A gentle push of the envelope -- at work

[crfriend]

It's been an interesting week at my present place of employment -- not just for some notable successes that I've pressed for for months on end, but also for the fact that I've worn skirts so far pretty much every day.

Monday through Wednesday we were in the middle of a heat wave (the definition of which is three days of 90-degree (F) temperatures) and were under threat of having to "shed load" (electrical) which meant that we would have had to reset the interior temperature that we run the buildings at. One of the projects I've been involved in is a recabling of the network infrastructure, and I've been doing a good deal of rather physical labour in support of same; the thought of doing that at a temperature of 80 degrees in long trousers just didn't sit well, and since I don't own any publically-presentable shorts, I decided to "push the envelope" a little bit and wear skirts. Here's the lineup:

Monday: Yellow, white, and green Hawaiian shirt and a lower-calf length green tiered skirt (Sapphire's; it's the one she wears for Saint Patrick's Day, but allows me to borrow it because it looks really good with that particular shirt)

Tuesday: Red, white, black, and blue Hawaiian shirt and another lower-calf black tiered skirt (this one's mine, as are all the rest I'll describe).

Wednesday: A blue and burgundy Hawaiian shirt and a upper-calf length burgundy tiered skirt with ruffle and lace trim and the tier boundaries.

Thursday: We're out of the heat wave, so I opted to do the inverse of what I did for the first three days (which was to take my trousers in with me in my laptop-computer bag -- just in case there was a stink) and take a skirt as a backup. The end result was that I'd managed to get hot enough that at about 14:00 I said the heck with it and donned the skirt and ditched the trousers: Blue, green, white, red, and tan Hawaiian shirt and an eggplant-coloured upper-calf length tiered skirt of the same pattern as Wednesday's. Boss comment: "Oh! You changed!"

Verbalised commentary has been universally positive -- not one whit of grief. There have been a few caustic glances, but one gets used to those and ignores them. In chatting about it with my boss earlier in the day, he admitted that it was "a bit strange" but in the same sentence mentioned that by Wednesday he'd "gotten used to it". My unconventional attire was noticed by one of the (women) VPs, and this filtered back down the "food chain" in the guise that she'd been curious about it, mainly for the use of pattern and colour (this was likely Wednesday), but didn't want to "cause trouble" by directly querying me on the matter; I responded to that by telling my boss that if she's curious she can just go ahead and ask as I'm not bothered by it at all. We shall see it that makes it back "up" the "food chain".

Tomorrow is likely to be like today -- hot and humid -- so I think I'll repeat what I did today (trousers plus a skirt just in case) but have a problem. The tiered skirts fare well with bing packed into tight spaces -- and I'm now out of selection having worn all four that I personally have, or have use of -- but nothing else I have will tolerate that treatment and not look horrible. What the heck to do?

[r.m.anderson]

Bettcha can't wait for casual Friday?
Any questions - at least you could say that you were not contributing to global warming!
LOL

"Kilt-On the Cool Side"
rm

[Since1982]

Hey Carl, Doncha have any NON-Hawaiian shirts????

[crfriend]

Hey Carl, Doncha have any NON-Hawaiian shirts????

I have plenty of dress shirts -- and that's my usual mode -- but when it gets hot out (and I haev a car with no A/C) the thought of them just doesn't sit well with me. By the time I get home in the heat, I'm usually drenched in sweat.

However, cooler times are coming, and that'll allow me to pursue the rather more formal looks I prefer. (I am not going to wear long sleeves and my waistcoats with heat indices of 100 degrees. No way.

[Since1982]

Doesn't your job allow you to wear T-shirts? I'm overweight and get hotter than most folks in the summer, a hawaiian shirt is (in my memory) a less breathing material than a T-shirt is by a long shot. The cotton of a T-shirt absorbs sweat and heat causing it to evaporate quicker, where a regular shirt usually doesn't and the sweat just piles up on the outside encapsulating one and making a person even hotter. No?

[Kris]

Doesn't your job allow you to wear T-shirts? I'm overweight and get hotter than most folks in the summer, a hawaiian shirt is (in my memory) a less breathing material than a T-shirt is by a long shot. The cotton of a T-shirt absorbs sweat and heat causing it to evaporate quicker, where a regular shirt usually doesn't and the sweat just piles up on the outside encapsulating one and making a person even hotter. No?

Actually my impression of cotton tee shirts is that yes, they do absorb sweat, but they get soaked and stick to you, trapping a wet layer next to the skin. Water does evaporate from the outside surface of course, but the shirt and your skin stay wet.
Some of the new synthetic materials are much better. They don't absorb water, but wick it to the outside where it evaporates more efficiently. They keep you cooler and dryer. They're most often marketed for sports and called "technical" or "wicking" tees. Some of them also have UPF-50 sunblock capabilities for protection when you're outside. You might like them.

Kris

[crfriend]

Doesn't your job allow you to wear T-shirts?

Yes, but I'm not "into" the uber-casual/grunge look; it's just not my style.

a hawaiian shirt is (in my memory) a less breathing material than a T-shirt is by a long shot. The cotton of a T-shirt absorbs sweat and heat causing it to evaporate quicker, where a regular shirt usually doesn't and the sweat just piles up on the outside encapsulating one and making a person even hotter. No?

Ah, good ol' cotton -- the get-wet-stay-wet fabric. Horrible stuff for the most part, plus I have an oddity with my body chemistry that causes it to dissolve on me. This also means that in a typical cotton/synthetic blend the percentage of synthetic rises over time and gets more comfortable for me. Synthetics, I find, are vastly more comfortable and better at wicking than most organics.

[Kris]

Carl,
I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your post. You seem to have achieved a breakthrough in acceptance at work that many wish for, but few really try for. You did, and won.

Kris

[crfriend]

Carl, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed reading your post.

Thanks for that, Kris, it's been an interesting week, and certainly a bit of an eye-opener.

You seem to have achieved a breakthrough in acceptance at work that many wish for, but few really try for. You did, and won.

Well, I would hope that it can serve as an object lesson, which is why I posted it. I have to say I was quite amazed by the seeming level of acceptance shown by most folks.

To finish the story off, I wore another skirt in today (I had a half day as I was the poor sod who had to carry the duty pager last week) -- so it's been pretty much five days straight. And, like the other days, there was essentially no reaction -- certainly nothing negative.

I will suffix this with the observation that I work with some extremely bright and talented individuals, and folks like that are more likely to embrace (or at least understand or tolerate) some "eccentricities" that would likely really rattle the more hidebound of the world. I regard myself as fortunate in this case.

[JRMILLER]

Carl,
I used to work at Bell Labs and I suspect I could have worn skirts there if I wanted to. For the most part, they were pretty liberal. There were a few sourpusses that may have objected, but overall, the atmosphere was accepting of people's eccentricities. Lord knows, just about everyone was eccentric in one way or another!

[Kris]

I will suffix this with the observation that I work with some extremely bright and talented individuals, and folks like that are more likely to embrace (or at least understand or tolerate) some "eccentricities" that would likely really rattle the more hidebound of the world. I regard myself as fortunate in this case.

Carl,
I used to work at Bell Labs and I suspect I could have worn skirts there if I wanted to. For the most part, they were pretty liberal. There were a few sourpusses that may have objected, but overall, the atmosphere was accepting of people's eccentricities. Lord knows, just about everyone was eccentric in one way or another!

Bright, talented, and eccentric often seem to go together!

Bell Labs was a haven (and almost a heaven) for such folks.

Kris

[Bob]

The last place I worked was very buttoned-down, while also being known a very tolerant place in terms of "gender expression." I never ventured to see how the two values would interact.

My current job is definitely more relaxed. One guy goes barefoot. But since there are no women in this office (and very few in my industry), there are few models of how one might wear a skirt to work.

[ChrisM]

Kris wrote: "Bright, talented, and eccentric often seem to go together!"

At school this week we had a meeting in which our entire department of the College of Engineering, along with the Dean of the College, met with the Pentagon official who is our major research sponsor.

If that sentence conjures images of ties and white collared shirts you have constructed the right impression!

During the meeting our Sponsor got around to talking about my own projects. In the course of the comments, she said "Yes, and Chris has a different skirt for every day of the week."

(I actually have some 30+ skirts, but she was cracking a joke anyway!)

Yes Kris: Here is a case where a very conservative organization (the Pentagon) is actively looking for bright, talented people (researchers.) And they have zero problem with the eccentricity that comes as part of the package.


C

[flarob]

I will suffix this with the observation that I work with some extremely bright and talented individuals, and folks like that are more likely to embrace (or at least understand or tolerate) some "eccentricities" that would likely really rattle the more hidebound of the world. I regard myself as fortunate in this case.

Carl,
I used to work at Bell Labs and I suspect I could have worn skirts there if I wanted to. For the most part, they were pretty liberal. There were a few sourpusses that may have objected, but overall, the atmosphere was accepting of people's eccentricities. Lord knows, just about everyone was eccentric in one way or another!

Bright, talented, and eccentric often seem to go together!

Bell Labs was a haven (and almost a heaven) for such folks.

Kris

Ahhh Yes Bell Labs, quite the laid back atmosphere when I visited. I spent my 40 years with an operating company. Bell of Pennsylvania. A truly button down 3 piece suit type of place. I'm sure that if a fellow showed up in a skirt they would have "found a way" to let him go.

[crfriend]

Two weeks on, it's been an interesting ride. I've alternated between trousers and skirts, and seem to have been accepted.

I did get a "talking to" from my boss, who mentioned that "there had been a couple of complaints to HR" likely because I hadn't been wearing slips, probably got strongly backlit to an observer, and the observer thought they saw more than they did. The solution to this is quite simple, and I shall take it to heart. It is interesting to note that my boss took great care to drive the point home that "It's not the skirt." This shows a level of openness I'd not expected. Now, this conversation may have been more nuanced than I could appreciate (although I'm pretty good at getting subtlety) but pretty much, to me, pointed up a technical faux pas rather than an overt condemnation of the style.

As an aside, I wonder why it is that nobody gripes when a woman makes the fashion mistake of getting into the wrong lighting situation and a skirt "goes sheer". I suppose that I should accept that the incongruity of seeing the effect on a man can cause "problems", however, I don't much like the notion of somebody complaining to the Human Resources department about it, which is the moral equivalent of "calling the cops". After all, I was showing quite a lot less skin than all the guys in shorts, sandals, and t-shirts -- the thought that I was was purely in the mind of the observer. And it was likely the thought that raised the spectre of scandal.

So, will I continue to wear skirts to work? I'm not sure. It was rather nice to go a week without trousers (the days I wore them, I really noticed the fact), but it also blurred the sharp boundary I like to keep between work time and personal time. However, I now know that I have the option if I decide to (within the "modesty" constraint). Overall, I'd call the exercise a "win".