be warm. If it was cold on Monday it will be cold on Tuesday just like it will be cold today and tomorrow just like it will be cold next week and next month and next year just like it was cold last week, last year, and every goddamn day you have and will ever work there. I’m sorry, it’s just a law like gravity. So if you don’t dress accordingly I don’t care what you wear to work, you’re going to end up putting on that goddamn Office Sweater every goddamn day you’re in the office. Why do you even have outfits if you’re just going to put on the Office Sweater when you get to your desk? Just come to work in your pajamas and put your stupid Office Sweater on and stop trying to keep up appearances by getting new shirts or ties for your birthday or something.

Secondly, no one ever brings their nicest sweater to the office to be their Office Sweater. Instead they always rummage through the closet to bring that one sweater that should not be in anyone’s wardrobe, let alone THE sweater that they put on every day in their place of employment. The multi-colored patchwork sweater; the burnt orange colored sweater; the cardigan with the elbow pads; the thick-ass cable-knit sweater with the teeny-tiny neck hole that isn’t suitable for a hand to pass through let alone a head; the one your aunt knit for you; the one your kid picked out for you at Kohl’s in 1994; the one your sister got for you for Christmas because she knew you would wear it and look like a douche each time. That sweater has no business even existing, yet there it is, on your back, every day, in your place of business. Imagine what the people on the 8^th floor who don’t know who you are and only see you occasionally but always wearing the exact same ridiculous sweater every time must think of you.

And that brings up the last and perhaps worst part of the Office Sweater: do these boners ever take their goddamn Office Sweaters home to wash them? They wear that sweater every day. They eat in it, they snack in it, they take shits in it and when the day is over they ball it up and put it back in the filing cabinet or on the bookshelf. That has to be the absolute filthiest, most disgusting article of clothing on the planet. If I was lost in the woods and had to drop a deuce and my only two options for wiping my ass were a bushel of poison ivy or an Office Sweater I would gladly take a calamine enema for a month before I even thought about touching that filthy-ass Office Sweater. Disgusting.

Sportswear: When it comes to clothing for a favorite sports team I should not be the one to talk as I own three Liverpool soccer jerseys, two scarves, three t-shirts, and two hats (and sometimes wear all of them at the same time during matches depending on how tough the opponent is), but here’s the thing, with the exception of a scarf in the winter months, I don’t wear any of it to work. Now, I’m not saying that you cannot wear clothing with your sports team’s logo to work. Not at all. What I’m saying is, sports teams logos are not carte blanche to dress like a douche. For instance, consider your team’s colors before you make an outfit choice around it. Red? Fine. Blue? Go for it. Black? Absolutely. Orange? Get ready to douche. That’s right, I’m looking at you Tennessee fans. Orange is a color that by definition should be used with modestly. It should not make up an entire shirt, coat, sweater, or dear god, pair of pants. In fact, if you have a sports team garment that can be identified from more than 100 yards away, don’t wear it anywhere except to that team’s sporting events. If it is a color that is universally accepted to mean “Caution: Construction Zone,” it should not be paired with a tie and a nice pair of slacks and worn to work. These are just laws.

Furthermore, if you’re still sporting the Starter jacket for your favorite sports team – you know, those nylon/vinyl jackets that were popularized back in 1992 then almost immediately depopularized and notable only for their singular design intent: to put the team’s logo as many times and as big as physically possible all over the jacket – you should immediately donate that jacket back to your childhood and go ahead and retire your Air Jordan’s too. Those shoes stopped being cool right after their namesake retired. The first time.

Speaking of outerwear: letter jackets. That’s all I’m going to say; I’m not going to even write any more.

Headwear: Hats certainly have a place in society and we can definitely show a debt of gratitude for the older generations for popularizing and keeping certain hats in style: the bowler, fadora, paper boy; these are all decent hats. The ball cap also has it’s place in society, it just isn’t at the office. I don’t care what you do, if you get up in the morning and put on slacks, dress shirt, tie, and then top it off with a ball cap, you’re douching. I don’t care if you take it off as soon as you get to work; you’re not 12, do not wear a ball cap to work. This is true even if you’re bald but especially if you have hair. Nothing says “I still eat Fruit Loops for breakfast,” like a case of perpetual hat-head. If you take off a ball cap and your hair is all greasy and matted down like your head just made the journey through the birth canal of a dairy cow, you are not a professional. Period. The end.

So hopefully this was helpful again and if not, hopefully at least you can look over at the Office Sweater in the cubicle next to you and think, “Oh my god, I just saw a mouse living in that filthy-ass goddamn sweater,” or something.