Welfare Office Bans Pajamas

If you look like you snooze, you lose in Dublin
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 26, 2012 11:47 PM CST
Updated Jan 27, 2012 12:31 AM CST
Irish Welfare Office Bans Pajamas
Pajamas on the street.   (?rich115)

Irish welfare officials aren't asleep at the switch—and they've got a wake-up call for their clients. Dubliners have been a bit too chill when they turn up to collect their welfare checks, so the agency is banning pajamas in the office. "Pajamas are not regarded as appropriate attire when attending Community Welfare Service at these offices," says a new standards-setting sign posted at the agency, reports the BBC. The increasing use of pajamas as daywear is alarming officials throughout Ireland, who have begun to ban PJs at Irish schools and shops. Even the US is going to the mattresses over the issue—a Louisiana legislator is proposing making wearing jammies in a public a crime. But Slate doesn't get the hate.

"A whole lot of silly and just-plain-mean people aren’t happy about this nascent pajama craze," writes an appalled Farhad Manjoo, who hails the trend as a great equalizer in the same league as child labor laws, public education, and pants becoming acceptable for women. "Insofar as they help us escape the constantly shifting mores of modern fashion, pajamas function as a great leveler—a way to bridge the gap between rich and poor, old and young, thin and fat," he writes. "Perhaps nobody looks awesome in pajamas, but nobody looks terrible, either: You just look like you’re looking out for yourself." Click to read his entire column. (More pajamas stories.)

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