Being silly is the whole point

For a few years now, I’ve liked to take photos wearing funny or unexpected hats. Some people would describe them as “silly hats”, and I would agree; that is, after all, the point. My former manager Cezary – bless his soul, as just two weeks after being promoted to Director of Security a vote was held within his own team which resulted in his headcount going from 10 to .. 0, due to every subordinate voting to leave his team – didn’t like silliness. At the time, I needed a way to be silly, but in a way that he couldn’t complain to HR and have anything meaningful happen to me. I came up with the idea of simply wearing… hats at the office. A different hat every day; of different absurdness. So that’s what I did, and he was not happy; it was inappropriate, not proper workplace etiquette! Outlandish. But what could he do, go to HR and say “Josh is wearing hats in the office!” – of course not. I persisted for a week, and ran out of new hats – until others around me in the office started to…