Honey, I shrunk the pants!

Got myself a pair for work around the house, but out of the bag they have a very unpleasant plastic feel on the skin. So I washed them before first use. The label says wash cold - work pants to be washed cold? We are talking dirt, grease, sweat, mud- you name it, they'll see it. So wash cold is not an option in real life now, is it. Surely the manufacturer is being over cautious here, right? So I washed my pair at 40C (about 100F), warm, not even hot. I put a 34" waist into the machine and got a 30" back out. I did plan on a diet after New Year, but 4" is probably somewhat overly optimistic. So I got a brand new utterly useless pair of very cool pants for work I'll never do (in them anyway..). It's true I did not follow the manufacturers instructions, but in all fairness that is not what I expected to be told. "You can use out great pants only once, because there really is no way to clean them after that weekend in the garden." A stupid product.