My first job was Little Caesar’s Pizza. I had to wear khakis and a Little Caesar’s shirt. I never thought to be embarassed about it—but when I had to wear a toga as part of the pizza place’s “float” in our small-town parade, that was embarassing.
I also worked in a deli at a grocery store where I had to wear black pants and a white shirt. I didn’t mind it so much, except that I had to replace the white shirts every few weeks. We had well water, and anything white turned orange after being washed several times.
Next I worked in a daycare (this was in college), where the teachers were expected to dress like teachers. It made it hard to run around with toddlers without worring about the dry-cleaning bill. I borrowed a lot of my mom’s clothes when I worked there, because I didn’t have any “professional” type clothes. I still think it was silly to have the teachers dress so nicely. My mom thought so too after finding fingerpaint on her nice white pants.
The worst job was after college, where we were supposed to wear “business dress.” Everyone hated it, because we never saw customers and most people didn’t make enough money to go out and buy suits. I think we spent more time in that office discussing the strict dress code than anything else.
After I left that job, I worked in a daycare center. That was great because I could wear comfortable clothes to play in all day. We were encouraged not to wear things we couldn’t get dirty because they wanted us playing with the kids and getting involved in their craft projects. Shorts and t-shirts in the summer, jeans and sweatshirt in the winter. It was great, and a lot of fun.