Made it to the bus this morning with no time to spare. Literally, it pulled up as I walked up. Cutting it close.

Everyone loves Friday’s. But in some ways I think Friday’s are the worst. They are the culmination of a long week. The fifth day in a row if waking up too early and devoting so much of my precious time, both slightly against my will.  

So, I guess as an effort to reward people for their hard work, we have the privilege of wearing jeans on Friday’s. Still, as I rushed for the bus, I had to shuffle in my work shoes. Because, for some reason, jeans are a treat, but normal shoes or shirts is going to far.

I can appreciate a dress code that keeps people from dressing like sluts and slobs. What I can’t get my head around, is why in a business where you don’t need customers do we have to dress professional? I can only imagine that when starting the business, the conversation went something like this:

“How should our office look?”
“Nice of course. Everyone should dress up as if they were lucky to be coming here and want to make an impression.”
“Suits?”
“No. I’m not planning on paying them very much. Probably can’t afford suits.”
“Nice jeans and casual clothes?”
“Are you crazy? Casual clothes? People would think it was a party here everyday. No one would take their job seriously.”
“So?”
“Maybe something in the middle. Slacks. Collared shirts for men. Ladies can wear blouses and dresses, things like that.”
“Should we monitor the length of these dresses?”
“My, no. Short is fine enough. The office, the club, doesn’t really matter as long as its a dress. Pretty girls means were successful. Besides, short skirts equal confidence, right? They might even do a better job. But so help me, if they show too much shoulder I will send them home to change! I’m not running a brothel here.”
“I think we have a good balance here.”
“Me too. But I want to be a cool boss. So I’ll tell you what. How about on Friday’s we can all wear jeans so we can get excited about the weekend. Nothing else, all the other rules still apply. But yea, jeans. That will show our employees how much we care about them.”

I got paid today. Working 4 part time days, and 1 full (I got promoted), plus 2 commissions, I made about enough money for the week to pay my car insurance and cell phone bill. Or maybe a third of my rent. There could be a problem here. The least of which being the fact that I made more money than this 10 years ago, working as a waitress three nights a week, and not even in a good neighborhood. It’s very frustrating, to go backwards. To know that I should be making so much more for my efforts but having no way to do so.

So here I sit, riding the bus wearing my jeans, getting dirty looks from the lady that I guilt looked into moving her purse out of the empty seat next to her. Feeling hungry and tired. And, knowing its not worth it, wondering why and what options there are?