First Day of High School

I can remember my first day of high school. The anticipation. The excitement. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I had no idea how it would be. Back then, we didn’t have helicopter parents and Freshman orientation days. We just turned up and went to our assigned classes. If we could find the classrooms.

The first day of high school was worse than I could have imagined. There were massive riots that first week of school — this was the early 1970s — that ended up with a teacher stabbed, the chief of police clubbed on the head with a baseball bat, police dogs and horses rushing into crowds of fighting students, and school being closed for a week to cool things off. I was a little pee-wee Catholic school boy and that was my introduction to four years of hell.

I thought about that because high school started in our area yesterday. The kids are still getting used to the idea of it. My neighbor missed the bus and his mom was outside clutching her bathrobe around her as she cajoled him to run up the street to see if he could catch it. Kids who were waiting for the bus were standing 5 feet apart from each other, trying to figure out the pecking order of who gets on the bus first. They looked scared.

And I thought about what a first day at work must be like. What it’s like at many shops. Is it scary? Are employees welcomed? Or is it, like I felt on my first day of high school, the beginning of years of hell?

We all have choices about how we welcome people at work. What’s your best experience?

[Photo credit]

When You Say an Employee Must Wear a Tie, Do You Specify Where?

I saw this thread today on Reddit titled “Can someone explain to me why I must wear khakis a tie, and uncomfortable shoes to write code?” Here’s more on the question:

My company’s parent company just hired a new CEO. One of his first acts was to completely nix casual Fridays, ban T-shirts and jeans, and make ties and non-laced shoes mandatory for men.

I don’t understand corporate culture at all. I just want to come to work, write code in a comfortable, relaxed environment, and go home at the end of the day feeling like I accomplished something. Apparently, this kind of thinking is subversive and counterproductive in a “professional” environment.

Someone explain to me why I’m wrong.

A couple of commenters came up with a great plan:

Wear a bow tie, I’m also a fellow CS and whenever I’m forced to wear that garbage I choose wild and extravagant colors. My favorite ensemble is a pink dress shirt, black pants with pink dress shoes and to go with it; a yellow bow tie. Once the higher ups start discriminating clothes based on color is when you file for racism, sexual harassment and negligence.

Other than that, get a better job.

also, wear the tie or bow tie around the top of your head, rambo-style.

force them to stipulate where on your body you’re allowed to wear the tie. then the next day, after they’ve stated that you must wear a tie around your neck come in with four tied around your neck, one around your left wrist, and another one tied around your head…rambo-style.
continue to push the limits of absurdity while sticking to the letter of the law until they fire you.

then sue

Awesome. How specific is your dress code? When you say that a skirt must “come to the knee,” do you specify that it must start at the waist?

The dress code at our shop is, “Wear clothes.” It works. (Although we do have dress up days. You can see examples here, here, here, here and here.)