Principles – I HAS DEM

A year ago, I was desperate for a job. But even then, there were some things that turned me off to certain jobs.

I applied to many jobs that required a drug test. Only one actually was interested in me enough to want to send me for one. But, as I got a concrete job offer from a different business, I took the concrete job offer. The place requiring the test had not given me a job offer. I was just in a big cue with a bunch of other desperate applicants. Mostly, I did not want to take the drug test. Now, Lazy Hippie Mama will vouch for me, that I am the squeakiest clean girl out there. Actually, she laughs at me that I don’t want to take one. The test would not have found anything. But I don’t really want any job enough to give them my bodily fluids. Unless, say maybe Edward Cullen is looking for blood donors.

I feel the same way about being finger printed for a job. A background check on me would turn up nothing that I would need to hide. But, if in the future, I want to start committing crimes, I want to have that option open. I want my fingerprints to be some of those that have no match in the CSI database. (I also don’t want to get a library card–just another way the government can track you!)

It is like in high school when my favorite teacher asked me why I wasn’t going to join the school’s anti-drug program. He must have been curious. He knew I was a good kid, did my homework, co-editor of the school newspaper, of which he was the adviser. Aside from the obvious fact that it was a big phoney club full of students who most definitely did do drugs, I told him the truth: I told him that I wanted to keep my options open for illegal drug use in the future. I still have that viewpoint.

So, that brings me to the purpose of this post. I have never been big on dress codes, but realize that in some positions they are made a necessity by the management.

My manager wants me to wear…

Ugh.

I can’t even get the words out.

Matched socks.

Not only that, she wants them to be black!

YOU: Why DON’T you match your sox? MY REPLY: Why SHOULD they match?

Now, when I was hired a year ago, I gladly agreed to wear black, closed-toe shoes with black pants and a work shirt. They never said anything about socks. There is nothing about socks in the employee handbook. At one point, my manager’s manager saw my socks, and we had a whole conversation about why I mismatch them. She never indicated that this was a bad thing. With new faces at the top of our local rung of the corporate ladder, we have now been instructed to wear black shirts under our work shirts, and black blazers over them. Now, mind you, we have to buy EVERYTHING but the work shirt ourselves. And if the minimum wage were to be raised to the value that the President of the United States has thrown around in the press since his State of the Union speech, I would stand to get a raise of over a dollar. I would be really upset about the blazer thing, if I did not already have one. And since I don’t have any black shirts without Twilight logos or characters on them, I had to buy one of those just to wear for work.

But this sock thing really irks me. Afterall, mismatched socks IS MY THANG! And, I mean, no one is probably even going to notice, as my pants meet the tops of my shoes. But I feel like there will be secret sock patrols out to catch me! I feel like I do my job pretty well. But part of me wonders if they would fire me over non-conforming socks.

THEY ARE SOCKS!

They are not like a ring in my nose or a tattoo on my forehead. Although, what would really be so wrong with those things either. Socks are a personal, private thing between a person’s feet and their shoes. Socks are like underwear. You wear them under your pants and shoes. I would not work at any job that tries to legislate my underpants and bra.

And if they did fire me over socks, it just might be worth it. I would still have my self respect. And imagine when I fill out future job applications. They will say “Reason for Leaving”, I could put “I wouldn’t wear black socks.” Some might see that as stubborn or not a team player. But some future employer might see it for the ridiculousness that it is.