Well, this is kinda embarrassing:
It’s the uni worn by rangers at the lovely Chimney Rock Park in North Carolina, where I did some hiking last fall. The namesake rock formation really does look like a giant dick as depicted on the uniform rather than a chimney. I guess “Chimney Rock” was the Chamber of Commerce consensus.
What’s the most embarrassing uniform you’ve ever had to wear? For me, it was a Pizza Hut waitress uniform circa 1987-ish. It consisted of a dark brown polyester smock-like top with patch pockets and elastic-waist pants along with a matching brown visor.
The polyester had a unique odor-trapping quality. Not only did it reek of sweat, marijuana, ennui, minimum wage and crappy Pizza Hut food, it managed to also attract and retain scents it wasn’t even exposed to, most notably fried food, which Pizza Hut didn’t offer. Maybe the uniform was made of recycled food service polyester.
Open thread!
sharl
Chimney Rock is happy to see EVERYONE!!
If some variation of that uniform hasn’t already shown up in a pr0n production by now, folks in that business just haven’t been paying attention.
MattF
The combination of the odors of polyester and cellulose is burning grease, I guess.
father pussbucket
That was also said of the original Star Trek Next Gen uniforms.
Just Some Fuckhead
Some secrets should not be shared.
Anya
Sen Ron Johnson:
I am beginning to believe we’ll have a vote.
zzyzx
Anyone else notice that the Sanders people they know have gone from talking about his inevitability to bitching about the system and whining about Clinton? Interesting to see the confidence fade so fast.
Just Some Fuckhead
@zzyzx: Yep, Budweiser99 on Reddit is getting on my last nerve. Honestly, I think he/she is a Trump supporter but all we can go on is what they tell us.
Capri
At one point in my career I was supposed to wear a mustard colored jump suit with mid-calf length rubber boots. It looked ridiculous. One of my co-workers wore that get up every day plus a bow tie; I overheard a client tell her friend that her horse was being looked at by a person in a clown suit.
I wore the minimum allowed – an ugly mustard colored coat over regular clothes, and was always dinged for not looking professional.
OzarkHillbilly
Had to wear a # of uniforms. None of them were embarrassing.
Cermet
That photo is just too high a bar to meet – how can anyone top that?
RSA
Coincidentally, images of Target’s “sculpted dive sticks” are making the rounds. Links on the page also point to equipment for water sports.
evap
My first real job was at the Baskin Robbins in Maplewood, NJ, where I had a horrible jerk for a boss. He paid us by check and hired only 16-year-old females so that he could get away with paying us below minimum wage. I had to wear an awful pink polyester dress. But it was thrilling to have an actual job and get a weekly paycheck.
eric
@Capri: “Mustard is professional, but ketchup is business casual.” GQ.
Mike E
They call the visitor center there The Big Tent
Shell
Nah, all my waitressing uniforms were pretty standard stuff.
BGinCHI
Mrs. BG ran a marathon dressed as a mustard bottle.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I worked at a seafood restaurant. We had a special New England clambake. To deliver this I would don a full yellow rubber rainsuit, in a 110 degree kitchen, and be hosed down by the chef so I would look authentically rainsoaked. After about 35 of those I started looking seriously at community college brochures.
schrodinger's cat
I had to wear a uniform when I was in school. The kindergarten uniform was the most embarrassing. It was a cross between a tunic and an A line dress with matching knickers. The material was kind of a gingham pattern. It was sleeveless. We had to wear name tags with addresses pinned to the uniform. As if this was not enough my mother used to put up my hair in kind of a fountain hairstyle on the top of my head. We also had to wear black leather Mary Janes with white socks. Good thing I looked adorable even while wearing those monstrosities.
schrodinger's cat
@BGinCHI: Why? You can’t stop with that sentence tell us the whole story.
BruceFromOhio
That is Gaia-damned hilarious.
None of my uniforms were embarrassing, though I do refer to the occasionally-required suit & tie as “the monkey suit.”
ruemara
Closest I’ve ever come to a uniform was wearing khaki pants and a shirt. I did find nametags rather shaming. I don’t wish to give out my name to the general public, thank you. Much less my first, I’m not friends with these people. /oldschool
Ruckus
Had a friend in HS who worked in a H Salt Fish and Chip store. There wasn’t enough soap and water to get the smell of fish off of him, let alone his clothes. Don’t believe he had a date for at least a decade after graduation.
redoubt
By the early ’90s that Pizza Hut uniform had morphed into red-candy-stripe short-sleeved shirts and gray slacks with black aprons. (And a gray tie, ’cause I was a “shift manager”.) Still picked up every smell imaginable.
Rand Careaga
Can you vouch for the provenance of that image? I’d certainly enjoy circulating it among colleagues as an example of “graphic design fail,” but I prefer doing a little due diligence in these matters, since I’m apt to be a tad censorious with friends who help promulgate hoaxes and pranks on the intertubes, and this treatment does not appear as a “brand identity” in any of the online searches I’ve undertaken.
BGinCHI
@schrodinger’s cat: Some sponsored charity thing. She was young….
Impressive, if embarrassing.
raven
OD fans, Olive Drab. That’s why they called it the Big Green Machine”. It didn’t matter if they were jungle fatigues or the 100% wool shirts we had in Korea, OD.
A Ghost To Most
I was never fond of the ‘bus driver’ uniforms (light blue shirt and blue pants) in the USAF after they phased out our beloved khaki. Also, the funny looking hat that everyone called a “c*nt cap”.
To this day, I only wear black shoes to funerals and such.
Betty Cracker
@Ultraviolet Thunder: Good lord, yes, that would drive a person to higher education for sure. I waitressed while getting my degree, and it was a constant reminder to stay the course.
@Rand Careaga: I took the photo myself, FWIW, and the uni was displayed in a cafe near the park entrance and identified as an official uniform design. I have no idea if it’s still THE official logo since I did not encounter any actual park rangers on my hike. I suspect some official noticed that it looks like a penis and went with another design in subsequent editions, but that’s just speculation on my part.
Rand Careaga
Anent my earlier inquiry, there’s this, which is not quite the same thing, but does lend the photo some distant credence.
(edited for direct insertion of URL: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTAyNFg0OTQ=/z/UAMAAOSweW5VQZqw/$_1.JPG
Amir Khalid
This is a school uniform for Malaysian girls. Extend the skirt down to the ankles, and it’s identical to what Belle wears in Disney’s Beauty and The Beast cartoon.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m supposed to wear flame/flash protective pants on my job even though I’m forbidden from accessing the 480VAC 3P section of the machinery. An abundance of caution from our German employer. The pants are awful. The synthetic material is stiff and scratchy when new, and after washing the pants sag into a shapeless mass. They give some people hives. Wearing them I look like a hobo, so they stay in the closet. It was a big deal when the new clothes were issued but I have never seen anyone wearing them.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: What’s the footwear? Looks almost like low-top Chucks.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
It appears the park’s logo has indeed been changed.
WaterGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Good writers always do that. They can draw you in with a single sentence, leaving you saying “I want more!”.
Auntie beak
i worked at a mickey-D’s during high school. it wasn’t so much the awful polyester uniform, but i could never get the hang of the milk-shake machine, and i used to come home every day with a pastiche of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate splatters across my boobs. and reeking of fried grease.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: Interesting. I don’t care much about strangers knowing my first name, but I definitely do not want strangers in public knowing my last name. As far as I can tell, there is no other family in the U.S. that shares my last name, so there’s no privacy once you know my last name.
What I hate is when people in stores expect you to say your phone number publicly with all sorts of people around Of course, I had a phone stalker years ago so I am a lot more cautious about that than the average person.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
In my day, the Ministry of Education’s school uniform code specified rubber-soled white canvas sneakers. Some of them were indeed local knock-offs of Converse Chuck Taylors.
ThresherK
@RSA: Target offers “equipment for water sports”?
Seriously, are we not doing “phrasing”?
kindness
When I was in High School in the mid 70’s I worked at a McDonalds for a bit. The uniforms were a poly shirt with vertical stripes of white & neon green. We figured it was a way to chase people out of the place and not sit around and stay for any length of time.
Wally Ballou
In the sports world, nothing will ever top those mid-’70s White Sox unis. You know, the ones with the shorts.
Just One More Canuck
@Rand Careaga: That’s one happy chimney. Is that why Mark Sanford liked ‘walking the Appalachian Trail’?
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Isn’t there a famous scene from a movie where a hot female works around fish and we see her mostly naked, squeezing fresh lemon on her body to remove the smell of fish? I guess I will have to downgrade that to pretty famous since I can’t recall the name of the woman who played that part.
WereBear
I believe polyester’s amazing smelly properties are from the type of bacteria which thrives in their environment. Cotton encourages easily killed bacteria, while polyester’s favorites share the indestructibility of their favorite fabric. Thus no scheme works; usually reliable tactics like vinegar cannot stop the stink.
Fortunately, I don’t wear polyester. Ever.
As far as I can tell, it is cheap and doesn’t have to be ironed. I think it is incredibly ugly and unflattering and somehow no color is ever attractive. Since when do fabrics like linen and cotton have to share the qualities of a formica countertop? In hot countries, the pucker of seersucker kept people alive.
I also don’t iron, ever. I may be a bit unkept in my linen pants, but the radiance of my happiness more than makes up for my appearance.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City.
HRA
I was born into the restaurant business. My Dad owned restaurants. It was in my preteen years that I began until I went to work at a company and escaped filling in, or just plain helping out when the place was extra busy with a bus pulling up with tourists, I wore my own clothes.
The worst day was Friday fish fry day when the fryers were on full force. I prayed I would not meet anyone I knew before I got home and went straight into the shower for a long time.
This experience came in handy when I did work as a waitress for 3 years before I became employed again as a state employee.
Ultraviolet Thunder
My first wife worked at Burger King in the ’70s. The one thing I remember is the absurd poofy hat.
OMG there’s a picture of her in that uniform on Pinterest. From 40 years ago.
https://www.google.com/search?q=1970s+burger+king+uniform+hat&biw=1043&bih=576&tbm=isch&imgil=Ckm_pZZoXXx_-M%253A%253BFbcXlDXlENYmEM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.pinterest.com%25252Fpin%25252F122863896059953659%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=Ckm_pZZoXXx_-M%253A%252CFbcXlDXlENYmEM%252C_&usg=__mkTanE-tJY8fBTwSWB_ciF-i6vc%3D
WaterGirl
@WereBear: My iron stopped working decades ago. I threw it out and never got another one. I am careful about how I dry my clothes so wrinkling isn’t much of an issue.
P.S. I am allergic to polyester and wool, so I am a cotton, rayon, linen girl.
@WereBear: After I posted that comment, I kind of thought it might have been Atlantic City, but I still had no idea that it was Susan Sarandon. thanks
MattF
@WereBear: Me too with the ‘never irons’. My non-ironing got a boost with the dryer I bought several years ago– it has a steam cycle, so putting the wrinkled object on the hangar into the steam cycle for 15-20 minutes is all you ever need to do.
WaterGirl
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I clicked your link. The words “oh my god!” came out of my mouth, unbidden, with a laugh.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@WaterGirl:
I will remember that hat to my last day, and the memory will moderate any job complaint I ever have.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Ruckus:
schrodinger's cat
Not all uniforms are horrible, Navy’s dress uniform and cricket whites come to mind.
gogol's wife
@WaterGirl:
Susan Sarandon, Atlantic City. Best part of the movie.
I have worked a lot of menial jobs (all clerical), but I’ve never had to wear a uniform. One of the great joys of my life.
Betty Cracker
@schrodinger’s cat: True — some are quite dashing. On the other side of the spectrum, I’ve always felt sorry for the poor Swiss Guard.
raven
@schrodinger’s cat: Like my old man crossing the street in Honolulu?
gvg
only embarrassing uniform I ever dealt with was jr high marching band uniforms and I got lucky. the pants never split on me. they were old and we were fundraising to replace them the whole time I was there. They did split on some people on the football field at various times. the last time I recall we switched places hastily to shield the girl it happened to and kept marching. If you act normal a lot of times the audience won’t notice. We had had some practice. I disliked some restaurants uniforms after wearing them too long.
NotMax
Only job employed at which involved a uniform was as a movie theater usher.
Tuxedo required. Natty, but one had to take care during breaks when sitting or sprawling on the furniture in the break room – no way to get wrinkles out mid-shift.
Looking back, as we all smoked tobacco and/or other non-tobacco inhalables (hint, hint) in that windowless room in the theater basement, by the end of a night everyone’s attire probably was enough to give the patrons a contact high.
J R in WV
@WereBear:
Really, you don’t get much more famous than Susan Sarandon. I guess there’s one more step of fame where you’re stalked by fans and spend all your time Twiting on Twit.
She’s so popular around Charleston.
My uniform days were first in Jr High band, then Senior High band, then in the US Navy. I managed to escape the Dress Blues mostly, because my duty station was tropical. And mostly we worked, hard, every day, in pale denim shirts and dark denim dungarees. And ball caps.
The Jr High band uniforms were hand-me-downs from the Senior High band, plus home made white flannel slacks with a stripe, and white shoes. Imagine little kids wearing that to “march” at a football game!
But in senior high, the similar uniforms weren’t so bad, and we won some of the band festival competitions we went to. And watching the other bands march out onto the field and play songs while standing still was so funny. We barely stopped at all, and kept playing no matter what.
I think carrying a 55 pound tuba while marching and playing it gave me the stamina to handle anything being a Bosun’s Mate in the USN could throw at me. And all that hard work in the USN gave me the strength to go on until now I’m a old, and can’t be expected to be strong…
schrodinger's cat
@raven: He cuts a dashing figure!
WereBear
@J R in WV: A tuba player! That’s awesome!
J R in WV
@raven:
Now that’s a sailor! I never achieved that dressy sailor look, I was more the always hard working look. What was his assignment? He could be a Bosun’s Mate. The only true sailors left in the hi-tech Navy!!
p.a.
Betty I’m surprised at you. As a Floridian, even if the Bucs aren’t your team, the ‘creamsicle’ unis deserve your mention.
My only school uni was blue blazer w/ crest, school colors red black white so no embarrassment there, never had a work uni thank god, although the rule about wearing our safety helmets from the moment we left the truck to the moment we got back in sucked. Walking to a customer’s door with the thing on was insipid.
lige
Rooster Rock on the Columbia has a similar family friendly renaming history as the original name contained an alternate name for a male chicken (among other things) and was a pretty good description of the rocks appearance.
delk
@Ultraviolet Thunder: We were driving around last week and I pointed out a parking lot and told my husband that used to be a Burger King. I told him my aunt worked there in the ’70’s and he asked, “Did she wear that hat?” lol
Origuy
Except for Boy Scouts, I never had to wear a uniform. I’m surprised no one mentioned the awful uniforms at Hot Dog on a Stick.
kc
@zzyzx:
No.
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: I actually miss the Creamsicle unis. I liked the original reboot, but the new new Bucs unis suck, IMO. Except for the Klingon numbers font — that’s kinda cool.
Capri
@WaterGirl: Susan Sarandon in Atlantic City
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
Hands down, Taco Tico. Brown, orange, red and white stripes, polyester, 70s gull wing collar.
It clung to you in summer and in the working area (I refuse to call it a kitchen – we had microwaves, a steam table and a glorified hot plate), and it was cold in the winter. Plus, it had the odor trapping capacity Betty speaks so highly of.
J R in WV
@WereBear:
Thanks! They were old-fashioned silver-plated brass horns, which is why they were so heavy and so good for me. Lots of little dents, really old horns.
chopper
when i was a teenager working at the grocery store they started making us wear a bright orange vest when we went out chasing carts in the parking lot. for me it wasn’t the vest itself that drove me up the wall, it was that it had on the back in big, bold letters “COURTESY PATROL”, about the lamest goddamn thing you could ever force a 16 year old kid to wear unironically.
chopper
@gvg:
god, band uniforms were the worst. northern illinois summers and it’s 110 goddamn degrees out and we’re wearing heavy dark blue polyester. “okay guys, now we’re going to march for 3 miles and then stand still for like an hour. if you need to pass out just try not to trip up the guy behind you”
RSA
@ThresherK:
I know! It’s hard to believe ad copy like this, “Water Sports-LLC Stream Machine Dive Sticks – Multicolored,” aimed at kids.
Aleta
1. Japanese girls school uniform (got harangued frequently by one teacher for minuscule infractions)
2. Bob’s Big Boy waitress uniform (the short orange one with suspenders that often fell down) (got harangued frequently for inept hair bun)
Michael Bersin
Not embarrassing, just expensive. A white dinner jacket for a formal concert. Had to buy it, get it tailored, wore it only once. Also own tails (white tie) and a tuxedo. Years ago our institution hosted a start of the year dinner which was “black tie”. There were a lot of gentlemen desperately running around trying to rent tuxedos. All the musician were like, “meh, work clothes.”
Uncle Cosmo
I presume Chimney Rock is the same sort of formation as found in abundance near Göreme in Cappadocia, where they are referred to (at least in the English translation put out by Turkish tourist offices) as “fairy chimneys.”
IIRC the area was covered by volcanoes ~30Myr ago with stuff that hardened to off-white pumice so soft & porous you can practically dig into it with fingernails & which is rapidly eroded by rainfall. Occasionally the volcanoes would spit up globs of basalt, which would harden dark & by comparison impervious to rain. While the rest of the surface was washing away, the basalt would act as an umbrella to shield the pumice beneath them. Result: Giant penises, uh, fairy chimneys–at least until they collapsed under the weight of their tops (& then the process would start up again–there was a lot of pumice to go through…).
Until modern times the residents of Cappadocia were troglodytes–literally, cavemen. With wood scarce & needed as fuel, they dug into the pumice peaks & canyon walls for living quarters, halls, chapels, etc. They even tunneled into the ground & created “underground cities” like Derinkuyu. Which in fact was more the 10th-century-CE equivalent of a fallout shelter, uninhabitable for more than a few days due to lack of sewage disposal but highly useful as a hideout when a tribe of nomadic raiders would come rompin’ & stompin’ through.
Back in 1996 I spent a night in Göreme in a pansiyon room dug into the rock, took a day excursion consisting of a walking tour of cave dwellings in the Ihlara Valley & down into the underground city at Derinkuyu, & finished up that evening back in Göreme with Efes beers at the Flintstones Cave Bar attached to the pansiyon (with Fred & Barney prominently displayed outside the entrance). (Apparently the bar is now a restaurant & the whole pansiyon has now evolved into the Flintstones Cave Hotel–no clue as to whether Fred & Barney remain…)
(Yeah, yeah, I know, TMI & off-topic. Talk to my Guangdong lawyer, Su Mi.)
Mnemosyne
I guess I’m the only former theme park employee here — Six Flags in Illinois and Universal Studios in LA. Six Flags was the worse one — bright green culottes and rainbow suspenders. Since I didn’t work near food, the polyester wasn’t that hideous, even in the summer. Universal was dark blue culottes and a lighter blue shirt.
For the fellas, “culottes” are a split skirt so no one gets a thrill if a female employee has to go up a ladder or do other physical work.
And many people at the Giant Evil Corporation wear a nametag with their office clothes, especially the division that does work for the theme parks. I think most theme parks will let you pick the name you want on your name tag as long as you answer to it when your supervisor calls you by that name, so that may be a solution for those who have always aspired to work at a theme park but didn’t want their name revealed.
jl
Pin stripe suit and tie and weird shiny shoes. Corporate financial consulting.
RyanG
I had a perfectly nice EMT uniform that I was only issued one of. Just imagine what a white shirt looks like and smells like and feels like, after being worn by a sweaty EMT, for 80 hours a week, for a year….
dlm
Not so much embarrassing, but a PIA. A full bunny suit with hood and booties which were always too big and came up to my knees. Oh, and a beard bag so I wouldn’t contaminate product. Clean room garb.
JGabriel
Betty Cracker @ Top:
What this thread is missing is an actual picture of said formation to verify that resemblance – Wikipedia.
Aleta
@JGabriel: It must have been inspired mythic tales about ancient fertility gods.
Paul T
Yes, the Navy “crackerjack” uniform looks cool and all…but…..if you ever had to wear it for more than 15 minutes, you quickly realized how ridiculous it could be. (I was a sailor in the ’70’s, I’m willing to bet some of the uniform features have changed.) First, there are no real pockets to speak of. The small pocket on the left breast might hold something the size of a business card, or, most likely back in the day, a pack of cigs. The front of the pants had two slash pockets, sort of like the extra little pocket on a pair of Levis. I carried stuff in my socks. Others would hang their wallets from the waistband of the pants. I dare any of you: go buy pants with no pockets and tell me you like them.
And, you will note in the natty photo of Raven’s dad (beautiful shot, BTW) it is WHITE. All white. White White. There is a reason people usually don’t wear all white, since everything else on the planet will mark it, stain it, mar it in some way. Every function of daily life was affected by I’M WEARING WHITE. It was a disaster waiting to happen from the second you put it on.
The dress blue uniform was free from fear of staining, but…it was wool. Imagine being dressed head to toe in wool on a 75 degree day in San Diego or south Texas. With no pockets. And your wife loved cats. I couldn’t wait to get those things off.
Zumwalt changed Navy uniforms in the mid-70’s to a shirt and tie look, and they were massively more comfortable and easier to live with. With real pockets! A tie that didn’t fall into your food! You could put it in the washing machine!
I will say, though, I still have my 1971 peacoat that I was issued in boot camp, and it still fits. And, it is perfectly functional. With good pockets!