Agreed. I feel more professional if I dress the part.
Don’t get me wrong, I dress much more comfortably when I work from home. But I still shower, do my hair, etc. I dress in something that looks somewhat professional.
I used to work in tech support in an office where I sat in a cubicle all day and communicated with customers solely through phone and email. I could dress as casually as I wanted. I had coworkers that would show up in jeans, flip flops, hoodie, etc. I would dress in slacks and a polo with loafers. Nobody who saw me cared, it had no real impact on my job, but I felt more professional and I think it made me act more professional when I communicated with people.
Decades ago, I read an article by a guy who freelanced from home, back when that was a rarity.
He said that if he had to call a client (landline, it was the late '80s), he’d put on a sportcoat and tie, be all business-like for the conversation, then back to the t-shirt.
Little did he know he was thirty years ahead of his time.
I understand the psychology, and if I was working from home, I might feel the same way. But I’m retired, and I don’t. There are days when I don’t plan to go out anywhere where I wear a dressing gown all day, and I feel just fine about it. In fact it’s quite liberating. Although in the summer it’s hardly any different from putting on a t-shirt, jeans, and slip-on sandals.
It’s hard to believe that there was a time I went to work in a suit and tie, something that even conservative business people often don’t do these days. The tie was the first thing to go. Somewhat strangely, two venues where the tradition of suit and tie persists is some (not all) talk show hosts, and NHL hockey coaches!
When I got to work from home, I stuck to my regular schedule, with the exceptions of getting to wake up later (no commute!) and putting on clean PJs instead of work clothes. We did occasionally have Teams meetings, but very few employees had cameras, so they were always audio-only.
I don’t know if you can really rant about depression, but I took a “mental health day” today and it didn’t do a damned bit of good. I did some activities that normally I would consider fun… Nothing. Just a pervasive sense of doom. It’s not usually quite this bad, even in the last few months, so I’m going to assume my stupid hormones are screwing with me. I just feel like I’m on a treadmill, running as hard as I can, going nowhere.
Very minor rant here: I checked my Credit Karma account today for the first time in ages. One of their recommendations: lower my auto loan payment from 396 to 229. By refinancing it to a 7 year loan, at nearly 6 percent.
Costing me something like 3,000 additional bucks over the life of the loan. Yeeeah. no.
About 2 years ago, we refinanced our mortgage, to a truly rock-bottom rate (20 year fixed rate), just before rates started rising. About 6 or so months later, a “retention specialist” from the lender called, trying to persuade me to refinance again. I could get roughly the same payment, even get a bit of cash out… by switching to an adjustable loan. Yeah… bad idea. Would’ve been great for THEM, they’d have gotten to churn a bunch more fees through their books.
So we had another mothereffin’ power outage today, just in time for dinner. And also in the middle of when I was roasting a pork butt.
It’s been very dry here lately and it was obvious a storm was coming. If we’d gotten some rain from that storm, I would have considered the hassle of being without power for 4 hours a fair deal, but NO, we got exactly zippo rain, while our downtown did, and did not lose power during that time. I know this because we went down there to eat dinner and hang for awhile. Trees down everywhere (and one of those trees was responsible for our outage), but otherwise everything was OK.
Now I’ll be up until at least 1 am roasting my butt. My actual butt is pretty frosted about this. Grrr.
I would totally do this but I start to worry someone’s going to knock on my door and there I’ll be, in my pajamas. The longer I stay in my pajamas the worse my anxiety gets that someone will knock.
Meh, I usually don’t answer the door unless I’m expecting someone or a delivery. One time I answered the door in my dressing gown (don’t remember which one – I have a fine assortment of three different ones ) and it was a post office package delivery that required a signature. The post office person was a very pretty young lady but naturally my appearance in a fashionable and stately dressing gown didn’t faze her at all, although my friends – on hearing this story, and obviously jealous of my luxuriantly laid-back lifestyle – falsely tried to impugn that she was probably terrified. This was obvious calumny, and had she not been obviously occupied by official business, I would have – in graceful and stately fashion – invited her in for a drink.
Yea. I wear the same clothes at home as I have at the office. Except for one horrible job I had 30 years ago. Now it’s Jeans, a fleece top and light weight hiking shoes. Regardless of if I’m working or lounging around.
We sprung for a Corsair mechanical gaming keyboard . Yes, the keys DO light up (but that can be turned off); I actually wanted that feature, because I wanted to be able to highlight some specific keys I use a lot in database work. It wasn’t cheap. I don’t notice that any of the key labels have worn off - that would actually be hard, since they are basically cutouts in the black plastic key cap (thus allowing the backlights to shine through). But if something did happen: being a mechanical keyboard, the caps can be pulled off and replaced.
I have one of those too. Being a writer and a gamer, I’m very particular about my keyboards. I’ve tried all manner of switch styles, and after trying a few different things, settled on this:
Corsair K95 RGB Platinum XT Mechanical USB Gaming Keyboard, Backlit RGB LED, Cherry MX RGB Brown, Black https://a.co/d/dWZY8r4
I’m home tonight, by myself. It’s at least Plan G.
Plans A - F were multiple hot air balloon festivals &, separately a race in the morning. The festival I was going to but didn’t bother to drive to (weather) didn’t do anything tonight but the one I wasn’t going to actually was able to get the balloons out. Ran fine last night by was limping when I woke up this morning & my hammy is still tight so not pushing it hard tomorrow. Really bummed because a friend runs it & it’s the last year for the event.
Wow, that’s expensive, relatively speaking! The cost of a keyboard wouldn’t normally be a big factor but that’s USD $200, and it’s CAD $240 from Amazon Canada. Meanwhile both the classic Microsoft 600 keyboard and the current Amazon one were less than $20. There’s also a similar Corsair K55 that’s only CAD $85. At those prices I’d like to personally audition them in a computer store.
A local computer store has many keyboards on display where you can handle them and peck away at them, so I might have a look next time I’m nearby. The Amazon one is really not bad now that I’m getting used to it. There’s certainly nothing functionally wrong with it, just a different feel than I’m used to. I think part of the issue is that the chiclet keys don’t have as much travel as I’m accustomed to, and seem to have maybe a slightly firmer touch. But it’s actually quite an attractive keyboard with some nice features, like wide rubber pads front and back so it sits very solidly on the desktop.
Thanks for the suggestions about the Corsair, I’ll have a look!
) and it was a post office package delivery that required a signature. The post office person was a very pretty young lady but naturally my appearance in a fashionable and stately dressing gown didn’t faze her at all, although my friends – on hearing this story, and obviously jealous of my luxuriantly laid-back lifestyle – falsely tried to impugn that she was probably terrified. This was obvious calumny, and had she not been obviously occupied by official business, I would have – in graceful and stately fashion – invited her in for a drink. 
)