Nows and Forevers

Today was the first day in 2023 that I’ve worn a tie. And I thought hard this morning about whether I would do that at all.

There wasn’t a dress code at the event I attended. About half the people wore ties, maybe a little less. I had a suit jacket on and so did they. But everyone else wore either a dress shirt without a tie or a sweater, and everyone got along just fine. I can’t tell you the last time I wore a tie but I think it was before Thanksgiving. It’s odd now to have a tie around my neck, and I’m still getting used to it.

I know there’s been a tendency over the last decade to have “casual Fridays” or dress-down days at the office. That all came to a halt in March 2020 with the Covid-19 pandemic and I don’t know about you, but I rarely wore a tie from 2020 all the way through yesterday. It just hasn’t been necessary.

That’s been a big change for me, who straddles the line employment-wise between the days when you always wore a shirt and tie to everything to these days when there’s no such thing as a dress code. And that’s working for the most part in an office setting, the newsroom, where almost anything went.

As a journalist, I wore ties for a long time. I didn’t when I was a copy editor who worked nights and didn’t interact with the public. Nor did I when I worked from home, as I did a couple of days a week in the 2000s. But my job has demanded it for years on end, and it was cool.

I have always believed that I should be dressed up to the level that the people I cover are. That meant that if I was covering politics or going to a news conference or a meeting, then I would “dress up” with a tie. For the past two decades I’ve spent covering the business world, I’ve worn a tie more often than not. But I will acknowledge that I was well into my 40s before I consistently wore a suit jacket or a sportscoat, until someone told me to grow up and wear a jacket.

But these days, it’s confusing. We don’t have a dress code and we aren’t expected to be in the office every day. (Both things I’m over the moon about, personally.) I’ve taken, in the cooler months, to wearing a sweater instead. Yesterday, I went to a government meeting without a tie and I have to say I felt a little self-conscious. But if I’m just going into the office or working around the house, I’m not wearing a tie. To me, that’s progress.

I don’t know whether this casual approach is going to last, just like I don’t know if we’re going to continue to be able to work remotely as much as we have over the past three years. The signs, on the remote work part, are all over the place. But I don’t think we lose anything when we allow workers to loosen up a bit.

Just like me. I’m pretty close, halfway through my work day, with loosening the tie altogether. And who knows how long it’ll be before I wear another?