One Dress & Dressing for Success

Day 9

So, I have a job.  I run my own business.  Which means I work on my own schedule.  And it's primarily online and on the phone (no, not internet porn, thank you very much) so it doesn't much matter what I wear.  I could be in pajammies and most people wouldn't know.

But today I got an email that gave me pause.

It was for a part-time job that I was interested in.  And so I responded saying I'd love to interview.

And then I realized.  I've committed to wearing the same dress for a year.  People don't wear the same clothes every day in a professional atmosphere.

So what do I do about this?

I can be really upfront and say, hey, I'd love this job AND I'm wearing the same dress for a year.  Here's my blog address.

Or I could just not mention it, and accept the job if offered, and wait until she says something.  But I'm a really upfront person, so this feels icky.

Plus, the dress isn't very professional.  It's cute, and versatile, and dress-upable enough for most of the occasions I attend, but definitely not professional.  Which means that I'd have to express that I know that my dress isn't the most professional attire.  Which means I'm back to explaining why I'm wearing a dress for a year.

My dear friend said I could hurry up and create a cause, that would make it admirable, respectable, blah blah.  But again, that's not really why I'm doing it and feels dishonest to use a cause when I didn't have one to begin with.  And she dismissed it pretty quickly anyway.

And I considered if I'd give up the one dress one year thing.  (no).  And I considered just wearing work clothes for work.  (which is a ridiculous idea).

So, I decided I'd be upfront and just tell her the story.  Either she'd be interested and be ok with it, or she'd think I was too kooky.

And then she emailed me and said she really needs someone yesterday, and my being gone for 2 weeks vacation makes it really hard when she needed someone yesterday.

So, professional crisis averted.  But it makes me wonder what the other onedress/oneyear people do about their work situations.

What would you have done?  Would you have been upfront or let it slide until the employer brought it up?  Or something else entirely?

(I wished her good luck finding someone right away.  And for her sake, I hope she does.  But I'll call when I'm back from vacation anyway, just in case.)