Shedding baggage I didn't know I had

[liz_marcs]

The upside of my former employer was that the work uniform was jeans (not ripped) and t-shirts (not ripped).

The downside of my former employer was that the work uniform was jeans (not ripped) and shirts (not ripped).

By the way, this same uniform was in force during my self-employed freelance writer days (which was immediately before my former employer) and to the two jobs I held before that.

Which means I have no work casual clothes. None. De nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

I am currently in the middle of "closet shopping", which means going through everything I own.

The problem? With a few very *small* exceptions, I have bought nothing new dress-wise, skirt-wise, or dress pants-wise in the past 10 years. In some cases, as in the cases of the full suits, the clothes are more than 15 years-old.

Before my knee injury that stopped me from running for several years, I was also thinner, so it isn't like I can even dress up the skirts into something useful because I'm one to two sizes too big in most cases. (Don't ask about how much smaller the sizes were when I was running. It's even more heartbreaking.)

Which means the charity thrift store is about to get a fuckton of clothes.

On the upside, I've discovered just how LARGE my bedroom closet is. It's stunningly large, actually. I had no idea because I'd been, well, hoarding all these clothes for all these years. Some of these clothes have been dragged along through no less than 10 moves. (I moved around lot in the years after college.)

You'd think I'd be depressed as shit going through all these clothes and packing them up in bags to bring to the thrift store, but I'm not.

See, I was talking to a friend on the phone last night and she was giving me a million good reasons why I could stop hoarding the damn clothes. She spent a good hour telling me this, along with how I could cheaply and reasonably acquire work-casual clothes without making myself broke.

As weird as it sounds, it was like I needed that kind of permission to finally do what I've been meaning to do since I moved to my apartment 6 years ago: Get rid of clothes that I haven't been wearing, and am not going to wear in the near future because they don't fit or are too far out-of-date to make even a reasonably professional impression.

Even as I'm putting these clothes in the bags and the number of bags are mounting, I'm feeling this weight lift off my shoulders. A weight I didn't even know I had.

It's...liberating.

Plus, I now know that I have a kickass closet that I didn't even know I had.

It's kind of like winning the lottery.

Again.

Pee.Ess. — I've now had 3 recruiters contacting me today with actual, real positions at some fairly large companies. What the ever-loving bloody hell?

Comments

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I'm not looking forward to changing jobs (and definitely not wanting to move to another one in Big Pharma). I've had seven years to get people used to the fact that my work clothes cover almost the full spectrum of boy clothes and girl clothes, depending on my mood and which joints are/aren't hurting. I don't want to have to start from scratch again and buy a couple of girl-cut trouser suits and boy-cut shirts to break them into the idea gently.

New clothes always help, though. If you can find something that's you then it helps with confidence on the first day.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that my new job is in Big BioPharma after years of working around the edges of Pharma and Medical Devices.

I'm...actually kinda happy about it. Small companies can easily develop "issues" when the owners are having personal problems. And I swear that it's happened at just about every small company I've worked at.

Although I know big corporate has its own issues having worked in one or two, they also have their strengths (for example, HR policies tend to be better spelled out).

Plus, in my case it's simply a case that for the past 12 years my "work uniform" was blue jeans which...yeah. Not going to fly any more. In any case, I've got clothes that fit and actually look good on me. While it was painful to do it, I'm glad that I did. Now I have to slowly rebuild by wardrobe over time.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Small medical writing companies and CROs over here still tend to be larger than most of the veterinary practices I've worked in. They also tend to be a lot more amenable to working from homeat least some of the time than Big Pharma, and don't suddenly decide to relocate their entire office to another country as is hapening with the European Office of our new overlords right now.

Hopefully I'll be able to figure out a way to go freelance with a combination of medical writing, other writing and property rentals within the next decade anyway.

[sharonsays.livejournal.com]

Hi Pinkdormouse,

I don't know where you're located but you can contact me through LJ about any clothing woes.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Thanks for that. I'm in the UK, and your LJ looks interesting.

[sharonsays.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a fondness for Brits or almost Brits. Clothes were something I researched because really invasive surgery had me wearing stretchy pull-on stuff that you would see on a grandma for at least a decade. I actually didn't KNOW what was in style. One really good aid was MissusSmartyPants. You can try out the newsletter for free. I subscribe and consider it part of my mental health. Your subscription is by body type and each week you get recommendations for tops, bottoms, etc. meant for your shape and an article. Nothing replaces having a friend go with you, though.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Shopping with friends always helps. I have arthralgia and myalgia as a result of hypermobility, and that restricts what footwear I can get away with these days.

DMs go with most clothes, but I do worry that some emplyers might not agree with that one.

[sharonsays.livejournal.com]

Very strange. I have hypermobility, too. True confession: I don't know what DMs are, but do know that secure footwear can help prevent some nasty spills. Employers can just suck it up.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

Doc Martens. I mostly wear the eight-hole boots, but I own other styles too.