What We're Wearing For Work When No One is Looking
Top hats! Hoodies!! Last night's underwear!!!
Hello everyone,
Welcome to Issue #149 of CAFÉ ANNE!
I got a lot of feedback on last issue’s feature in which I surveyed 100 NYC subway riders to ask what they were doing on their phones.
“I’m surprisingly pleased that so many people were communicating, reading highbrow books, making appointments or bettering themselves on their phones,” was the top comment, from reader Toni B. “It gives me faith that not everyone is constantly doom-scrolling.”
Reader Rob S. in Fort Greene, meanwhile, noted that I am not the city’s first cell phone nosy-body. “Do you know Jeff Mermelstein's photographs of people's texts?” he wrote. “Instead of asking people what they are looking at on their phones, he just takes a picture of it. Incredible series.”
I checked it out and Rob is right—the photos are wonderful. You can check out Mr. Mermelstein’s work here.
In related news, I’d promised to you that I’d to do nothing on the subway—no books, no phone, no podcasts—for the next couple weeks to see how entertained I’d be just raw-dogging it, as the kids say.
My report? This past week, I only took one train ride—from my home in Brooklyn Heights to Industry City. And do you know I saw on the south-bound R train? A lady eating plantain chips.
Finally, huge ‘Showtime!’-on-the-subway shoutouts to this week’s new paid subscribers Narcissa, Julianna C., Kaye T., Timathea and Brandi B. Plus, Venmo donations from Yang-Yang, Marge K. and Ruth Ann H.—one of which was unusually large. That’s enough $$$ to pay the ER bill after getting kicked in the head by an out-of-control b-boy!
I am very excited for this week’s issue, of course. I dove into one of my pet topics—what we wear for work when no one is looking. Please enjoy.
Regards!
Anne
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FEATURE
What We’re Wearing for Work When No One is Looking
Every weekday, to get ready work, I shower, get crazy with the eye liner and mascara, do my hair and don my usual uniform of a dressy shirt, pencil skirt, stockings and heels. Yes, I dress exactly as if I had an office job, only I don't have an office, and I don't have a job.
I perform this routine even if I don't have a single Zoom call scheduled. Even if the only person who will see me that day is my dog.
This is somewhat unusual. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, only 6% of the 35% of Americans who work from home don office attire every day. The majority—60%—opt for casual wear like hoodies and sweatpants. Nearly 20% work in their pajamas.
So of course I was delighted when I met some fellow writers for dim sum in Chinatown recently and discovered that one of them, Dennard Dayle, also gets dolled up to work at home, even when no one will see him.
This got me wondering—what is up with us? And what's up with the folks working in their pajamas? And what's up with everyone in-between?
Last week, I met with Dennard on Zoom to puzzle things out. A novelist who writes the Extra Evil Substack and the occasional humor piece for The New Yorker, he sports a look that he refers to as "Metalhead Lebowski." It starts with a lot of skull rings and typically includes a patterned, short-sleeved, button-up shirt worn open over a tee. This might not sound like much, but trust me, he always looks very spiffy and pulled together. He chooses his outfits with great care—every morning.
"It helps me to feel like I'm taking the day seriously if I shave, clean up, and put the whole outfit on," he said.
I told him how I once tried working in my sleep wear, as an experiment. "I couldn't stand it!" I said. "I felt like a slob."
"It's a very psychic, square-peg, round-hole kind of situation, right?" he agreed. "Those are things I put on so I can comfortably shut off. And it just feels incongruous when you're working in them."
"It reminded me of when I was growing up—the only time I'd be in my pajamas all day was when I was really sick,” I said. “So wearing them for work, it felt like something had gone very wrong."
"'Work' is such a interesting construct," Dennard reflected. "So it's whatever helps you deal with the construct—of dividing time into those brackets."
This gave me a little insight. "Maybe this applies to you, too," I said, "But my work doesn't actually feel that much like work. So something has to signal, 'Work is happening.' Maybe if I was doing spreadsheets all day, I'd do it in my pajamas."
"Maybe it's what it takes to convince myself," Dennard agreed. "Because I'm here writing punchlines, which—however challenging that is—it’s not exactly the diamond mines."
Another factor—we're both writers who put a lot of ourselves into our work. "You have to be able to tap into that core version of yourself," is the way Dennard put it.
"And 'core Anne' is definitely wearing her uniform," I said. "I'm guessing it's similar for you?"
"'Core Dennard' is definitely in uniform," he said. "Ready to march out!"
My next chat was with Peter Lewis, a marketing firm CEO who works out of his home office in Kansas.
He typically dons a collared dress shirt and some sort of wacky hat. "I have at least 20 hats in different fashions—cowboy hats, one of those old top hats that looks like a magician’s, a lot of baseball caps. I'm a 44-year-old who thinks he's 17," said Peter.
He's especially fond of working in his pink tuxedo.
"As a marketer, I'm often selling myself. So there's a vibe—a personality—that I get going when I prepare for the day, even if I'm not on Zoom," he said.
"What's the vibe?" I asked.
"I think there's a certain amount of being extroverted, bubbly, high energy," he said. "I'm a hybrid between extroverted and introverted, but when it comes to work, I have to be on. Right after I'm done working, I'll put on the most boring clothes possible."
"Have you ever tried working in your pajamas?" I wondered.
"No, never," he said. "But I'll try it! Let me see if I can do it tomorrow. I don't have anything important until 2 o’clock.”
I checked in with Peter the next day. “Good morning!” I emailed. “Are you still in your pajamas?”
He sent a photo to prove that he was still dressed in the hoodie and boxers he’d slept in the night before.
So how did it go?
"Horrible!" he said the day after the experiment. "I didn't like it at all. It was really uncomfortable. It wasn't me. I don't think I would ever do it again unless I was sick. I don't like the Anne challenges anymore!"
He’d planned to go a half-day, but changed into his work clothes after barely an hour.
The experiment made him anxious. "And I felt like I was doing something I would do if I were in college,” he said. “But I'm a dad. I have to show up!"
"The last guy I'm going to interview for this story works every morning in the tee-shirt and underwear he slept," I told Peter. "He doesn't even change his clothes."
"I would like to learn from him," said Peter. "For me, I judge him both positively and negatively. Positively in the sense that he's obviously relaxed. If we went to one of those ten-day silent meditation retreats, he would dominate. He’d be laughing at me. But there's no way I'd hire him to take him to a trade show!"
My next Zoom call was with Angela Betancourt, founder of the Betancourt Group, a communications and business strategy firm. She was ready for her day in a dressy cardigan and black watch plaid trousers. And boy, did she have a lot to say about dressing up at home!
"It's how I do my best work," she said. "It's how I concentrate the best."
Just like me, she does the full hair, makeup and office-wear thing to start her day working from home. "My husband makes fun of me sometimes because it'll be a Saturday, and maybe I'm just going to catch up on a report I have to do, but I'll go upstairs and put myself together for work," she said. "It gives me a sense of differentiating between 'I'm working' and 'I'm not working.'"
And also, just like me, she maintains a strict daily work schedule with a break for lunch at noon.
"What does this say about you?" I asked.
"That's a great question," she said. "I think I am a little bit type A to begin with, in general. It's about 'Get it done. Let's get to work!' But also, I genuinely like what I do, and I like to show up for myself. When I walk past a mirror, I'm like, 'Okay, good. I look put-together.'"
"You know, there's a lot of things we cannot control in life, but we can control how we show up for ourselves," she continued. "We can control how we feel about ourselves, and I think that's one little way to do it, right? And I think about what my aunt always said: 'How you show up for yourself can sometimes reflect how you show up for others.' I think putting on a nice button-up shirt—just a little bit of that effort—has ripple effects out into the world."
I asked for her take on the pajama crowd.
"I wonder, if they're able to be productive in their pajamas, what if they put on something that's a little bit more of an outfit?" she said. "I wonder how their day would go. I'm very curious, because if you're productive in pajamas, you're probably a superhero in a button-up shirt!"
Now it was time to talk to some folks who keep things ultra-casual. My first chat was with Van Shea Sedita. I met him when he lived in Brooklyn and had an office job. Now he lives in Newark, Delaware, where he’s an actual dad who owns an actual house and works from home doing freelance service design.
Van had told me he usually works in sweatpants and a hoodie. But I soon learned the situation is a bit more complicated.
"I'm almost always in sweatpants, yeah," he said. "But whenever I need to change my mood, I'll put on work clothes. A sweater vest, a nice button-up shirt, maybe even a suit jacket, if I'm feeling really shitty."
"That is fascinating," I said. "It's almost like you're holding the workwear in reserve, for when you need a lift."
"That's exactly what's happening," he said. "You can quote me on this: it's embarrassing, but it's almost a way to save me from depression. I'll put on the good clothes when I need a boost."
"So why not put them on every morning?" I wondered.
There are practical considerations, it turns out. Van will often exercise or do yard work in the middle of the day, so the sweatpants make sense.
And in general, he said, when things are going well, the extra effort required to dress up feels like an unnecessary expenditure of energy: "The more productive I am, and the more happy with myself I am, the more I give myself latitude to dress like a bum.”
My last chat was with Matt Casper. We first met when our respective rock bands split the bill playing tiny clubs around Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. Now he lives in San Diego and works freelance as a marketing consultant tech companies—in his pajamas.
"Most days, I work in the shirt/underwear I slept in," he messaged me after I posted a query on Facebook. "But I always comb my hair."
When we met on Zoom last week, however, he hadn't even combed his hair. "And I slept in this very shirt last night!" he assured me.
Matt does shower and change his clothes every day. But this typically happens after the work day is done, before his wife comes home from her office job. "I'm embarrassed when she comes home early and I'm not cleaned up." he said.
He has video meetings with clients several times a week, and for these occasions, he has a few dress shirts on-hand that he will slip on over his teeshirt.
"I have this red-checkered shirt that I don't think has been washed in three or four years," he said. "I wear it for a half hour at a time, or something like that. It just occurred to me now—I should wash that thing!"
"How did you get into this habit?" I wondered.
"I don't know that it's a habit," said Matt. "It's a lifestyle. I would say it's good fortune. I would say, 'Everyone should be so lucky, to have a six-second commute.'"
"I think for some people, they consider it to be the life of leisure, when you wear what you want," he continued. "I think, for me, the major selling point [of working at home] is the schedule. The slovenliness is just a side benefit.”
I told him how I couldn't stand working in my pajamas and felt much better in office attire. Which provoked an interesting admission: there are days when, if things aren’t going well, he'll shower and change earlier in the day—around 11 am.
"A lot of my work is is creative. I'm pulling stuff out of thin air, right? And I don't know about you, but let's be honest, I still enjoy tying one on now and again—and again! And so sometimes that works for my benefit," he said. "I found that there's a window of time, with a slight hangover, where I am abundantly creative. I've got about two hours of super-productivity, and then the crash comes. And so on days like that, that's when I do the reset. I do the mid-day reset with the shower, the brisk walk. And then okay, let's start again.”
I told Matt about Peter's theory—that pajama workers are just more chill in general, so they don’t need to dress up to feel good.
"No one describes me as laid back!" Matt said. "I don't know how much you remember about me in New York City, but laid back? No one would be like, 'Oh he's so laid back.' I'm a screamer. I'm still that. I'm still playing music, I'm still screaming my head off, every week. And I'm still usually the most anxious person in the room.”
"But interestingly," he added, "I think I might be more prone to getting uptight when I'm dressed like this, than when I clean myself up. I wonder what that means? That's something for team of psychiatrists, I think."
So now I had to ask Matt the same question I asked Van: if he feels better after showering and changing his clothes, why not start the day that way, every day?
"I have never considered it before, but I'm going to do it next week, all week!" said Matt.
"Really?" I said.
"Yeah, I want to give it a shot!" he said. "I think next week, I will get up at six, and from six-to-seven, I will go for my walk and work out and be showered—and at my desk, working, with my coffee—no later than 7:15, 7:30, and dressed, and see how that goes for a week. I'm curious."
Wow, I’m curious too! I asked if we could do a follow-up story.
"We sure can," he said. "Now I'm committed. Now I have to."
So stay tuned!
Meanwhile, I'm curious how the CAFÉ ANNE crowd dresses for work when no one is looking. Please take the survey below, and explain yourself in the comments!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Each person does the amount of lying that is right for them.”
—Miranda July, All Fours
CAFÉ ANNE is a free weekly newsletter created by Brooklyn journalist Anne Kadet. Subscribe to get the latest issue every Monday.
The only long-term job other than writing I ever had was working as a flight attendant and I loved having a uniform so I didn't have to think about what to wear.
Now since I live out of a backpack and don't have many clothes to choose from, I pretty much work in the same two or three shirts, and no, I will not answer how many days in a row I have worn the same shirt. THAT IS NO ONE'S BUSINESS! Okay, fine, my "record" was four. Please don't unfollow me now.
I still have a commute, but on the rare occasions I "work from home" now I might wear pajama bottoms with work appropriate tops--for Zoom! The mullet of workwear?