Unique Uniformity

In Japan, it seems that there is a uniform for every job and a job for every uniform.

Tour guides wear cute hats and outfits reminiscent of 1950's airline stewardesses. Bakery employees often have aprons and chef hats probably to enhance the customer's authentic experience. Beer and Hot Dog vendors at the baseball games have uniforms that vary stadium to stadium, but seem to all be inspired from the 1980's fluorescent palette. Students also have uniforms for school, gym class and field trips. Some of the school uniforms are even GPS-enabled!

But, even better than noting crazy uniforms for normal jobs is noting (relatively) crazy jobs for (relatively) normal uniforms. Here is my favorite... In Kyoto Station they have several employees whose job is to stand at the top or bottom of escalators and scrub the handrail clean as it passes by. They also ride on the escalator armed with squeegees to clean the glass on the sides of the escalators. It comes as no surprise that Kyoto is so clean! And, of course, this occupation has a unique uniform. No one else in Kyoto Station wears black pants, bright pink and purple shirts and red fanny-packs. Well, maybe some of the Western tourists... but no one else.