Standard of Dress and Casual Friday.

 Tools of the trade?

I've written quite a few times here about clothing and how standards of dress have declined even while expectations of how others are supposed to dress remain remarkably consistent.  Last Friday, I got a couple of examples of that in unexpected quarters.

First of all, I had to run to the high school as I had to help my daughter transport her "Rube Goldberg" project. All kids running through the high school have to do one of these as a project which helps demonstrate energy and energy transfers.  They are, of course, a little big so I helped her take hers there.

That put us in the school early as the teachers were coming in. I didn't know it, as it certainly wasn't he case while I was there, but now on Fridays teachers are supposed to wear something in the school's colors, so most were wearing polo shirts, and a few t-shirts.

That was a bit of a shock. When I was there, which is admittedly a long time ago, the teachers generally wore a light variant of business wear.  Some men wore ties, some did not, but they all wore a shirt you could wear a tie with.  And they wore trousers of a type that at the time were called "slacks".  Nobody wore jeans.

Well, that standard is obviously completely out the window.  I don't know what they usually wear on a daily basis, but on Friday's polo shirts and t-shirts, and jeans, seem to be the rule.

Not that I was dressed in a suit by any means.

I probably ought to dress more like a lawyer most days than I do.  Frankly, I go through phases on that, where I'll try to wear a tie every day and then I grow tired of it and stop.  Today, for example, I'm wearing a button down dress shirt I could wear a tie with, but I'm not.  And I'm wearing chinos.  I'm actually dressed up to that degree, to the extent that I am, as I was going to ride my bicycle and I don't wear jeans if I ride a bike.  I didn't ride my bike, however, as it was too cold (that's another story).

Anyhow, last Friday I was wearing jeans and a starched green Levi shirt.  And I was wearing, while out, my Alaska Railroad baseball cap.

Now, that's not really lawyer wear, but I had been hauling in a building a large wooden item.  Moreover, I had thought that I might be traveling out of town to a rural location to look at an accident site, but things didn't work out.  When I do that, I dress down.

Anyhow, at 1:00 I came back in the building and ran into another lawyer and his client, coming up to our office for depositions.  This lawyer always dresses like a lawyer, and always has.  I suppose for a Friday he was somewhat dressed down as he had no tie, but he was clearly in business attire.

I said hello and the client right away addressed me, as he was fascinated by the hat.  "Alaska Railroad"? he asked.  "Yes", I replied.

"Did you work for them" came the question.

Now, that was an interesting question.  I guess as a guy wearing jeans and a jean ball cap, I did look like somebody who might have worked for the railroad.

"No, just rode the train", came my answer.  "Me too" came his reply, clearly fishing for more information, but then I started talking to the lawyer about lawyer stuff.  I'm sure it was totally mystifying to the poor fellow.

Now, he probably imagines that lawyers sleep in suits and ties.  Just as I imagine that teachers still sport ties with dress shirts.  Our expectations were not met.

It's interesting, however, that there still are expectations. That says something about the standards themselves, or perhaps the need for them.