High School Teachers in Jeans

So I drove one of my sons to his High School today, his alarm didn’t go off. He usually runs to school around 5:30 A.M. or so and then runs 6 miles at school before it is even open. His Track Team took his small school to state finals for the first time in its history last year.

I’ve dropped him off a few times before, but it was so early almost no kids or teachers were there yet.

So we’re talking in car while we wait in drop off line and we say a few things about a few kids that are skateboarding up to the campus, we comment on the traffic cop with biker helmet and bullet proof vest directing traffic. When I was a kid suburban cops didn’t have to wear bulletproof vests yet.

I commented on when I was his age I drove myself to school already, that being 16. Maybe I can motivate him to WORK SOME so he can then pay for his car insurance. I could pay for it, but I believe driving a car is financial obligation so any kid that wants the privilege to DRIVE needs to work and at least pay for the insurance.

His Universe the last 2 years is track, he runs marathons, he considers 2 miles a short distance. His regimen is run 6 to 12 miles every day. He hasn’t taken off a day from running in almost a year.

So I see a few kids that look like men already on his campus and I say Senior that one and this one and he says yeah. Guys that look like men well that’s normal in High School since Senior males often can grow a beard and some are huge by then in size. Some males at 18 and 19 look like they’re in the middle 20’s already.

So I see a kid with a gallon jar of water walking up and he has a full beard and he’s in jeans and T shirts. I say to my son, so why do they allow kids to take gallon jars of water to school, it seems like overkill.

My son says, oh that’s Mr. something, he’s a TEACHER.

I say wait, he’s in old jeans and an old T shirt, don’t your school have dress codes for teachers?

My son says most of the male teachers now wear jeans and T shirts to dress like the students. A few may wear a collared polo type shirt, but none dress up in dress slacks and dress shirts.

Now a few years ago my oldest son had me buy him a closet full of designer suits to wear to school. It was a phase. So no big deal to me if he wanted to wear suits I was all too happy to buy them for him. I wore suits often around his age when I was in school since I had started my first tech company and I was meeting with owners of mega-million buck companies after school selling them my services for my first tech company while I was still in High School. So suits and a job go hand in hand. Here’s a suit, next thing you know he starts a company was my thinking.

When I was still in High School, I had the nicest car in the school parking lot and my suits cost more than the teachers made in a month even back then.

School was like a prison sentence to me back then, I was selling companies software I customized or created from 1:00 PM until 7 PM then often at night I would be clubbing in Philly until 3 AM or so in the morning. I was always in a suit. I usually slept 8PM until Midnight during the week and then maybe a nap from 4am until 7 AM.

I would occasionally on the weekends run into teachers in one of the clubs I used to hang out and they would come up to me, I know you, you go to…

I would grab them by their neck and say you see that group of wiseguys over there in the corner, they own this club, I rent it out from them to run my teen dance on dark nights. Now, you don’t know me, you never saw me here. If you open your mouth, one of those guys will visit you.

I was one of the guys that looked 25 at 15, so I had no problems getting into New Jersey clubs that were 18 or older to enter at that time and where I usually hung out was on South Street in Philly in the top Private Club. Private Clubs didn’t even open until midnight. The rule at the door was money talked, they didn’t check any ID’s unless you didn’t have on nice clothes and lots of dough to tip valet kids and doormen. So yeah from 16 on up I was able to hang in Private Clubs since I looked the part. I had the best designer suits, the nicest cars and tons of dough to spend.

Back to my son, I explained to him how back in the day teachers at least wore cheap dress pants and a dress shirt and a crappy cheap tie to show they were teachers and not students.

Then I say, “T shirts really, you still have to put on a collared polo shirt to even play golf at the crappiest municipal course let alone any private club.”

He says, “Golf isn’t the real world”.

So instead of telling him more billion buck deals are done on the fairways of the most exclusive golf courses in private country clubs than in board rooms of corporate America, I said, “Your whole generation is doomed, they have no idea how to present themselves as authority figures to the world to lead companies and to be leaders. Leaders look the part. You learn that from seeing teachers even have to dress as leaders or authority figures.” Well that lesson in life is not longer taught in school.

His words, “None of these scrubs are leaders.”

So he got out of the car and went into his school. I got to check out while sitting in the line of cars waiting to get off the campus,  the future talent that in a couple of months or no more than a year or two from now that will be swinging around poles in the finest adult clubs in South Florida.

The nice thing about hot 18 year old girls, every month you have a new crop waiting to take their turn on the golden poles of adult clubs that are all over South Florida. So in  a couple more months, all the senior fillies will be graduating as 18 and 19 year olds, and some go off to college and many will start to seek out that golden pole in a club in SFL and then they run into the real world. All they will wear there is a G string and that is off of them most of the time as they engage in the oldest profession on earth in VIP rooms.

That’s the REAL WORLD, young gorgeous chicks at 18 start to earn a living doing what chicks have done since time began, trading off that money maker while they can. Sure some go to college and today you have a lot of college students even swinging around poles.

You didn’t have that many strip clubs when I was a kid, you had some really sleazy ones that only drunks went to and the stripper chicks were old drug addicts mostly. I would tip them to put their clothes back on they were so ugly.

Today, the clubs are filled with 18 to 22 year old chicks and by 30 your career is over as a stripper. The clubs are filled with happy hour businessmen and factory workers who are mostly married looking for a fast blowjob in a VIP booth.

In the early 1980’s I invested in the early wave of these slick adult clubs. They make money, cash money. By the middle 80’s I was out of that industry.

I’m guess I’m getting old that I still think teachers should dress like teachers. I establishes with kids a guideline. Adults have to work and dress for work and they’re not kids that can wear whatever they want to school.

When I was running my companies in tech, I was the genius that did all the tech creation, then I was the top sales guy selling my creation to the business world.

I didn’t give a shit about creating personal user software when I started, there wasn’t even a PC then. The only people using computers were large companies that either put mega millions into IBM mainframes and hired guys like my dad who always wore a suit who then hired the geeks in short sleeves with protractors in their pocked to program the applications form scratch the huge companies wanted.

When I was my son’s age I had worked already for a summer inside a NOC my father ran for IBM and at that moment in time just before the age of the PC hit, there was this thing called mini-mainframes the $50K to $100K computers I was programming by 16.

Had I walked into the office of a 5 Million buck a year business or larger company wearing jeans and a T shirt I would not have gotten the gigs I won easily as a smart hungry tech god back then.

How did you sell the concept of software to big businesses back then? You dressed like a businessman. You wore a suit and tie and you walked the walk and talked the talk.

Five years later after I started my first tech company in 1976, you had the explosion of the PC age. By the later 80’s you had tech companies where jeans and T shirts were standard gear.

But these companies never sold to corporate America, they sold to the slackers of the world the people that think jeans and T shirts are okay for business.

Go look at Steven Jobs’ photos when he was first running Apple, it was SUIT AND TIE all the way.

The Jobs jeans and black turtle neck didn’t develop until way later.

Same with Bill Gates, look at his early photos of Microsoft, SUIT AND TIE all the way. His clothes never fit him right, just look how funny he looked in early Microsoft photos. HAHA

You don’t believe me that the world has dress codes still. Go to a court room kids, look at the Judge you can tell who he is, he wears a specific piece of clothing to show HE IS THE JUDGE.

Every lawyer in the room is in a suit. If a lawyer showed up in a T shirt wearing jeans he might just be jailed for contempt.

That’s the REAL WORLD kiddos.

My youngest son wears his teams sweats all the time and has a pair of running shorts under them. He has the highest GPA in his school. He can wear what he wants. At 16 my mailbox is filled everyday with colleges recruiting him. His grades are just like mine were and I too had every college sending me please consider us letters. I got thousands of them when I was his age. That is what a perfect GPA does for you.

My oldest son had his fixation with suits, then when he joined ROTC he stopped wearing suits, he wore his ROTC gear. He cut off his beautiful mane of curly locks like mine and he wore a crew cut.

He was the #1 ROTC cadet in all of Broward County when he joined and won the rare Purple Heart Org, Purple Heart Metal they rarely give out. It goes to the future leaders of this country usually. The Major of Fort Lauderdale gave him a huge three foot trophy at one ceremony I went to.

My track running son, well his hair is like mine, rock star length and lots of blonde streaks in his chestnut mane from being in strong tropical sun running all day.

I guess one day he’ll grow up and realize what you wear shows the world who you are. The real world is filled with rules and customs and dress codes.

Workers wear the peasant uniform with the logo of the corporate giant they work for. Factory workers wear the factory or warehouse garb with the logo of the company on it. Lab workers were lab garb with the logo of the company on it. Sales forces wear salesmen uniforms, i.e. SUITS and TIES. Company execs usually wear SUITS AND TIES for big companies.

Sure some small companies the owners might wear what they want and yet if they need to go to a bank to get a loan, you bet they have a suit and tie to wear. Just like if a big company comes calling to buy whatever they do, they dress up to say I’m the OWNER.

Sure, later in life Jobs got to play his jeans and black turtle neck bullshit.

From the start Zuckerberg had his jeans and grey sweat shirt bullshit, the reason was he started Facebook while on campus and never entered THE REAL WORLD or he would have been wearing suits and ties as well. Lucky for him FB became huge while he was still in school.

Today you can launch an APP in your pajamas and never leave your parents basement and be a mega-millionaire almost over night.

Now let that same APP developer need financing and see how fast they can raise money from INVESTORS or BANKS without dressing like a businessman. The only thing they will raise is a laugh as they pitch investor guys in suits and ties about their ‘idea’.

I wonder if Dress for Success is still in print?

Books by Dr. Sol Adoni