Birds do it, bees do it…

Last weekend I bought an Alexander McQueen karma sutra scarf…black background, white border of skulls, and copulating skeletons in the center (subtle, I know). I work in a standard, corporate, office environment but, as yesterday was “jeans day” I thought I’d wear the scarf and see what happened.

I foresaw several possible scenarios:

A glance…a look of disgust (sex in the office!!!)…silence
A look…another look…a discussion on office protocol
A trip to Human Resources

What actually happened was…nothing. It may be that no one noticed the design; I was wearing it, not waving it around. Or it may be that I’d created an issue where there wasn’t one. Only time will tell, as I now plan on wearing the scarf on regular business days.

But now I’m wondering, have our working lives become so structured and “coded”…code of ethics, code of behavior, dress code…that we are censoring ourselves unnecessarily? I try not to but, obviously, some of it is filtering through.