Can we fit this story into a Successories poster?

Our company picnic is tomorrow. It should be pretty cool. The accounts of last year's picnic affirm the probable presence of beer, food, and lack of management-induced mingling. It's going to be pretty close to my house, and Chris is even going to manage to crash it because he's got a half day as well. (Let's hear it for system upgrades.)

The one thing that my employer was going to bone up about it is the same thing that they always bone up. They were requiring that we wear regular business attire until the closing bell for the day. Now, let's set aside for one minute the sheer morale-plunging properties of this proclamation, and do some basic math. The picnic starts at 1 pm. We are "allowed" to leave work at 12:30. It's a 20 minute drive-- add in traffic lights and parking, and there's your time. Fine. Now, we've got 70 employees in our building alone. Assuming that we all have enough modesty and dignity to use a bathroom stall to change clothes in (and we don't), that's 14 sets of turnover. Allow 3 minutes for each person to change clothes, hire Mussolini to keep everything moving, and you've already got a 45 minute mess.

Obviously, in a move that is totally uncharacteristic for them, management did not think this one through.

But, at 4:59 this afternoon, they redeemed themselves entirely and said that we could wear whatever we want. The bunch of snarky smart-ass writers that I work with immediately started announcing our various wardrobe choices for tomorrow, including "tube top," "pirate shirt," and "showgirl costume."

So the bosses got it right, for which I am most grateful. When word came down, there was a general gleeful hoopla. Mid-whoop, I caught Jesse's eye. We both realized, in an instant, how sad it is to find so much elation in a t-shirt. But I'll try to ride out the wave of joie de vivre until tomorrow afternoon.