Dressed For Success!

During a recent meeting, the boss said to his staff, “we must all dress professionally” and “we must project an image of professionalism”. Tossing the ethos of “looking beyond skin deep” that is tossed out of his Mouth Of Perpetual Religiosity, he has decided that even if you are involve in heavily physical activities (where I will not elaborate the denotation), it does not appear appropriate to be dressed in sporting attire through out the whole working day. There was also mention of the disfavour for wearing slippers around the ‘professional compound’.

Then comes the cruncher – he tried to give an analogy. “Imagine if you are working in an office in the Business District, would you put on such attire if you are working there?”

Well sir, if I may (in fact, I should), WHEN I was working in an office in the Business District, I HAD to put on my full working attire. It was not so much to project a so-called ‘professional image’ but rather out of climatic necessity! The temperature in the offices qualifies an entire weather system of its own. Within those walls of eternal frosted glass, we were just TWO MUFFLERS AND A SCARF SHORT OF A FULL-BLOWN WINTER!

With regards to his concern about slippers versus professionalism, I had wanted to reassure him that over 80% or more of the total office population slips in to slippers or flip-flops the moment they arrive at their desks or cubicles. Besides, it has been proven that PERSONAL COMFORT AND EFFECTIVE PRODUCTIVITY RIDES A TANDEM IN THE PARK.

MY DEAR SIR (or madam, as the case, I suspect might be), the argument you tried to qualify with your comparison between my current profession and the “Business District” crowd falls flat. It fails for one tiny detail – COMPLETE CLIMATE CONTROL (or some might say a different climatic zone, i.e. polar). Please allow me to assure you that if you can provide such a working environment in every office, passageway and most importantly, even the rooms where we spend most of our time with our pediatric stakeholders, I swear, on any entity of your desire and choosing, to whip out my entire collection of Ralph Lauren, Dolce et Gabbana and Issey Miyake winter wear collection and wear them with such zeal, fervour and enthusiasm that some might start to regard it my religion or calling to match your Mouth of Perpetual Religiosity. I will conjure up the famous “International Fashion Week” and make it happen 52 times a year.

I say not in jest.

But first must come climate conditions ala “The Day After Tomorrow”.