Dress code and Foosball

I haven’t worked for a company that enforces a dress code for the last 2 years.  Suddenly I find myself going through my wardrobe looking for outfits that look business casual enough.  The thing is, this isn’t my first time having to adhere to a dress code, but I am more of a flip-flops kinda girl.  I like to wear pajama like pants and comfortable attire in general, this isn’t a case of being too lazy to dress up, it’s just that when you work 12 and 14 hours a day you really want to be as comfy as you have to.  I don’t sit still so much anyway and sit cross legged, so a nice pair of decent “need to be ironed” pants are a horror.  But then why am I complaining, I’ve never had to work for a company where people don’t talk at all.  It is so quiet I actually listen to podcasts on my ipod so I don’t fall asleep and don’t feel so lonely.  No birthday parties, no outings, no movie nights, no ordering in food, no listening to music on the big speakers so everyone gets to taste everyone else’s’ music, no playing wolfenstein, no foosball table, no darts, no punching bag, lots of nos.  And yes if you are wondering we did have all of these things, we even had morning coffee in the hallway, we had this long and narrow hallway where we would sit on the floor, feet on the wall, back to the wall and drink coffee together.  People would walk in and see a long line of developers on the floor drinking coffee, laughing, discussing politics and sometimes playing ball.  Breakfast would be served if we had any newcomers, and we’d go grab a bite and meet the new recruits.  And of course my personal favorite was flexible time.  The rule was you should work around 8 hours a day, doesn’t really matter when or how,  that probably explains why most people would show up at 10:30 till 12:00.  Of course we had our night owls who would come in at around 1 and 2 pm.  Yet, what I miss most, is the feeling of friendship and chumminess, knowing that you are part of a really big, crazy and dysfunctional family and knowing that no matter how tough the task is, how close the deadline, how bad things look, there is always something that will happen that will make you laugh and as a team everyone pulls through.