Stephen Yeargin

A wardrobe malfunction involving a bean burrito forced a change of plans this evening. Samantha and I were about to walk in to the Digital Nashville mixer when it happened. As we drove off, giving our parking pass to another attendee, I could not help but notice that I felt more than a bit under-dressed.

My workplace has what one might be described as “relaxed business casual” for a dress code. You are more likely to see a co-worker in a t-shirt and jeans than a suit. The same could not be said of the workplaces of most of the other attendees congregating outside the venue. Suits, ties, dresses and heels certainly set the scene for a very high-class affair.

One of our college professors had a simple message to would-be Communications graduates at UT Martin:

Your appearance and the words that you say set the tone for your interactions with others in the workplace.

The late Dorotha Norton’s Voice and Diction class extensively covered the second half of that equation, with exercises meant to rid one’s vocabulary of slang and to enable the student to speak clearly with confident articulation. College coursework gave little time to the topic of appearances, other than a brief discussion in the capstone class about what to wear to a job interview.

The last few weeks I have tried to do some things differently, actually breaking out my button-up shirts and slacks for a change. I do not have much of a rhyme or a reason to it, other than that half of my closet space had been seldom touched in the last two years. I have always tried to look a bit more presentable if I knew that someone from outside our organization would be in town.

I am stylistically-challenged, which is one of the many reasons that I am fortunate to be a married man. Even so, I have a goal to be comfortable being around any group that I may encounter at networking events.

Except for perhaps a dinner with royalty. No one should ever be expected to dress that formally.