During a recent family birthday party, I passed on a slice of cake and instead distracted myself by thumbing through family photo albums. It's crazy when you think about the amount of time and effort that went into pulling together these albums. Someone had to purchase a roll of film, insert it into the camera, and then bring it back to the store to get the film developed. Sometimes you waited several days before you could see how the pictures turned out. Since so much time, energy and hope was invested in the process, my parents almost never threw a photo away. Instead, they lovingly placed each picture into an album as a memorial to every bad hairstyle I've ever had. This was the 1980's, so you can imagine how many bad hairstyles my sister and I tried out.

There was an especially funny picture of my sister and I, taken at a family picnic on the 4th of July. My stepmother (bless her heart) had purchased matching 4th of July outfits for my sister and I to wear to the picnic - white cotton drawstring pants, with red and blue vertical stripes around the waistband. These stylish babies were topped off with a matching polo shirt in festive 4th of July colors. I do remember protesting loudly about wearing this outfit. As a seventh grader, I was too embarrassed to wear such a school age outfit, but my stepmother insisted. I can still see the glimmer of discomfort in my face when I look at the pictures from that day.

Since my step-mother worked as an elementary school teacher, she really enjoyed holiday-themed clothing, and she had a whole wardrobe of themed outfits - with the jewelry to match. From the thanksgiving sweatshirt with matching turkey earrings to the embroidered St. Patrick's Day denim-dress with shamrock necklace, it was sure to be found in her closet. Plus, her third-grade students loved it! It seems that these types of cutesy accessories are work appropriate for elementary school teachers. (God bless them all.)

Who's Your Audience and Do They Respect You?

Themed outfits and cutesy accessories may work for elementary school teachers and pediatric nurses, but their main audience happens to be children. For adults who don't work with children everyday, these type of cutesy accessories come across differently. In fact, you could be negatively impacting your reputation by wearing cutesy, novelty accessories to work. Do you really think wearing a Christmas tree necklace and matching earrings with an ugly Christmas sweater is doing you any favors? Seriously, no one looks good in those things. (But you get one free pass a year for the annual ugly sweater contest at the office!)

What Type of Attention do you Want?

My boyfriend recently told me a work anecdote about a woman stopping folks in the hallway to ask for compliments on her outfit — a sweater emblazoned with a yellow canary and matching yellow shoes — topped off with little canary earrings. It was a bit sad really. She received plenty of attention and comments about her outfit. Perhaps she thought of them as compliments, but I am assuming her colleagues were just being polite. This short-term attention seeking strategy doesn't do anything to improve other's respect for you, or increase their admiration for you. Yet, I see a lot of middle-aged professionals donning these types of accessories, thinking it's a way to be fun and show off a sense of humor.

You are Not 10 years Old — Don't Dress Like One

How you choose to dress each morning reflects how you feel about your job — that you take your position seriously. It also signals to others about how you feel about yourself, what your status is, and how you expect to be treated. Clothing affects how others perceive your status. Wearing novelty accessories can bring your status down a few notches, just as much as wearing ill-fitting or outdated clothing. Ditch the novelty accessories today. When in doubt, ask yourself if you may see a person under the age of 18 wearing it.