Where did my summer go (as told in shoes)
My US summer flew by this year. For the first time since I started working again, I was tasked with several customer site visits. Once upon a time, that was a really large part of my job which bridged engineering and marketing roles. I just haven't had to do it yet in my current position.
Since it has been more than a decade since I had to dress business formal in the summer (I did buy a winter-weight suit a few years ago to attend a magnet conference), I needed to hit Nordstrom for something appropriate for middle-aged female engineer visiting industrial clients. The poor woman who offered to assist me showed me option after option that was either too flirty or two filmy for my purposes, so I told her that she had to know that my meetings were going to be in places so conservative I would be wearing pantyhose. Apparently that made my intent clear, because the next dress was the one I bought.
My next mission was to find the shoes. Again, I had to explain to another store associate the whole thing about the restrained and closed-toe environments I would be visiting. I tried on ever so many low heels and flats at so many different price points.
As I narrowed my choices down to two, I looked down at one of the candidates next to the sneakers I was wearing that day. I laughed out loud at the contrast between the Prada and the $20 Chinese Feiyue that have become part of my warm weather uniform.
I did not buy the Prada, even on sale, because they didn't quite fit. I did instead purchase these flats, which completed my transformation.
So convincing was my disguise that at one of our meetings, as I shook hands with someone whom I once helped host in Beijing before I was an employee, I was asked if I were a new hire. I gently reminded the person asking that I had met him back in Beijing, having taken him to a crumbling bit of Great Wall. He apologized for not recognizing me. I told him it was okay; I wasn't dressed like myself. The last time he saw me I was probably wearing a Penguins sweatshirt and ball cap.
Later in the summer we had one meeting that would not have as fussy a dress code as the other places. It was in Northern California, and this particular customer, within the influence sphere of Apple and Google, had a much more laid-back attitude. A few years ago Randy was asked not to wear a tie there on future visits. It made him stand out, and not in a good way, at this location.
I tested Randy on the limits of what was not too casual for this place. When I asked if I could wear Dr Martens, he said that would be fine. So I did. I dressed a little more like me.
Note, then, there are no pictures of toes in sand or of feet ankle deep in a creek at Twin Lakes, and, if I get around to blogging more about the summer, no posts about the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit or the Van Gogh-inspired flower show. We didn't even get to a baseball game! All the usual things we (meaning the kids & I) would have had more leisure time to pursue, didn't happen. Because as I was planting my shoes in all these other places, the kids were enjoying time with various family members. They went to the Highland Park Pool, a Native American Museum, a fabulous children's bookstore, and (several times) to Randy's daughter-in-law's new tastee-freeze style restaurant. For them, the summer was more about being a part of other family member's regular schedules, which is a vacation of another kind.
Since it has been more than a decade since I had to dress business formal in the summer (I did buy a winter-weight suit a few years ago to attend a magnet conference), I needed to hit Nordstrom for something appropriate for middle-aged female engineer visiting industrial clients. The poor woman who offered to assist me showed me option after option that was either too flirty or two filmy for my purposes, so I told her that she had to know that my meetings were going to be in places so conservative I would be wearing pantyhose. Apparently that made my intent clear, because the next dress was the one I bought.
My next mission was to find the shoes. Again, I had to explain to another store associate the whole thing about the restrained and closed-toe environments I would be visiting. I tried on ever so many low heels and flats at so many different price points.
As I narrowed my choices down to two, I looked down at one of the candidates next to the sneakers I was wearing that day. I laughed out loud at the contrast between the Prada and the $20 Chinese Feiyue that have become part of my warm weather uniform.
I did not buy the Prada, even on sale, because they didn't quite fit. I did instead purchase these flats, which completed my transformation.
So convincing was my disguise that at one of our meetings, as I shook hands with someone whom I once helped host in Beijing before I was an employee, I was asked if I were a new hire. I gently reminded the person asking that I had met him back in Beijing, having taken him to a crumbling bit of Great Wall. He apologized for not recognizing me. I told him it was okay; I wasn't dressed like myself. The last time he saw me I was probably wearing a Penguins sweatshirt and ball cap.
Later in the summer we had one meeting that would not have as fussy a dress code as the other places. It was in Northern California, and this particular customer, within the influence sphere of Apple and Google, had a much more laid-back attitude. A few years ago Randy was asked not to wear a tie there on future visits. It made him stand out, and not in a good way, at this location.
I tested Randy on the limits of what was not too casual for this place. When I asked if I could wear Dr Martens, he said that would be fine. So I did. I dressed a little more like me.
Note, then, there are no pictures of toes in sand or of feet ankle deep in a creek at Twin Lakes, and, if I get around to blogging more about the summer, no posts about the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit or the Van Gogh-inspired flower show. We didn't even get to a baseball game! All the usual things we (meaning the kids & I) would have had more leisure time to pursue, didn't happen. Because as I was planting my shoes in all these other places, the kids were enjoying time with various family members. They went to the Highland Park Pool, a Native American Museum, a fabulous children's bookstore, and (several times) to Randy's daughter-in-law's new tastee-freeze style restaurant. For them, the summer was more about being a part of other family member's regular schedules, which is a vacation of another kind.
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