The Sporting Life: Casual Friday attire takes a wrong turn

Brent Lawrence is copy editor and columnist for the Springfield Business Journal.

This whole casual Friday concept has gotten a little out of hand.

The original concept was to allow professionals to dress down with slightly more casual attire. Sounds reasonable. But I didn't think it gave everybody who works in an office the right to dress like they were working in the garden.

I took my daughter to her first visit with her pediatrician on a recent Friday afternoon. The woman at the front desk looked like she was ready for the rodeo, wearing tight western jeans and top.

The nurse/assistant came into the room to get information about Macy's medicines, allergies, age, weight and height. While the majority of her attire certainly wasn't professional, it passed as acceptable. My main issue was her old, scruffy tennis shoes. I wear better shoes to mow the lawn.

I understand the need for nurses to wear comfortable shoes since they're walking on hard floors all day, but that was ridiculous. Clean tennis shoes would have been fine.

Regardless of the day of the week, businesses and employees should always retain a professional image. A doctor and his staff should dress in an appropriate way to inspire confidence in their ability.

Same goes for a banker, Realtor, insurance agent, corporate manager and anybody else who must inspire trust in the public and/or employees.

Of course, a lot of the confusion over what's appropriate in a business setting is blurred by television. The show "Boston Public" shows teachers in jeans, bare midriffs and other stylish clothes. The show "Becker" has a receptionist who wears leather pants.

Maybe people see the shows and think its acceptable in real life, too. If so, here's a little secret: Television is fake; those aren't real people performing real jobs.

Perhaps we should note a few other special days of the week. How about White Trash Wednesday and Tube Top Thursdays?

It just seems that regardless of the day I choose to do business with a company, I should get the same level of treatment and professionalism.

Pet peeve

One of our columnists had an article last week about his first dog, which he saved from certain death by adopting it many years ago.

We have had as many or more e-mails about that column than we have had on any other article we've published since I've been here. Why?

I love dogs I have four of them (three Labrador retrievers and a Catahoula) but why do articles on pets elicit more emotion and commentary from people than substantive stories on politics, taxes and business issues?

If people would get equally worked up over "people" issues, then we'd have better community activism, higher voter turnout and a better society.