When I arrived in 2010 at my Pentagon GS job (deep in the basement area)....I had this closet in my office area (something I'd never had throughout my military or contractor period). So there in the closet was a white 'lab-type' jacket.
I asked one of the 'team-members'....what the hell was the lab-jacket for?
So they related that 'respect' automatically came when you wore the jacket as a facility manager. I stood there for a moment....thinking they were joking. Well....they weren't. Course they didn't wear it....mostly because they felt it was a status symbol that they didn't think they deserved.
For weeks, I stared at the jacket each morning and just declined to wear it....feeling that it just seemed awful fake.
As I left the job in 2013....the white lab jacket still sat there. It was obviously a status symbol....for a job which you'd typically just wear a $49 cheapo blazer and $11 tie at work.
In the last year or two of Covid.....I've come to look at the white lab jacket crowd, and wonder if their fake status was just gained by the jacket, and not actual knowledge. It sticks with me each day now.
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