power suit friday's

First things first, give credit where credit is due. My friend Routhier is the evil genius behind Power Suit Friday's. He got the idea from of all things, an episode of Top Gear; you know what, he says it best. Take a second and give this a read:

Power Suit Friday

After hearing about the wonders that came from his Power Suit Friday experience, I kinda wanted to give it a try. I extended the invite to my sub-team and to my surprise, we all seemed to be on board. 100% participation and overall acceptance of the idea was WAY more successful than previous team building ideas... Hot yoga didn't really fly.

"Why wasn't I invited to partake? I do have a list of 150 resumes in my inbox by the way."

I work at a place where there is no dress code per say; everyone dresses how they want to. You get everything from business casual (aka, shirt tuckage) to the ever fashionable crocs/socks/shorts combo. In a building filled with engineers, fashion is special and you get a bit of everything. 

Who am I to talk about dress code; after being employed here for 1 month and 6 days, I casually went to work dressed as Death from Family Guy (minus the scythe). It was 06/06/06, when am I ever going to get that chance again? Ya... no one got it and no one else was in costume for that day in June.

"I thought women wore power suits; men just wear suits."

I have an interesting collection of ancient suits in my basement that I acquired from my father over the years. I guess he was a suit wearing man when he was younger/slimmer. I must have three or four 3 piece suits just sitting there. The only time they are worn are for weddings and deaths; hence these awesomely terrible suits are fully inappropriate for all occasions. Time to make a new occasion me thinks.

"You went a little overboard with the vest there; Who even OWNS a vest?!"

"How's it going Peter Par... J Jonah Jamesson"

You simply feel GOOD wearing a Power Suit. It was a strange phenomenon, but all of us simply felt better than we normally do at work. It was a fun day filled with awesome quotes, rich man laughter and getting things done!

Without further adieu, da boyz.

"Does it look like I'm dressed to fix a garage door opener problem?"

Some of us are so powerful, a tie was not needed.

"Excuse me; Power Suit coming through; make a hole."

When you look this good, you don't need to carry things to make it look like you're busy.

Skinny black tie; white belt... thanks to Mr.Brown here, we're going for breakfast at a small cafe next Power Suit Friday.

I still think the best part of my day was when my manager just quietly walked into my cube with his coffee; stared at me, popped me in the back of the head, smiled, shook his head and walked away.

This V8 Fusion ain't doin' it for me; it's time for Power Lunch!

When I called the day before to make the reservation at Milestones they asked if there was a special occasion. I explained that there was no 'special occasion'; simply Power Suit Friday. The hostess burst out in laughter. This is serious business I thought. Here we are planning to take time from our busy schedules to grab a bite to eat; no humor in that.

Naturally, Power Drinks were much needed. I settled on a martini because I like gin and olives. When asked what kind of gin I wanted the answer was obvious; Tanqueray. In situations like this you just have to ask yourself, "what would Snoop do?" Apparently there is such thing as Tanqueray 10 so drink upgrade it was. My order was so Powerful, both Mr.White and Mr.Brown had the same.

Mr.Pink knows how to order drinks!

I ordered the sea bass cause it came with shiitake mushrooms; I like to eat inappropriate sounding things ok. Turned out that the sea bass is being over-fished right now or something so I had to settle with some lesser fish, meh, was tasty.

"Come on Kevin; try and order something a bit less endangered why don't you."

All in all, Power Suit Friday was a success. It was a pretty good day overall and I'm looking forward to the next one. I still think that the last payday of each month is the perfect Friday for it, but to keep it fresh we might suit it up every second month. We gotta balance the Friday the 13th pub crawls in there as well you know!

I strongly suggest that others take up this tradition, it's a great team building activity and a great excuse to dress up without having to go to a wedding or a funeral.

I wish I could always be in Power Suit mode, everything is just that much more entertaining... like conversations about getting a replacement iron ring...