We’re not surprised. Many offices let their co-workers doff the suits and ties and don jeans and T-shirts on the last day of the workweek. In fact, most offices encourage their employees to loosen up a bit on Fridays and let it all hang out. But what may surprise you is that all of this Casual Friday business started in our very own offices over 50 years ago.

That’s right. The concept of Casual Fridays was invented right here at Pollstar.com. Here, let us plug in another air freshener and we’ll tell you how it all began.

It all started back in 1932 when our founder, Festus Pollstar, found himself facing an employee-related dilemma. While the Fresno natives were known for their natural database abilities, like being able to cross reference and index the dates for Leftover Salmon alongside the schedules for The Burning Brides and Candiria, they couldn’t quite grasp the philosophy of “dressing for success.” Even today, some of the oldtimers still talk of all the altercations, including fist-fights, knifings and drive-by-shootings, that were caused by Festus demanding that his workers wear their “Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes” five days a week.

But even back then Old Festus realized that it’s not what’s on the outside of the workers that counts, but how they handle the schedules for Black Uhuru and Melvins that really matters. So he struck a deal with that very first Pollstar.com workforce – Dress to the nines on the first four days of the week, including gowns, tuxedos and spats, and wear the old Fresno standard of overalls and semi-clean underwear on the last day of the week. And that’s how Casual Fridays were born. But that’s only part of the story. Here, let us plug in another air freshener and then we’ll tell you the rest of the tale.

Festus didn’t stop with Casual Fridays. For you see, Festus was a firm believer of the old maxim, “more is better,” and set out to devise casual dress codes for the rest of the week. Even today, a visitor to our compound on the first day of the workweek will see our workers entering dates for Patty Larkin, 38 Special and Fishbone while celebrating “No Shave Mondays.” Needless to say, “Deodorant-Free Wednesdays” still causes quite a stir.

Yes, not only was Festus dead set on creating the largest concert database in the free world, but he wanted his workers to dress as freely as they felt, and eventually dropped the dress-clothes requirement and let the employees wear whatever they wanted on any day of the week as long as they kept up to date with the schedules for Nina Hagen, Willie Nelson and Aaron Carter. Even today, whether it’s “No Shower Tuesdays” or “Dirty Underwear Thursdays,” the typical Pollstar.com worker is a happy worker, dedicated to bringing you the freshest tour dates under the sun for acts such as George Winston and Sugarcult.

However, we’re still not too sure about “No Wipe Fridays.” Hmmm… We think it’s time we plugged in another air freshener.