Casual Fridays and the Politics of Corporate Slavery
by Graham Fortier

“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.”
                    -Thoreau

For all those self-aggrandizing advertisements in which companies laud themselves for thinking outside the box, they still find a way to keep so many of their employees trapped inside one. They can afford million dollar ad spots but not a relaxed dress code? No wonder today’s corporate world is such a high stress environment: who needs the proverbial corporate hands around your neck when your top collar button can do it for them? But seriously, what use is it complaining when they generously give us casual Fridays?

Many companies now give their employees a lick of the silver spoon by allowing them to wear slacks made of denim on Fridays. Though it may give some a reason to rejoice, it is just another office con straight out of “How to pacify the potential Mark Barton *.” The cozy wool or soft khaki, lest we forget, is probably the most comfortable part of office attire. It’s the itchy, sweat-inducing button-downs and inflexible, rock-hard shoes that we can’t wait to kick to the curb at five-thirty. Now I’m no extremist on this; I’m not proposing parachute pants and an Iron Maiden T-shirt. Clearly it would be hard to be taken seriously discussing profit margins with a depiction of defenestrating stitched across your chest, but it can be equally difficult to take someone seriously knowing that they didn’t dress themselves. You can tell me all you want about interest rates but why should I trust you? You’re not even wearing your real clothes! This isn’t what you look like, but rather the collar you put on each morning to please your bosses. Come to think of it, I’d prefer the shredded Iron Maiden rag.

If you talk to young people around the office, or yuppies as they have been dubbed, you’ll see that they’re not so different from the rest of us. They’re hipsters in disguise, quietly recounting tales of vomit and promiscuity at the water cooler, out of their boss’s earshot. They’re animals in a zoo. The only thing that truly differentiates them from the average slob is a few unfortunate transactions at Joseph A. Bank’s. This way they look clean, tamed, domesticated. This is nonsense. You can shave Saddam’s beard but you can’t force him to admit guilt. Though we see these people on the subway and ridicule their appearance, they’ve got tickets to the GWAR show just like we do, and they want to be sprayed with fake blood and semen just as badly.

The real root of this problem that needs to be, for lack of a less redundant word, uprooted, is the dogmatic idea that someone draped in business casual is more intelligent than someone in a t-shirt and sneakers. This is unfortunately the hardest idea to reverse, although it has to be one of the easiest to prove. Think about it, when is the last time you heard something intelligent come out of a suit’s mouth? Let me help jumpstart your mind: Do politicians say intelligent things? Do politicians wear suits? No and Yes. Does your boss give you helpful and intelligent tasks with practical deadlines? Does your boss wear a suit? No and Yes. When your significant other cheats on you, does your close friend give you a useful and gracious solution to the problem? Does this friend wear a suit? Yes and No.

There, now you can think of a million other similar comparisons, can’t you? But even though we’ve identified the problem, we are still without a solid and effective strategy to resolve it. This is where I come in. Read closely, and with an open mind, because at first glance this may sound a little bit silly:

1) The next time casual Friday rolls around, forego your privilege of dressing down. Instead, dress up. Add a tie, if you’re not usually required to wear one. Perhaps your boss or some of your colleagues will ask you why you are not taking advantage of Casual Friday. Just respond, “Oh, what’s the point? I still work at the same level dressed like this.” They will merely shrug, thinking to themselves, “I guess that’s true, but I’d still dress down.” You have begun to sow the idea into their minds. Meanwhile, make sure that the quality of your work that day is as low as you can make it without immediately being fired.

2) When Monday rolls around, wear the same thing, only make sure it is unwashed, wrinkled, and perhaps stained in several places. Make it look like you wore it through the weekend, even to sleep. Perhaps a colleague will remark, “Didn’t you wear that on Friday?” Simply respond that yes, you did, but what difference does it make? It still feels comfortable, and that you work the best when you are the most comfortable. Your colleague will not be able to say anything against this. Upgrade the quality of your work that day to a more acceptable level, yet still nothing stellar.

3) Continue this pattern until Casual Friday rolls around, every day making sure your attire gets filthier and filthier, yet the quality of your work continues to improve. But on Friday, give the suit a rest. Come in dressed in the normal Casual Friday garb, except disregard the button-down and the dress shoes. Come in wearing a t-shirt (no rips, no letters) and sneakers. Add these two features to your jeans, and you should now be dressed identically to how you would if you were not at work. Your work today should be at an eyebrow-raising level. Impress your boss and your colleagues to a point that they will not even be aware of how you have so brazenly disregarded the Casual Friday dress code. You are beginning to make all of your peers and superiors aware of the fact that you are working better when you are dressed the sloppiest.

Hopefully, you will be able to continue this pattern until you show up to work unshaved and more or less resembling a pan-handler as opposed to a corporate employee. Just remember, the main principle is that you are not doing this for yourself. Your main mission is to set an example to your co-workers, so that the foundations of the dress code rule will be razed to the ground. Fuck the system from the inside, and take that Iron Maiden t-shirt out of your closet. You’ll be wearing it soon enough.

* Mark Barton was a spree killer from Stockbridge, Georgia, who, on July 29, 1999, shot and killed nine people and injured 13 more. The shootings occurred at two Atlanta day trading firms -- Momentum Securities and the All-Tech Investment Group. 

September 26, 2006