Do You Work in Your Pajamas?

Now that I work from home, an almost inevitable question arises: do I laze around in my pajamas all day? The answer is a resounding “no.” While I sometimes do get distracted by work mid-breakfast and end up working while still ensconced in pajamas (or workout clothes if the morning included a run and workout), my normal routine is to dress as though I’m heading into an actual office with a mostly casual dress code.

Some may think the habit silly, but I like to think of it as giving my employer and my work the respect it’s due. It’s also a way of signaling my brain that it is time to get down to business (not to defeat the Huns but to vanquish misplaced apostrophes and commas). It’s time to settle into the chair and to do the work of the writer and editor.

It helps, too, that I was trained to think and work in such a manner. When my mom homeschooled me and my brothers, she had the expectation that we would arrive to the table with our teeth brushed, our hair combed, and our bodies clothed with whatever constituted school attire. Pajamas were not appropriate attire. Therefore, they were forbidden at the table.

Doing that created a sense of normalcy. While the neighbor’s kids might have thought we were free to do as we pleased – their evidence being the fact that the three of us were usually out of school by noon – we were not. We had to be at the table at a set time, and we had to be in presentable form.

That attitude accompanies me into the work I do. I make myself presentable. I show up at a set time, and I settle into doing the work.