Dress like DJam Day
I am on vacation this week, so just a super short article to remind everyone that this coming Saturday, August 13th is national dress like DJam day (although this year, I am told that it will be celebrated on Friday, August 12th).?
We started the tradition on the System Center Configuration Management team nearly a decade ago. As long as I have known him, David James has worn the same thing to work every day – shorts and a T-shirt (usually in a primary colour) -- even on the coldest day of winter (which is not that cold in Seattle, but still). Steve Jobs had his turtleneck, Zuck his hoodie, and David his t-shirt and shorts.
In a show of love more than mockery, the team decided to all come to work dressed like DJam one day in August. It took Dave a bit of time to catch on (I seem to recall he even unironically commented on how well dressed I was that day). But when he came around the corner and spotted the whole team holding Diet Cokes, he clued in. We all had a good time, and a tradition was born.
There were a few days during his career at Microsoft when DJam dressed up1 This led to one of the most awkward moments I have ever experienced in an executive meeting. When Dave entered the room, one of the women on the team exclaimed (quite loudly), “David, I don’t think I have ever seen you in pants before.” Quickly realizing what she said, she turned beet red and tried to explain.
Anyhow, I promise I will have a more ‘on-topic’ article next week. In the meantime, smile and enjoy the summer!
领英推荐
Be Happy!
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Footnotes:
Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft
2 年Didn't he wear pants that time he had to appear in court? Maybe that was someone else.
For all the years I spent working with DJam, I never participated in “dress like DJam day”? Why?Because we share the same birthday, and I have a long-standing policy that I take that day off if it falls on a weekday. It’s ok, though. Given that DJam and I have very similar fashion senses, pretty much every day ends up being “dress like DJam day” for me.
I'm still embarrassed that i was blissfully unaware this was happening... the first time. Took me until way after lunch to notice that everyone in all my meetings was dressed that way. I just thought everyone was dressing comfortably during a hot august work day. Wasn't until in the afternoon when the team fridge had run out of diet cokes... and then I noticed many people were also carrying diet cokes - that I realized the <mockery>. and then when it happened again in a later year; it still took me too long to realized what was happening. Those were fun days. Work hard / play hard. Now I'm thinking about some of the old SCCM Dev Survivor competitions...
lol - "Guns or God Days".... first time I heard that. I do know whenever I wore long pants, people would assume I was either interviewing someone, or interviewing for another job. But in reality - it was either (as you said) the military, or the EBC building at Microsoft - which I couldn't enter with my normal dress code. I think I was on their watch list to make sure I was wardrobe checked before I could go in and talk to customers in the EBC. (good think Bill Anderson gave me a crash course in culture and mannerisms... so I knew things like "B-M-W", and not to each my neighbor's bread.)
Founder, CEO at Patch My PC
2 年Brett Flegg, we will need to implement this at Patch My PC to keep the tradition going here as well!