t-shirts with writing on them are more casual than t-shirts - generally. Wearing your Harley t-shirt to work is pretty casual - but since that’s what my cube neighbor did for 13 years - I usually felt overdressed in anything dressier than khaki’s.
Yep. It may be appropriate for your work environment, but it is not “business casual”. A polo or an oxford is more in line with that specific type of dress.
Works for me.
Paired with khakis, it’d be just fine at my work place.
OP chiming in.
I didn’t notice the flap pockets; my hypothetical does not have them.
Also, I thought the bottom of the linked shirt was flat. Assume it is.
Here is another (better) example of what I’m looking at (and yes I know this screws up the poll results).
Thanks,
mmm
Those shirts, particularly if untucked, are simply casual. Not business casual, just casual.
If casual attire is okay at your workplace, it is fine. If business attire is required, it is not. The definition of business casual is simply not “I can find one profit-making institution that will let me get away with dressing like this during work hours.”
Those shirts are casual, period.
I don’t care for the shirt.
That said, it wouldn’t raise comment anywhere I’ve worked in the last decade.
Full disclosure: I work in various IT jobs.
I would suggest saving it for “jeans/casual Fridays”, if you have those.
Edit: I ***really ***don’t like the second shirt – it looks like someone started to make a chambray shirt but got bored with the sleeves. Yuck. But that wouldn’t raise comment either.
The law office I work for is super-casual, as long as you’re not going to court. Half the staff wanders around in gym clothes or shorts and bare feet. If I (a secretary) showed up in full business attire, my coworkers would be wondering whether I had a job interview or an acting audition that day. 
I voted that the shirt is question is business casual, but as you can see my perception is a bit skewed.
Either way, I find it amusing that despite all the folks here claiming that an untucked shirt or pocket flaps is roughly equivalent to the wardrobe of a homeless person or somesuch, the poll results are soundly the other direction.
Yes, agreed. Some folks think “business casual” means “something other than a suit that’s okay where I work.” Maybe that’s right elsewhere, but in my circles, business casual has a specific definition that means khakis or slacks with a button-down, tucked-in shirt. Sometimes I wear a blazer to a conference marked “business casual.” It doesn’t mean much more than, “you don’t have to wear a tie.” That’s an interesting clarifying follow-up question, I think: You’re attending an industry conference, out of town, with a dress code of “business casual.” What would you wear? Jeans? A nice t-shirt? You’d be way under-dressed at any I’ve attended.
Casual Fridays? We can wear jeans, golf shirts.
If we had a poll to ask what semiformal attire means on an invitation for an evening dinner, we would probably get similarly wrong results.
It may be ok for a business that’s casual, but I don’t think it qualifies as “business casual”, specifically.
Because people conflate casual with Business Casual.
That would be dressed up in my work environment. But I work in a department of research with prototype engineering going on all day everyday. Even the management track people wear jeans unless a bigwig is coming. It might not look great, but it’s easy on the budget.
What jobs do posters have where the standard of dress is more important then the work performed?
Where I work we have casual Fridays and I have known people to be mocked for wearing chinos. Any old shit will pass muster really.
Dress more important than the work? Well, no. But as part if my job- sure. If I’m spending all day working in my lab, no one cares. But if I’m at an admissions event recruiting students and meeting with their families, then looking professional is absolutely part of doing good work.
Or alienating the audience. I dress up all prissy for corporate presentations, a tie and all that shit, but if I’m dealing with with real people I don’t do it.
I’m unclear on what kind of person becomes unable to perform quality work if they have to dress to some minimum standard.
But the idea that the quality of work is a trump card that can be used to dismiss matters of dress, grooming, punctuality, attitude, and other ancillary behavior is just not on point. Some businesses need dress standards because customers might draw bad conclusions about the quality of workers; other times a dress code is a hedge against the BS that management really shouldn’t have to be dealing with: Bob says that Cindy’s skirt is too short and really inappropriate, and Roger is wearing that same t-shirt again that smells like sweat and is driving everyone else crazy. Just have a policy of business casual helps to defuse these disputes about whether an individual can make good decisions on how to dress for work.
Some people may be fine with Cindy dressing like a stripper, or Roger coming straight from the gym. But god knows there are others who will complain to high hell about it.
I also think it depends on the area of the country. At conferences I’ve attended in the northeast, “business casual” seems to mean “khakis and a button-down, tucked in shirt with or without a blazer”. (Generally speaking, the IT folks don’t wear a blazer, the medical folks do.)
Down south, almost no one wears a blazer unless it’s December.
(I’m sticking with menswear here, because women’s clothing is a whole different horror…let’s say that the chick I saw this summer in midcoast Maine wearing a maxi-dress and high heels, with full-face makeup, “done” hair, fake nails, and lots of jewelry, was totally overdressed; in Miami she would’ve been fine)
Dressing “prissy”? Alienating my audience by dressing professionally? You have a very different world view than I do, I guess, and I’m one of the most causally dressed faculty I know (since I’m in my lab a lot). No, I seriously doubt that by putting on a nice shirt and slacks or skirt is a problem.
I work in a business causal environment, and there would be no issue with either shirt in and of itself - but - untucked is a no-no in our dress code, even on jean day.