Socks for Social Distancing, Day 27

There’s a very real possibility that when the day eventually comes that I’m expected to report to my office again on the regular, I’ll be taken to HR within an hour of showing up to be written up for failing miserably at the dress code.

First, though, I will say that in the beginning of Project Stay at Home, when I assumed I needed to be a role model for my kids trying to learn to school via teleconference, I tried to fight the good fight. I couldn’t really tell them to clean up their rooms and make themselves look presentable for a Google class Hangout when I was stumbling to my desk in the family room like Barney from the Simpson. So I generally followed my usual morning routine and dressed myself in clothes I would have worn if someone was likely to see me in a professional setting.

Now, that said, I’ll be honest. As a software engineer with 25 years of experience, my interpretation of “dressing like a professional” lands just on this side of big red shoes and clown makeup. While often shooting for business casual–and not always necessarily getting there–I do dress for work a little more business and a bit less casual than, say, “programmer rolling into a tech startup interview in flip flops and a Captain Crunch tee.”

But, here, in the fourth week of our collective sequestration, the kids pretty much have all the tricks for non-traditional instruction well in hand. They certainly aren’t looking to me for guidance anymore. In fact, they’re typically done with their school work before I finish my first coffee.

All of which is to say that while I’m not quite strolling down to my newly adopted office situation in my Popeye The Sailor Man sleep pants, I believe I’ve worn shorts to “work” this week more often than I’ve worn jeans. And I don’t think that arrangement is likely to change anytime in the near future, especially as it gets warmer. At least, not unless we all wake up soon from what turns out to be the least fun collective dream ever and I have to go back to the office.

Until then, you should all probably get used to me wearing little socks like these, because I ain’t putting on pants unless someone makes me.

Let’s just hope I can keep up with wearing the shorts. Because otherwise, that’s when the real trouble will begin.

Pud’n