Time To Pack It In

No one over 25 should carry a backpack to work.

I’m not talking about those fancy-pants little leather numbers that are really purses which you carry by the handles. I’m talking about real backpacks, the ones with a hundred zippers that you lugged to school every day full of books and pudding cups.

If you’re having to follow a dress code in your job, and that code doesn’t involve a paper hat and a name tag, it’s time to give up the pack.

I saw a guy in a suit today, might have been a lawyer, might have been a Bay Street type, looking very dapper until he slung his grade 8 backpack on his shoulders as he crossed the street. Sure, I would love to be carrying a Partridge Family lunch bucket to the job with me but that’s just taking retro too far. There comes a time in the life of every adult when something that used to be cute becomes a little bit sad, and the adult-carried backpack certainly strikes me that way.

Unless your third grader has forgotten her schoolwork and you’re her mule, a backpack on a grown-up won’t make you look younger, just less mature. Besides, most briefcases and leather portfolios are made with plenty of room to accomodate pudding cups.