'Business Casual'

Last week I was given my 90 day review at work. This is never good for me, never! But among some of my usual offenses, at ANY job, I was told that although the company's dress code is business casual, I needed to lean more toward the business and let my clothes reflect a more conservative look. Apparently, the natural, free and expressive gemini that I am, has been a little to casual. Here's the problem, I have often had a hard time with this concept. I love bright colors and form-fitting clothes and absolutely detest what I like to refer to as modern-day corporate-plantation monkey suits! But alas, such is life. I can dress the part, but it takes so much concentration not to pick up the vibrant blue paisley dress. Or a dramatically ruffled sleeveless top (I think I am going to pull that off in the near future). Oh and by the way, it was explained that even casual Fridays are not open to me....argh! So I had to do some soul searching. How much do I like and more importantly need this job? The answer for both is: a lot. So I bought a skirt and sling-backs and set out to coordinate a new dress code for myself, along with a new attitude. So with one week down, what was my grade??? Perfect score! The funny thing is I got so many compliments on my attire. The best one came today. I wore some wide-legged bell bottomed tan pants, a light purple 1/4 length sleeve button up, my chocolate brown croc print pumps, a leopard print classic sweater (buttoned) and my, as Octavia calls it, Salt-N-Pepa goldish thick, but not too gaudy chain. I pulled the front piece of my hair back into a simple black barrette and put my face on to set it all off. My absolute real-live fashion hero. The woman whose closet I would love to raid. The person who, if she ever held a garage sale, I'd be there at 6am sharp and volunteer if need be to get first dibs on all of her uber-fab clothes...yeah her...she said, and I nearly quote: I'm loving this, the color combination, the chain, everything, you look really good. O-M-G!!!!!! She is hands down the best dressed PERSON in the entire office. It meant so much to me, I beamed for about an hour. But she wasn't the only one, I have been noticed by both men and women in the office this week, saying things like: I've noticed your conservative look lately, I'm diggin' it or Maya always looks nice, she's got that Michelle Obama thing going on. What I learned this week though, beyond all else is, I not only looked better, I felt better and more confident. My attitude changed when I took better pride in my appearance. I feel like they even respected me more, which is always a plus. So cheers to all the corporate girls holding it down and still looking fly while doing so!