Corona has us firmly in its grip again and next to the usual business blogs and the business information floods it is also just good to switch off, and the (sometimes stressful) home office everyday life something to loosen up. I stumbled (sitting in front of the PC with my most comfortable baggy pants) on a page that is about the most curious holidays. And…voila…today is World Sweatpants Day!
“Anyone who wears sweatpants, has lost control of their life.”
Karl Lagerfeld
Sweatpants Day is perhaps one of the most curious holidays I’ve found on this site, but also one of the coziest! It was created so that the practical, very comfortable (if somewhat unsightly) garment may be considered socially acceptable at least one day a year. On this day, sweatpants may be worn everywhere: in Paris, New York, Maximilianstraße in Munich, and everywhere else where only the finest brand-name clothes are seen. We have entered an era of self-isolation and stretch pants, and here the question arises: hasn’t International Sweatpants Day rather mutated into Sweatpants Year? Many people now have few places to go that require a certain level of style, and so have begun to dress for comfort. Especially with the Corona pandemic and the home office that comes with it, sweatpants no longer lead a shadowy existence. You could almost say that Corona has elevated this garment to haute couture.
But what is it really like? Do all home office workers really wear proper clothes, or at least most of them for video conferences only from the waist up?
How employees cope with home office and how home office work affects their health was investigated by mhplus health insurance and SDK Süddeutsche Krankenversicherung in the joint study “Healthy Home Office” (the study is available in German here).
Through this study, the assumption of “sloppy work clothes” could be at least partially debunked. 41 percent of the study participants wear the same clothes in the home office as they do in the company.
Besides the, now almost world famous home office sweatpants, working at home presents us with other hurdles, hours of homeschooling, acoustically strong daycare kids, attention seeking pets and a too full fridge right at work. How have you experienced the new work so far? What challenges are you facing? Or do you find it an advantage and an enrichment? Either way, the home office will be with us for quite a while, but I think the positives outweigh the challenges.
And maybe it’s all just a question of attitude?
