Casual Friday

Yesterday was Friday, or casual Friday, as it is known in the business world. I am not sure where casual Friday came from, but I like the idea of it. Although on casual Friday, I dress slightly better than my usual casual attire. I wouldn’t come to work wearing what I wear on my Sunday afternoon grocery store trips. Because of the different interpretation of the word “casual”, some places limit what employees can wear. A friend of mine works in the consulting world where every third Friday is “decent denim day”. In Japan last year, the Prime Minister tried to promote more casual workplace attire in an attempt to reduce air conditioning costs during the hot summer months. Yesterday one of my colleagues decided that for him, it was not casual Friday or decent denim day, but dress-up Friday. He was dressed much more formally than usual – but didn’t provide a reason for why he was looking so snappy. He seemed to take offense that people questioned why he was dressed up in such a way. It made me think about business attire. It used to be insulting if employees came to work in casual wear – a sign of disrespect to the work they were doing (paperwork requires quite a lot of respect). Now we are somewhat insulted when people get dressed up. What are they trying to do – show us up with their snappy wardrobes?