Ever since I graduated from college, nearly every job I held required me to abide by a strict dress code. Literally all of my post-college jobs were white collar jobs, meaning professional, managerial, or administrative jobs performed in an office or other administrative setting.

In the early days, the dress code for male employees essentially meant wearing a suit and a tie to work. For the most part, once I got to the office, I’d take off and hang up my suit coat and only put it on when I had to go to meetings with clients, customers, prospects, and with executives in my own company.

I really didn’t mind all that much having to wear a suit, but I really hated having to wear a tie. I never quite understood the purpose of or the necessity for wearing ties. But it was the dress code, you know.

At some point, maybe the late 80s or early 90s, a lot of companies started introducing a new dress code that included “casual Fridays.” We didn’t have to wear a suit and a tie on casual Fridays, but we did have to wear a sport coat with a dress shirt, and dress trousers. We referred to that kind of attire as “business casual.”

Then, in the early 2000s, many companies began to allow males to dress in “business casual” almost all the time, with some more progressive companies introducing “jeans Fridays.”

In 2005, I became what was alternatively known as a telecommuter, a remote worker, or a “home-shored” employee. As long as I had a laptop with a reliable internet connection and a telephone, I could work from the comfort of my own home, only occasionally having to physically go into the office.

One of the things I loved about being home-shored, aside from not having to commute to and from the office, was the lack of a dress code. I could work in my pajamas if I didn’t feel like getting dressed. Or I could slip on a t-shirt and jeans. It didn’t matter. Hell, I could have worked naked, were I so inclined.

It was great. No more suits, ties, sport coats, dress shirts, dress slacks, or dress shoes.

And now that I’m retired, my dress code is whatever is relatively clean and comfortable. Mostly that equates to jeans and t-shirts. I dress any way I want to dress. If I dress at all.

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Written for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. Our task is to write a post using the word “dress.”