Casual Friday Thursday

For the past four years nearly I have gone to work wearing a suit, shirt, tie and smart shoes, without exception. My previous employer was fairly strict on looking smart and presenting a professional image to members of the public which I must say I do agree with.

However, my new employer has a different approach. Seemingly being that if you turn up to work that is a good thing. If you are reasonably competent and are smartly presented for members of the public they seem to be way happy. So last Friday, having no meetings or any chance of contact with members of the public (no meetings or site visits), I rolled into work wearing jeans, a T-shirt and my favourite new hoody. And nobody at work blinked an eye-lid.

I thought that I would feel odd and unprofessional in this attire but not actually seeing anyone I had to impress face-to-face totally discounted this and my initial weirdness of being at work in ‘comfy’ clothes rapidly dissolved in, well, a matter of seconds as I answered the phone and issued the same high quality planning advice that I always do (he says modestly).

I would like to say that my own personal attention to detail means that I won’t be turning up in casuals too often but I have to say being at work in comfortable clothes and being with people I don’t need to impress (aside from ‘the management’) makes me want to reconsider this.

As a result, today, with accurate forecasts of the hottest day of the year so far and knowing I had to do a number of (unaccompanied) site visits on foot I rolled into work wearing my skinny yellow T-shirt and blue shorts which caused a bit of a stir. So perhaps there are limits to what I can wear at work. Virtually nothing and in bright colours perhaps being one of those limits.

However, casual day does seem to offer a solution to the dry cleaning conundrum.