What To Wear To Work

I'm extremely busy with the start of the sailing season at Bowdoin.  It's a seven-day-a-week schedule for me that will last through early November.  There's a lot to learn: the quirks and procedures of the administrative bureaucracy; the needs and special features of our sailing center (which is a fantastic place to sail, and picture-postcard lovely); and the personalities and dynamics and skill level of the team.  I've been coaching on the water for the past couple of days, and have met maybe 2/3 of the team so far.  It's a busy time.  I'll be scarce around here, I think, until we settle into the new routine.

I just scanned Carolyn Elefant's latest Blawg Review, and her link to a post by a law professor speculating about wearing jeans in the classroom reminded me of one of the strangely hardest changes: the new dress code.  I'm accustomed to putting on 'work clothes' for work, and while doing so being conscious of the signals I want to send: poise, professionalism, a certain education level, adherence to a fairly conservative set of conventions, etc.  It took some thinking and doing to dress like a lawyer, and even when I dressed in "business casual," I was careful about looking professional, put together, classy, etc.  I didn't always succeed, but I always paid attention, and always had a low-level background awareness of how I was presenting myself.  Do I look like a lawyer?  I would think, when I looked in the mirror each day.  So it is with this habit of awareness that I still get dressed, especially for things like department meetings. 

But my department is the athletic department.  The coaches dress like coaches.  Of course they do.  Sweatpants and shorts, sneakers or flip flops, t-shirts, with or without collars.   I showed up to the department meeting last week feeling risky in my soft loafers, jeans, and a long-sleeved blue shirt.  I needn't have worried.  A part of me still gasps a little bit when I show up to my office.  "These people are at work," some little old lady in my head clucks disapprovingly when I see coaches dressed like athletes, talking in the coffee room, flipping through their mail.  It will take a while to shake the lawyer mentality entirely.  I do have a lanyard for my whistle, though, and started wearing it around my neck yesterday.  Today I'm going to try to pick up some Bowdoin athletic wear: a warm-up jacket and a polo shirt.  I'll fit in soon enough. 

Comments

[a]

Wow, that's great. I agree -- it makes a difference. My boyfriend works in a creative field and early on in the relationship he headed out for a big meeting, dressed in a t-shirt and some slouchy pants, the usual work attire. When my lawyerly self asked "don't you have a big meeting?" he replied "yeah, but if I wear a suit I look like them, and they the wonder why they pay me to do something it looks like maybe they could do."

What ever you wear you will be fine (except maybe for the life jacket while you're in the departmental offices). You're in a field where you can dress comfortably (athletic gear). Enjoy. It's one of the perks about being in the athletic department.

You probably could wear a suit. However, would your athletes have much confidence in you as a sailor/coach if you did?

[Yeoman]

It's odd how clothes impact how others view us.

As I posted on thread you mention, I've gotten an unusual look at that as I split more than one occupation.

On odd occasion, I'll do both jobs in one day, such that I'll come in from some agricultural activity, and not change clothes. It always causes people to comment, even though they know me. If people who only know me as a lawyer, or from the office, run into me on a day I'm only working ag, they really comment. They almost seem to think I'm in a costume.

On the other hand, people who do not normally see you as a lawyer, are surprised when you are dressed like one, or even uneasy about it.

[PG]

How do people dress for competitive athletic events? I always was amused at college basketball games to see our coach running along the sidelines, sweating through his three piece suit, while Coach K (if it was Duke kicking our ass in that particular game) just stood cool and collected with his arms folded as though he'd walked out of GQ.