Casual Friday is a relic of an office most people no longer go to

Casual Friday existed because the other four days had a serious dress code. The reward only made sense as a contrast. Once the contrast disappeared - once Tuesday and Friday looked identical from the waist up on Zoom - the institution stopped doing useful signalling work, but the ritual carried on, because organisations are bad at retiring rituals.

I don't have a strong view on what people wear to work. I do have a view that institutions accumulate small ceremonies that outlive their purpose, and that periodically asking 'what was this for, originally?' is a healthy hygiene exercise. Casual Friday is the cheapest possible example - but the same logic applies to recurring meetings, weekly reports, status update formats, town hall agendas. Most organisations are running a backlog of inherited rituals nobody has audited in years.

Have a good weekend.