Work Clothes

I really like wearing ties. This is not a secret; I've said it here. I love the way they look, I love what they stand for, I love the way the stiff material guides my neck into proper posture.

My problem, however, is that the place I work gets me very grungy and thus necessitates wearing "work clothes" -- and here I don't primarily mean the apparel one wears on the job (at some point, I hope to do a post about "work clothes" in this more narrowly-defined sense as well) but, more generally, the apparel one wears for any endeavor bound to sully up raiment: changing the oil in the car, mowing the lawn, and so forth.

Since my job obliges wearing this type of clothing, I've been spending a lot of my existence in uninspiring attire. And while part of me would love to change into nicer clothes when I get home from my job, the other part militates against putting on a shirt and tie for dinner, etc., only to take them right off again to go bed.

What to do? Well, recently, I decided to incorporate a tie into my work clothes outfit. This would allow me the joy of daily wearing ties without having to change into them for that express purpose. I selected a few ties that are high enough in quality to be appealing yet are mildly deficient in some way that disqualifies them from my normal tie rotation: e.g., they're a bit too long or short, perhaps lightly stained, and neither decorative nor versatile.

Of course, wearing a tie requires a somewhat nicer shirt, which might call for better pants. Since I have some pretty good bleach-splashed or red soda-speckled shirts and trousers, I went for the full work clothes makeover.

Wearing this new garb got me thinking. Why do we throw away nice but stained clothes while hanging on to cheap, baggy jeans and freebee tees to wear for yard work? We wouldn't be caught dead in this stuff under normal circumstances, but somehow it's good enough when we're working? Wouldn't we rather wear that shirt that makes us feel like a million bucks when it invariably has something go wrong with it? I understand we might not want to wear hot, constricting clothes for strenuous activity, but a lot of nice clothes are not hot or constricting (hey, yank that tie down a little!) and a lot of work is not strenuous. In these cases, wouldn't the work be more enjoyable if we conducted it in an outfit we liked?