mistressofmuses | (no subject)

(no subject)

Ugh, just spent literally like... almost five hours hand-stitching patches in for the only pair of pants I own. (Or at least that I own and also dubiously fit.) Since I pretty much have to wear skirts to work, I've been able to forget that I don't have any functional pants.

How the fuck did this project take that long? I HAVE NO IDEA. I just looked up at the clock and was shocked. And boy did that kill my eyes.

(To be fair, this was three fairly large patches to fix a couple actual holes and a several areas of thinning fabric, and I was trying to do it "the right way", to reinforce the fabric all over.)

I'm not unhappy with the patch job (though I never want to see sewing thread again ever.) It better hold up, or I'll be really annoyed, haha.

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Why...do you have to wear skirts to work? That sounds...really unethical of them.

It's not so much that I'm *required* to wear skirts as it is that the rules for pants are a lot stricter. Pretty much any knee-or-below skirt is acceptable, but pants have to be certain colors/materials in order to be "professional." (The owners apparently like... have the worst hate for jeans or something, so they went all-out on trying to make sure no one would dare attempt to sneak a pair of something-even-kind-of-like-jeans into an office.)
They can also be strict on clothing appearing "untidy", like wrinkled or creased in the wrong places, and I don't have an iron! With skirts, the material often doesn't wrinkle/crease, or if it does, it blends into the fall of the fabric, haha.
I did have a couple pair of slacks that I used to wear, but they don't fit terribly well anymore. :/

Wow. That sounds like a whole lot of bullshit. The five months I worked at Eckerds in Corpus, I had to wear beige/tan pants (didn't matter what kind, though I think they kinda frowned on jeans) and blue shirts (Polo style preferred). That was the most uniform thing I ever had to wear for a job. When I worked for the psychologist, we could wear jeans on Fridays but as long as I looked semi-professional, I could wear what I wanted. Since I walked to and from work (unless it was raining or the office manager or secretary offered me a ride home), I tried not to wear skirts because thighs chafing sucks. I loved that job, but after a while, I realized I hated how...normal I had to look. It's not like I was dying my hair yet or anything, but it was so...normal, so yuppy, so bleh that I hated it. I think I've pretty much decided that any job I have in the future, even if I have to dress business casual or something, I'm going to do it in a way that screams I AM NOT NORMAL I AM NOT BORING. (If my hair would just go completely white, that would be great, thanks because then it would just look awesome with the way I buzz my hair now or I could color it wild colors.) I don't intend to make employers entirely comfortable in my presence in the future unless they're just freaks like me, and then the more freaks the better.

It is pretty bullshit! They are very strict on other "dress-code" stuff, too: absolutely no non-ear piercings, no visible tattoos, no unnatural hair colors. Makes me sad because I wish I could at least do interesting hair color at some point! I understand to an extent - we are dealing with teenage students, and while most of THEM think that colored hair or interesting clothing is cool/unremarkable, the company is concerned with making even the most conservative of parents comfortable with the fact we're dealing with their teens. :/ I still hate it though!

I do kind of resent how... boringly normal I have to look. Same as you said: while I know I have to stick to business-casual, I'd really like to find ways to be more expressive with it. Though that butts up against both my limited budget to purchase clothing as well as my general laziness regarding clothes, which means I don't want anything that requires too much care (dry clean, hand-wash, ironing, etc.) I do have a couple more interesting dresses - one a stars/nebulae pattern in subtle bi pride colors, and the other with lithographic bats. I love both of those, and need a few more pieces like that that I can wear without seeming painfully normal, lol.

That is going to be the thing in the future when I apply for jobs once we move. They'll have to be okay with visible tattoos. Yes, I can wear long sleeves to cover mine up - or at least the four I currently have - but I'm not going to wear long sleeves all the time. I've got specific types of jobs I really want to try and get in at - libraries, newspapers, journals/magazines, New Age shops - I really want to avoid 'professional' type jobs as much as I can. I'll take what I can get, but I'm going to fight for what I want. I'm going to try contacting people through the New Bern IG account, "Hey, moving to the area with my sister, looking for a house to rent in this price range and looking for a job in these areas, any help would be fantastic so that we can get a fresh start in your lovely city," that sort of thing. I'm so tired of appeasing conservatives. They need to be fed into volcanoes to appease the Old Gods.

If you can accessorize in ways that keep you from being boring and conservative and meh then that's a good thing, at least. I get that about shopping for clothes. Most of my clothes - save the t-shirts I buy from the internet - come from Goodwill. I can kind of create my own style from both men's and women's sections, though dammit, all the shoes I see there that I like that are in good shape are always for feet too big or too small.

Those are all good jobs to have, and ones where I hope they would be okay with things like tattoos and colored hair. Definitely worth fighting for what you want. And I think looking ahead of time on the social media for the area is a great idea!
Definitely sick of appeasing conservatives. Hate being forced to.

Yeah, accessories are probably a good way to go to at least try and improve the "not as normal as I might look" vibe, haha. I like thrift stores for clothes, but it can be frustrating trying to find anything I like that also fits. I've found a handful of nice things, but usually walk away without much. Shoes are the worst to try and find!

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