Just Trying To Keep My Pants On

My best friend cracks me up.   She makes me laugh on a regular basis.   Sometimes while we’re out running we talk about trivial things.   More commonly though it’s about the challenges we face in life.   For instance, I have a child that lost her vision.   As you can well imagine, the topic of my daughter and how she’s doing, her education and the way in which it’s changed our lives comes up a lot.

My best friend has four children and as with any child, there are challenges they face that as parents we need to help guide them through.   Then there are our jobs.    My job situation is fairly easy and low stress.  My running buddy’s work is high stress and she has the lives of both adults and babies.   On top of that she also has all the complexities of a work environment hierarchy.

The other week there were changes being implemented.   One of them was an overall dress code memo that went out.   This memo went to everyone in employment in the entire large hospital/university.   This particular memo wasn’t targeting her or her office or women specifically.   But it irked her.  

I think on the day the memo came out she’d had some additional stress with patients and difficult news to deliver, and that would put me on edge any day of the year.    But she called me.   She called me to vent.   She went over the very specific guidelines on what attire wasn’t appropriate for women while working.

One of the things was not wearing shirts that exposed the belly.   My very well-dressed best friend has no clothes that even remotely resemble that rule.   But there were others.  Such as the number of inches a skirt could be above the knee.   I don’t remember what the amount was, but it was minimal, and apparently almost all of my best friend’s skirts may or may not be on the verge of that limit.

I told her that her very professional, tailored dresses weren’t the target of the memo.   But the venting needed to happen.   She exclaimed, “I’m just trying to put my pants on and go to work here!!”  I laughed at her and she kept going on about the next thing on the list, which had move into what was appropriate on social media.  

With four children and a heavy work schedule my best friend spends very little time on social media. The time she does have goes to her children, remembering to eat, running and sleeping.   But it was annoying, these rules, this corporate hand reaching out and telling employees how they had to conduct themselves in their personal time.    And she lost it.   She said in a piercing tone to me on the phone, “I’m just trying to keep my pants on and work here!”   And then I laughed.   And laughed.   And laughed.  

I said, “are you sure that’s what you meant to say?”  She mentally rewound her words in her mind and then she laughed too.    Her anger was diffused for the moment.   She chuckled and told me thanks for hearing her out.    I told her to be sure and keep those pants on.   She told me to shut up and then we laughed and hung up.

The Big Boy Update:  My son brought his work home for tomorrow that he’ll be doing instead of the class field trip to the aquarium.   He didn’t want his sister to know why he was staying home.   Today he had a contract (and will have every day going forward) on what behavior is appropriate in the classroom.   He brought home his contract today and had gotten four out of five checked, which is better than the zero of five he must have been doing in the prior days before the contract was implemented.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a renewed interest in drawing.   She’s got some types of shapes she’s doing, but a lot of it is coloring and scribbling.  We’re encouraging her to color the drawings in her braille books created by her teacher that she brings home.   What we’re trying to discourage though is all the accidental red sharpie on the floor from a very enthusiastic drawing session before school today.