I know that none of you would ever do this and especially those who are ultra conservative like me. I went to work for Ross Perot at EDS right out of college (read the book On Wings of Eagles) and we wore dark suits and white shirts, not to be white on white either, dark socks (solid colors only) and tie shoes (almost always wing-tipped) , not slip on, and your hair had to be cut well above the ear and no sideburns and no facial hair. I also forgot, the shirts had to be long sleeve. If you got up from your desk, you had to put on your coat even if you were going to the restroom. It was pretty formal and business like but if you think about the reason behind it, it did make sense. The philosophy was that you wanted to be over dressed and never under dressed so that your clients/customers knew you were professional. Don't offend the customer.
I remember this one guy, Lanny Andrews, who was working on a contract with MGM in California and the airline lost his luggage. I forgot to mention also that if you were traveling you were required to wear a suit then as well. In fact, Lanny wore a light colored suit that was somewhere between tan and white, not a suit that was allowed in the office.
In fact one time I asked if a suit I wore at my college graduation at SWOSU (Weatherford, OK) would work and they said, ware it one day. I did, they laughed their heads off and sent me home and it was a very expensive suite! Mom and dad bought me two suits for graduation knowing where I was going to work. They were from JC Penny's (french for jac peni) and one was blue (dark blue) and one was brown. Funny thing was they both had two pair of pants and vests that were reversible. In fact the reverse side of the vest matched the extra pair of pants (small plaid). I think both suits would never absorb water and in fact were like a ducks back, they shed. I bet those suits were made of an oil based product with virtually no wool or cotton in them. On Sundays I wore the suit with the reverse vest and extra pants. Those suits could not wrinkle if they had to. You never needed a raincoat.
Back to Lanny, he had no choice but to go to that meeting with his almost white suit on and it made him an icon in the EDS circles. It also made it mandatory to never travel in a suit not acceptable to the dress code. We all got a good laugh out of it but Lanny got chewed out. He was lucky in that he was a valuable employee with a good track record, else he would have been gone.
Well, finally, here is my shoe story. I was always early to work and generally always up before Shouna and it was almost always dark outside when I was getting ready for work. Once while working in Dallas at the old Forest Lane office I was at work very early. The challenge is when you have two pair of tie shoes, black and brown, they look alike in the dark. Sure enough I wore one black and one brown but no one really noticed but when one person did, they all knew. They thought it was pretty funny and I did not get sent home but I was given a hard time for months. I think those shoes were made of indestructible naugahide. Does anyone remember when naugahide came out? I don't know if that is how we spelled it but you would have thought it was the most indestructible material ever made and would take over America. The joke was they had to kill a lot of baby naugas. Those shoes were so slick you never had to polish them. For a while everything new seemed to be made of naugahide, like car seats and furniture and everyone was proud of it, kind of like leisure suits, but that is another story.
Well, what do you learn in the Osage?
- Nauga's are like snipes, you just cannot hardly find them except at night when you are wanting to tease the girls
- What at one time seemed like tall cotton (like polyester suits) is just a passing thing so don't get your underwear in a wad or your pride hung a little high cause it will get knocked down a notch or two
- If the focus is on you and not Christ your self esteem is gonna get smacked when you realize how silly you looked in those naugahide shoes or polyester suits
- Live life for the better days not for the past
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