Les Sabots

I was talking to someone upstairs at work today, in the search for diet soda. Right now, my work uniform is a decent looking short-sleeved shirt, a pair of khaki shorts and a pair of flip flops. My biggest concern is that sooner or later the winter moratorium on short pants will be declared and I'll be consigned to long pants before the weather forces me to.

As I waited, this other person - similarly dressed except for the flip-flops - pointed out what he thought was my faux pas. "Last year, I wore flip-flops to work and they sent me home and told me to get another pair of shoes."

This has never happened to me for what I suspect are a number of reasons. The call center is the part of the business that is located upstairs, which is where the non-salaried employees work. Having worked in something like a call center before, I suspect that life upstairs really sucks. You're on the phone X number of hours a day, the bosses monitor both your time and your calls, your breaks are strictly regulated and you're made to feel small and insignificant in a number of petty and mindless ways.

Think about it this way. Imagine an economist at the University of Chicago having to check in with his department chair before he can go to the bathroom.

And yet, here I am, flouting the dress code and getting away scott-free. There could be many reasons for this:

1) No one knows enough about me to really care what I'm wearing. I'm the man with the red stapler.
2) I'm so vitally important that I can get away with various violations of the rules with a wink-and-a-nod because I'm so necessary, or....
3) ...I'm a salaried employee. Who works downstairs, with the bosses. Who only has one direct supervisor, who is off-site. And the flip-flops rule - either de jure or de facto in its enforcement - is a way to make one group of employees feel one way about themselves and the other group of employees feel another way about themselves.

So, given the choice, do you flout your comfortable flip-flops or seek other adornment? Can't throw the flip-flops away. Too pricey. If you stop wearing them, your wife asks "Why aren't you wearing those flip-flops? You like them so much!" More likely, you take the coward's way out, continue to contribute to class inequity by wearing the flip-flops of oppression and resolve to wear closed-toed shoes next summer.

HHF 59 is done, BTW. Actually, everything up to HHF 63 is first-drafted. (waves)