Dear Leaders of Tomorrow,

I just received an email from students from my high school, a venue in which the students are encouraged to believe they are the most important people in the world who will be running shit in a few years. Most of them will be, after they get into Georgetown despite failing Math for Fucktards Who Can't Do Long Division because their father sits on the board. While being encouraged to walk around with their heads up their asses and learn to hold everyone who didn't attend a prep school in contempt, the students use their parents credit card numbers to order from the J. Crew catalog on a regular enough basis to not miss out on the newest collection and thus be the laughingstock of the dorm hall and blackballed from the varsity lacrosse team.
The email in question from these wide-eyed, precocious and doomed youths was sent in the spirit of soliciting alumni opinions on the dress code and if it "is important in our preparation for our future careers." I almost ignored the entire thing but the line "The link below will take you to a brief survey regarding your current profession and the expectations for professional dress" was too delicious to pass up. I rarely miss a chance to throw the median of a statistical study.

Unfortunately the survey didn't give adequate space in which to detail one's current employment (or lack thereof) and how the school and its dress code did nothing to prepare this alumna for much of anything besides my forthcoming memoir. However, I did draft an addendum to my survey results:

"Dear Bobby [Redacted] '11,
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in your survey regarding the dress code. I took part with gusto as the dress code was a constant source of woe for me during my secondary school years, as I had an aversion to nylons and a penchant for wanting to piss of Mrs. [redacted]. The reason I really wanted to respond, however, was the hilariously misguided concept of said dress code preparing high school students for "future professional careers." After you leave high school, you will go to college, forget everything you learned in Mr. [redacted]'s history class, as he was stoned the whole time and wrong about almost everything. In college, you will wear sweats to the classes you actually attend and put on an ever-more-snug polo shirt to parties where you will attempt to get laid. It might even work! You don't think I know you, Bobby, but I do.
When you leave college, you may spend the summer drunk in Europe and then you will most likely walk onto an entry-level position in "finance," where you will spend your day playing Farmville and no one will care. No one will be checking to see if you're wearing socks or if the top button of your oxford is buttoned. I may be a wrench in the median of your survey results, but in almost everything I have done to earn money since leaving college (surely the premise under which one attends the school that we did: to embark on a long, fulfilling life of grabbing the largest piece of the pie and fucking as many people over as possible on the way to Goldman Sachs VP), including selling art on the street and making lattes, my profits have increased directly in correlation to the zaniness of my earrings and ridiculousness of my t-shirt.
So, no, the dress code did not prepare me for a professional career.

Good luck, I hear Wall Street is rough these days.

Sincerely,
Emily [redacted], '03