This morning as I parked my car at work and got ready to walk in to my office, another guy pulled up in an older VW New Beetle with a dented up side skirt, got out of his car, and walked in to the office. He was wearing cargo shorts and a hoodie.
I didn’t ask this guy about his shorts, because he was walking fast through the 0°F air to get inside. I, on the other hand, with my jeans, sweater, wool coat, hat and gloves, took my time gathering my bag and coffee and walked in to the building at a normal pace.
This shorts in winter guy only wears his shorts on Fridays since we have to dress somewhat nicer Monday thru Thursday. He’s probably thinking, “FRIDAY IS MY DAY TO SHINE, AND MY LEGS WILL FLY FREE.”
A couple jobs ago, I worked at a place with a totally casual dress code, and that office’s shorts-all-winter guy wore shorts every day all year round. I got around to asking him at one point what’s with the shorts, and he told me that he likes wearing shorts inside and it’s only ever a short walk from his car in to a building so he wears his shorts.
I’m sure the winter shorts wearer at my current job uses a similar BUT I’M INSIDE ALL THE TIME ANYWAY rationale to justify his winter shorts wearing, because that’s what they all say.
Shit, this is Wisconsin, it’s cold out, and buildings are not generally heated in the winter to roasty toasty temperatures where you’re going to be sweating. I’m sitting in my office in jeans and an oh-so-fashionable turtleneck sweater and it feels a little drafty in here. The fuck you wearing shorts in here for?
Wearing shorts in Wisconsin winter is a well-documented phenomenon that often starts in college, when the winter shorts wearers who wanted to wear shorts all winter as children but had moms smart enough to smack them upside the head and tell them to go put on pants, suddenly find themselves free from parental encumbrances and decide they’re going to wear shorts in winter, dammit, FUCK YOU MOM I DO WHAT I WANT.
Many of these dudes at some point in adulthood outgrow their winter shorts wearing ways, but many of them instead get jobs at tech companies and become that one guy at your office who wears shorts all winter.
This guy is that guy.