Thursday, July 8, 2010

I Wear My Sunglasses at Work

We've published numerous articles about how to dress at work--and although sunglasses haven't specifically been mentioned, I'm pretty sure they are usually deemed inappropriate ... even at a company like Yahoo! HotJobs, which has a fairly casual standard of dress (I wear jeans to work unless I know I have a meeting with someone from another company--or unless I have something dressy to do after work).

But what if, like me, you have a broken blood vessel in your eye (harmless--just something that happens occasionally due to overexertion--but nonetheless disgusting to look at in a "28 Days Later" sort of way)? Should I cover up with sunglasses, or should I risk turning stomachs with my bright-red eye?

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotations from one of my favorite etiquette books, Eleanor Roosevelt's "Commonsense Etiquette" (emphasis mine): "If ever following a rule of etiquette would be unkind, forget the rule and just be kind instead. That's good manners."

So I'm leaving the sunglasses on. It seems the kinder thing to do.

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