[QUOTE=Scissorjack]
And the sickening infantilisation of the adult world creeps on apace. Look at me, I’m wacky, vibrant and still a just a fun-loving kid at heart because I’m wearing a plastic witch’s hat from the $2 shop. If you still want to play dress-up, do it at home on your own time where the real grown-ups don’t have to watch.
[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, you’re going to have to speak up. The fun we’re having makes it hard to hear.
My favorite “not a costume” costume is going as a werewolf.
It doesn’t work if there actually is a full moon on halloween.
I don’t do the full costume for work, because that does seem a little weird, but I’m going to wear my Jedi cloak over my regular work clothes tomorrow and go as a “Jedi Accountant” (the Force is all about balancing after all).
Last year I wore my grim reaper cloak, scythe, and faceless mask (a black mask that makes your face look like it’s disappeared inside the hood), and walked up behind my boss in the morning. His reaction was totally worth the effort, let me tell you. 
(And then I just took the cloak and mask off and wore my regular clothes.)
You can be boring office person every day of your life - I like the chance to be a little different once a year.
[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
I’m going to be a music pirate!
Yar.
[/QUOTE]
Do 'ee rip to CD-AAARRR!, belike?
[QUOTE=Otto]
… we can only participate if we make a charitable donation to a group I find ethically suspect (United Way, since someone will ask and since we haven’t had our annual United Way pledge drives suck thread). …
[/QUOTE]
I totally forgot that it’s time to trash the United Way. Here you go.
[QUOTE=ArchiveGuy]
Dress up for a party? Fine. Throw on a costume to take the kids out to TorT? Sure. But at your job? Where you’re surrounded by nothing but adults? There’s something kinda skeevy about it to me (though I’ll make mild concessions if you’re in a family-friendly/kiddie-oriented retail/CS position).
[/QUOTE]
At my company, they have a big time costume contest where one male and one female each win an all expenses paid trip for two for a week to Hawaii. And we’re just a corporate headquarters.
Needless to say, that gives many at my company a good reason to dress up.
I’m stealing the “cloudy, with a chance of showers” costume, and damn it, I’m doing it tomorrow at the office. I will certainly be the only one who does anything kooky.
I will be wearing a grey sweater and a grey cashmere blazer, brown or black slacks, and I used a headband I had, and have cotton balls for clouds attached in a nice row. Yay, duct tape! I might add some more cotton balls to my lapel, I don’t know. I picked up a little squirt bottle after work today.
After I’ve squirted everyone, I just remove headband and put down sprayer, and voila, I am Boring Administrative Assistant once again.
I’m also bringing more mini chocolate bars in for everyone.
Someone’s got to be the fun person to have around, so I guess I’m going to be it! Oh, gotta go. Have a pumpkin to carve.
I’m not dressing up for Halloween, but I am bringing in my life-sized Paris Hilton cardboard standup to greet people at our door.
The thing is absolutely terrifying.
[QUOTE=wring]
I don’t generally wear a costume to work, but have been known from time to time to wear a tiara. When we were told we couldn’t wear anything (including head bobbers, tiaras, etc.), I sent out a system wide email to alert people to the fact that my costume that day was “caring human services professional”.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a pity I don’t feel real comfy naked. I mean, “anything” is “anything,” right?
Otto, love the BooFae costume.
The only time I dressed up for Hell-O-Ween-not-the-music-group it was a compulsory thing (why do some bosses think that making people dress silly or do karaoke “builds team spirit”? Half the time it just builds puke pools on the floor). I wore one of my lab coats, my safety shoes, jeans, T-shirt and a cowboy hardhat I’d been given as a gift in one of our Texas factories. So I was dressed as a Texan lab chick, zero cost. You may catch me dead in old underwear, but there’s no way you’ll catch me in a party-costume shop - dead or alive.
Yet again I’m surprised by a cultural difference. We do Halloween in a big way over here. Kids got collecting dressed up. Lots of costume parties etc. The whole city has sounded like downtown Gaza becuase of all the fireworks going off for the last month. Lots of very large bonfires will be lit on the night.
We don’t dress up to go to work though. Some may in costume shops or kids places but the idea of adults going to work dressed up sounds very strange to me.
Each to his own though as it seems from this thread that it’s quite normal in the States.
I have decided to rebel and am sitting in my cubicle wearing my devil horns and some skull-themed jewelry. I considered my vampire fangs but it’s too hard to talk on the phone with them in. It’s early yet but I appear to be the only person who’s worn any sort of a costume element.
Rebel.
Go Otto, go Otto.
We’re now almost four hours into my day and no one is wearing any Halloween anything. I’m not even seeing any pumpkin earrings or any other minimal-effort touches.
I swear, the sticks up these peoples’ butts have sticks up their butts.
[QUOTE=Otto]
We’re now almost four hours into my day and no one is wearing any Halloween anything. I’m not even seeing any pumpkin earrings or any other minimal-effort touches.
I swear, the sticks up these peoples’ butts have sticks up their butts.
[/QUOTE]
That’s sad. It really is. I work with a bunch of generally no-fun freaks, and I’ve at least heard people bopping around the office humming “Ghostbusters” and “Thriller” and whatnot. Lots of festive socks and orange turtlenecks and the like.
I’m wearing my “witch” vest, which is really very nice, and a normal top and black jeans, with black-cat earrings. I didn’t dress up so I wouldn’t scare off my prospective employee I was interviewing. But 3 of my dayshift dressed up (all guys) one as a cheerleader with a blonde wig and biiiiig boobs, one as a murderous commando type, and one as a really super-creepy “Blade”-type vampire, complete with red contact lenses. ::shudder::
[QUOTE=Otto]
We’re now almost four hours into my day and no one is wearing any Halloween anything. I’m not even seeing any pumpkin earrings or any other minimal-effort touches.
I swear, the sticks up these peoples’ butts have sticks up their butts.
[/QUOTE]
You could always steal a line from Legally Blonde. “I love your costume! But when I dress up like an uptight bitch, I try not to look so constipated.”
[QUOTE=interface2x]
At my company, they have a big time costume contest where one male and one female each win an all expenses paid trip for two for a week to Hawaii. And we’re just a corporate headquarters.
Needless to say, that gives many at my company a good reason to dress up.
[/QUOTE]
Well, sure, if there’s some sort of incentive, I’d understand. But let’s be honest, most companies don’t do that (or if they do, like my employer, the costume contest is at an off-site company party independent of the workday itself).
[QUOTE=Giraffe]
You’ve captured what I love about Otto’s expression in that picture perfectly. It’s such a great combination of whimsy and straight-faced indifference. “Yeah, I’m a fairy. So what? You want some pixie dust, motherfucker?”
[/QUOTE]
I thought he looked just plain sad.
I like what James Lileks said he wanted to be: he suggested attaching a computer to his rear end and going as the newspaper industry. 
I love Halloween, but I never get invited to parties (this year a friend invited me to a 50s cocktail party-style costume party, but frankly I don’t feel comfortable in the sort of clothes women had to wear back then, so I declined). I’ve got some great ideas for costumes, mostly fantasy based–I have a nice cloak and a very nice staff, Lucius Malfoy’s snake-headed cane, and a bunch of other fun pieces, but nowhere to use them. I think I’m getting a complete Harry Potter Slytherin school uniform for my birthday in a couple of weeks, and I just bought a Slytherin Quidditch robe and team sweater, so maybe next year I’ll find an excuse to dress up. It’s hard since I telecommute.
While I’m at it, let me do a minor hijack and pit the deplorable state of women’s costumes. Look, Halloween Costume Industry: the sexy costumes are fine. But do they ALL have to be sexy? Some of us don’t like to dress up like sluts. Some of us think it’s demeaning that the guys get, for example, a proper policeman or pirate outfit while the women have to settle for halter tops, short shorts, and thigh-high boots. Please, I beg you: go on making those costumes if you must and if they sell well, but PLEASE…make something for the small subset of women who’d like non-sexy costumes. Sure, I know we can make our own, but why should we have to, when you offer so many options of the damn slut costumes?