I work in a job where they expect me to wear a tie in the office, but when I meet with the customers, it’s unwise to wear a tie. It makes as little sense to me as it probably does to you.
At the bookstore, it’s business casual. Khakis and a dress shirt, usually. I don’t mind it. In the chem lab, it’s heavy blue jeans and think tee shirts to save me from acid burns. I wish I could ever wear sandals.
I hate, hate, HATE dressing up for work. It usually means uncomfortable shoes, itchy clothing, too many accessories. Geeze, I just hate the whole thing.
If I could, I’d wear jeans or shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops to work every day. But then, they’d have to turn down the air-conditioning.
If I had to choose between a job that paid $40K a year that let me wear whatever I wanted, and a job that paid $50K a year but I had to dress up, I’d take the $40K job in a heartbeat.
Surprised to see how many people are picky about dress codes.
Frankly, I am just waiting to land a job thanks to some other shmuck who didn’t want to play dress-up in order to make a little beyond just a living wage. From my prespective, folks that act that way are puzzling, however I am very supportive of people who are vehemently opposed to dress codes and drug tests, because it simply means they are making it easier for me to get those positions (since I have a problem with neither) by not creating as much competition.
One of my jobs requires a uniform shirt, tie, slacks, belt, boots, dayglo vest and hat. All of these are required, and the dispatcher shows up at random to make sure we are following the dress code. It gets a little hot in the summer (the snug collar makes me sweaty) but as long as there is shade to stand in I’m fine. The job is a crossing guard, by the way.
My other job requires non-sneakers (black), khakis, and our work shirt. The shirt has to be tucked in. They take the dress code there VERY SERIOUSLY, and there have been employees who have gotten fired because they would not tuck in their shirts.
Right now, I work in a consignment shop, so there’s no strict dress code. The point is to make it look like you cared enough to put an outfit together, rather than just throwing on sloppy old jeans and a wrinkled t-shirt. Fortunately, the more time I spend around clothes, the more I appreciate them, so dressing up for work is pretty fun for me. I can go to work looking like Disco Stu, or I can put on my vintage black suit with the full skirt and three-quarter length sleeves; I can look how I choose, and I like that.
I’m seriously considering going into mortuary science as a career; and that, I suppose, will limit my outfit options quite a bit. It’ll probably involve a lot of charcoal gray and navy blue and dark (although not black) suits. But that’s fine. I figure I’ll get all the strange hair colors and black nailpolish and funky outfits out of my system now. And if I do find myself as a funeral director who still longs to dress outrageously, that’s what days off are for. But I don’t think I would choose my job based on the dress code. It just seems like such a small thing.
We (medical residents in my hospital) don’t really have a dress code at all, to speak of. I’ll wear a tie occasionally, though these days it’s only when I’m giving a presentation; inevitably, whenever I wear one, I end up doing procedures where it gets in the way. Plus, doctors’ neckties are considered one of the big vectors of infectious disease transmission in the hospital. I’ll usually wear khakis and a button-up shirt, or occasionally a polo shirt. (I always have a white coat, as well.)
We usually wear scrubs when we’re on call, even if it isn’t overnight. You could probably get by with wearing scrubs just about every day on a busy month; somebody might mention it after a few days. or if you wore them to your clinic, but they’re certainly not going to do anything about it.
I have to wear standard business dress (suit and tie) in my current job. It’s aways been the case in all the jobs I’ve ever had. It doesn’t worry me. I’ve been doing it so long that it’s just second nature. I had to wear a suit and tie from age 6 at school.
Oh, and I would never turn down a job based on the dress code, though I greatly prefer to work in an environment without one. I like to dress up, but I like to know that my workplace is not judging me based on it. I’ll probably dress better of my own volition once I’m working as a “real doctor”.
Office environment, no dress code. Everybody wears jeans or Dockers and golf shirts, a couple of us wear shorts and Hawaiian shirts and boat shoes in the summer. Nobody wears a suit and/or tie, not even the owners of the business.
One day I hope to have a job that requires me to don a bouffant wig and red dress whilst at work.
I’m working two jobs right now. One is in a copy place, no dress code at all there. The other is in journalism. I wouldn’t say it’s business casual, but something like that or a little below. Since I’m only part time I just wear jeans and t-shirts, or sometimes long-sleeved shirts or a sweatshirt. Nobody’s ever said anything. It’s just as well, since I don’t own a suit or a lot of nice clothes. Journalism jobs don’t tend to be much stricter than that, and I’d prefer not to work someplace where I’d have to dress up. I feel constricted in fancy shoes and collared shirts.
I don’t like having to wear “nice” clothes because they’re uncomfortable and I tend to be rough on my stuff. It pisses me off that one decent suit costs a few hundred bucks, has to be dry cleaned, and I have to be careful when wearing it. Furthermore, ties are the work of the devil.
I’m a contractor (Program Management) in the HQ of a Govt. agency. Business attire is required. You don’t have to wear a suit, but ties are necessary. We have business casual on Fridays. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, it’s business casual 5 days a week. (Summer in DC isn’t conducive to dressing up)
Believe it or not, except for the tie thing( and that’s a biggie), I probably prefer regular business attire to business casual, because you can wear a white shirt 2-3 days a week and be fine, whereas I wouldn’t wear the same color shirt twice in a week in business casual.
I wear t-shirts and jeans to work. I wouldn’t take a job that required I wear skirts. I don’t think I even have a skirt.
I work in the Irish Parliament and I think technically speaking there is supposed to be some kind of dress code, but nobody’s ever said anything to me when I’ve shown up in jeans and runners, as I frequently do. Nobody in the party I work for cares and AFAIC that settles it.
I have one co-worker who wears suits whenever the House is in session. I think she thinks it makes people take her more seriously. I don’t think they really do, though.
From a comfort perspective I vastly prefer casual, yet to some extent I look better in a dress shirt and tie. But I’ve never had any job with a dress code beyond a company shirt, and I doubt that I ever will.
I thought I was the only one in the Western Hemisphere who wears a suit and tie voluntarily.
People treat you differently. Plus it saves time deciding what to wear. Pick a suit at random, put on a white shirt, pick any tie.
I have tried dressing to suit myself, but my daughter disapproves. :eek:
Regards,
Shodan
Nope, a good friend of mine is an investment banker in NY, very old-school Italian guy. When his employer went business casual, he said he was going to buck the trend and keep wearing his suits. (I suspect the real reason was partly the same as yours, and partly because he’d spent a lot of money on the damn suits and didn’t want them to hang in the closet. Money for dry-cleaning isn’t an object for him, plus he is a skinny guy and suits make him look more substantial. It’s rare to see him wear jeans even on his days off.)
My last job was business casual with casual Fridays, though I was informed by a former colleague yesterday that the jeans are about to bite the dust. Current job, in the in-house legal dept. of a large corporation, is business casual. Most days I wear slacks or a longish skirt, nice loafers or boots, and a sweater of some sort. So far so good, but I have no idea what the summer footwear dress code is going to be. We’re pretty relaxed; we rarely have contact with clients or people outside the department, and they trust us to use common sense on those days that we do.
Being retired* I wear just about whatever suits me at the moment. When I did work I was never required to wear a suit. There was one job where, just for the hell of it I wore a tie everyday. Never wore a suit; dress shirt, tie, dockers or jeans. That was for almost 4 years and I rather enjoyed it.
Oh GODDDDDDDDD! I enjoy coming into the work related threads and saying that.
Retail… Ick. I’ve managed to get two jobs that have the exact same dress code, fortunately: black slacks/skirt (knee length or longer), white collared shirt. One of them, I can wear sneakers, and the other I have to wear “dressy shoes.” Makes me so mad that in the store across from one of my jobs, they can wear literally whatever they want.
I /hate/ the dressy shoes part. Look, I’m 20 years old and I already have daily pain in my lower back, and retail means you’re never allowed to sit. And dressy shoes all have one thing in common: they make my back hurt.
I have one pair of black work pants that have faded to a pale charcoal. I refuse to buy more pants, because I’ve put on so much weight. Same reason I wouldn’t work in a place where I’d have to tuck my shirt in: I look pregnant. :eek:
I just think it’s odd to have to be “professional” when I’m a retail peon. It doesn’t matter how I dress, the customers will still treat me like I’m something they peeled off the bottom of their shoes. So why do I have to look nice for people who treat me as a lower form of life? :mad: