Dress Code

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A couple of years ago my company had a dress code forced on it from higher headquarters. As one of the senior (oldest employee but one) I volunteered to be on the committee.

First, we were given a copy of the ‘poor dress practices’ that someone at corporate had pulled out a policy manual. I read the sentence “Culottes are not acceptable in the business world” and hit the ceiling. “When was this written? 73? I haven’t worn culottes since then.” It must have been in hiding on a hard drive for decades.

It also said that women had to have a doctor’s excuse not to wear high heels. I turned to the chair and exhibited the lively foul language that I am noted for, “F* corporate, and f* the horse they rode in on. If they want me to get a doctor’s excuse for not wearing high heels because I have bad feet, they can give me a day off, pay the bill, and go to hell.”

By this time all my other committee members were laughing so hard they could barely sit up.

There were other comments from other women. A lot of women said the requirement to wear a bra was outdated. The paper also banned women from wearing sandals to work, which is insane. The committee rejected my proposed rule that men had to wear undershirts because I was tired of “nipple peek” through thin shirts . They also wouldn’t let me put in a rule that women had to wear hose and men had to wear ties, because it was “too sarcastic”.

We finally pounded to dress code down into a couple of sentences, when they rejected my suggestion of “Don’t be stupid.”

Anybody else have any corporate dress code stories?

2

Just the one bank I worked at in…1991ish? which required all women employees to wear skirts or dresses and pantyhose or stockings. This was a bank which prided itself on being “conservative” which in this case I guess meant “stuck in the 60’s” - I’ve never before or again been prohibited from wearing slacks, and hose were on their way out already by that time.

However, a bunch of us figured out that if we wore longer skirts and boots, we could get away without the hose since our legs weren’t exposed. We felt rather daring for our trespasses!

3

The last place I worked before retirement used to have a great dress code - jeans and sneaks were OK unless you were doing a presentation or expecting visitors, in which case, you dressed “professionally.” It worked well for a number of years, until a Marine general way up the line decided we should always dress “professionally” because goodness knows, if you’re spending 8 hours a day in a cubicle, you can’t possibly do your best work if you’re in jeans.

One guy decided he’d go letter-of-the-law and push the boundary to the extreme. He went to a thrift store and stocked up on the ugliest, most garish slacks and shirts, all of which met the dress code requirement. He even asked me to make him a pair of pants from some upholstery fabric. Unfortunately, I goofed and made them too small. I know he’d have worn them.

I was glad to retire. The inane dress code was just one of several changes that took the fun out of work.

Oh, and I did my own dig at the dress code - black jeans and black sneaks. :smiley: As long as they weren’t blue and white, respectively, no one really noticed.

4

In the late 1990s, my former employer sent an updated dress code email to all employees, which included a list of items that women were not allowed to wear. Included on the list, puzzlingly, was “ball gowns”.

After we had all signed that we’d read the policy and the paperwork was sent off to HR, a male colleague showed up one day wearing a full-length, full-skirted ball gown to work, and (correctly) argued that the dress code did not say that *men *couldn’t wear ball gowns.

Dress code strict-constructionism, we joked at the time. Our management didn’t get it. :smack:

5

I would have paid good money to see that guy in a ball gown.

6

You shoulda got together with all the other female-type employees and agreed to wear prairie dresses as a protest. Think that would have been conservative enough for the brass?

7

A few different places I worked at in the past would reward you with “jeans Friday” if you donated to United Way. Always United Way. I often wondered what benefit it was to the company to team up with that particular charity.

At the fairly large, conservative company where I work they also have a donation drive for United Way. Unfortunately I work on the one floor that is never allowed casual Friday. Never mind that our floor is secured and no one ever sees us. You can imagine the percentage of people who participate in that particular exercise. Meanwhile, I see women - almost never men- walking around like WalMartians or strippers.

8

I wrote our company’s dress code. Here it is in it’s entirety.

Don’t come to work stinky.

It’s good to be the boss.

9

I worked for a company that had no real dress code. However, we did have a few conversations or emails over the years. Apparently, even with no dress code:

Tube tops are not appropriate business casual wear
Neither are cutoffs
Nor is coming to work in your jammies (working from home in your jammies is a time honored tradition by now, but if you are going to do a video conference call, put on at least a shirt and get rid of the bed head).

(Some things should not need to be said).

10

Stupidest damn thing they tried to do years ago here.

“No white athletic type shoes”–so everyone bought black Nikes, Reeboks, etc.

“No head coverings for women”–huh? (keep in mind, this was previous to any thoughts here of hiring a woman whose religious beliefs required such) But the rest of us never did figure out exactly what they were forbidding and why. So much for Carmen Miranda day.

“Appropriate length skirts”–no definition as to what that meant. And yes, no “culottes”-but no mention of those “skort” things with shorts built in under the skirt.

Who knows. It was put together by a committee of all older ladies and included their pet peeves, one of the pet peeves being a stunning 5’8" purchasing agent with a terrific figure who wore short but very tasteful and stylish skirts, always with hose and heels, but who managed to bring out the jealousy in the other ladies.

11

When I worked in a cube farm, I started out in dress pants/shoes, shirt and tie. Then on casual Friday it was Dockers and Timberlands.

Then it degenerated to “always casual” and Friday it was okay for jeans. Shortly, jeans became the norm and it went downhill from there. People started showing up looking more and more ratty as time went on. Stripper Chic and Homeless Haute.

I was one of a tiny handful that worked on Sunday, and a couple people started showing up in fucking pajamas since there was no management around. It got pretty bad.

12

I currently work in a place where the dress code is quite simple:

Non-management: red company polo, either black or khaki pants.
Management: blue company polo, either black or khaki pants.
Everyone wears closed-toe shoes (safety requirement)
If the company polo isn’t warm enough then the company dark blue fleece on top.

It’s actually a relief in many ways.

Store directors get on the “business casual” merry-go-round again, although the men have to wear ties (apparently) even if not full suits. Women are allowed pants. No one wears high heels because of the enormous amount of walking we all do.

13

Pretty awesome.

I had to look up what culottes were.

14

I wish every workplace would adopt one simple rule:

If your feet look like you could swoop down from the sky and snatch your lunch from the lake, don’t wear sandals or flip-flops to the office.

15

Story told before. I’ve got others from the same company re. the same code, but this was the final straw and the camel got quite disintegrated.

I was working in Philadelphia, in the home office of a chemical company (now a subsidiary of another one), located on Independence Mall. Not a bad little hole, hm? As a consequence of 9/11, pedestrians aren’t allowed to leave via the garage any more; everybody must use either “the bank” (so called because it used to be one) or the main entrance.

One morning, 8am, meeting with a level 10, Michelle (the company had 12 levels, 12 being the highest) and with my teammates Dee and Joe. We get there a bit ahead of time, open email, and there is a high priority one from a VP.

… apparently His Lordship is offended by the sight of people in shorts using their lunch break to go jogging, you see. They are wearing sneakers even! And, and, and… some are women! In shorts! And capris are completely unprofessional! See attached dress code, which we had all seen before, dated c. 1950 and disregarded.

Joe directly hid under the table (yes he did. He is a bit of a clown. We wouldn’t have hit him. Promise). Michelle, Dee and I proceeded to rip the dress code, the magpie who wrote it, the VP, the clothing stores which sold nothing but capris et all to shreds. Eventually, we calmed down but were still fuming when Joe cautiously creeped back out from under the table so we could start the meeting…

… and then I thought out loud “thing is, I don’t even have any dresses or skirts here… well, actually I do have one… and it does comply with the policy, it is the right length… but I would never have thought of that dress as being professional :confused:”

Michelle and Dee said “oh?”

“Well, yeah, it’s a sundress I think they’re called that I got on the boardwalk in Atlantic City? It’s right below the knee, like the policy says.”

Michelle: “now that you mention it, I do have a dress I use to putter around the garden which… hmmmm!”

OK. So we had the meeting, which Joe survived intact and which even achieved its original objectives, and then we spread. Dee to another meeting, Michelle back to her office, Joe and I back to ours. And on the way and around every water cooler, and anywhere you looked, the main reason women weren’t brandishing tomahawks and claymores was that they didn’t have any. And they saw us coming, all calm and cool-looking, and said “where have you been? Haven’t you seen that email?” “Well, yes, but you see…”

Have I mentioned Home Office was about 75% women?

OK. So, next day. I’m wearing my sundress. Michelle is wearing her gardening dress (it had these huge sunflowers). A lot of women are wearing cocktail dresses, including the CEO’s Executive Secretary (you know, God’s Dragon? Whose usual attire was power suits, and who had the body for them, but in solidarity she was wearing this gorgeous black and gold number), anyway, a multitude of bridesmaids (and sorry but those dresses are horrible), and the crowning glory, three brides.

The men spent the whole day looking something between “my kingdom for a camera”, “do I hide now?” and “if I start laughing I won’t be able to stop”. We complimented each other a lot, love your earrings, did you do your hair yourself…

And the next day, the world went back to normal. Capris, and jeans, and yes, the occasional power suit.

16

I think flip flops are inappropriate anyway, especially since people don’t know how to wear them quietly. It is not necessary to let them slap against the bottom of your feet every time you walk.

But honestly, I don’t care. As long as your feet are neat and clean, I don’t care about anything else. Really that’s all I care about. Neat, clean, and not overly revealing, for men and women. If women can’t wear tank tops neither can men. Also tank tops do not equal pretty summer dresses with straps.

17

When I was a manager, one of my reports came running to me to tell me that another of my reports (male) was wearing a black bra under a white shirt. Fortunately, I checked our dress code policy and the references to appropriate undergarments were aimed specifically at women. So I didn’t need to address the issue.

I wear a suit and tie to work by preference, so now I am the oddly dressed one.

Regards,
Shodan

18

I never saw the need for a dress code, then an employee began dressing in dirty rags, angering her coworkers. So, my employees wrote up a dress code and I approved it. Years later, and employee reported me to the office manager for not following the dress code.

I thought it was a joke, but it turned out the woman had a “rules obsession” problem. I told her it was my business, and I could wear whatever. She strenuously disagreed, arguing that “rules are for everyone!!”. So, I rewrote the dress code to state, "Everyone except kayaker must . . ".

That freaked her out and she quit.

19

Oh god, I forgot.

SLIPS!!

I worked once at a place that require slips for women. We never figured out how they planned to check.

20

When I became an employee, our boss came into the office (he works from home 95% of the time) and started telling me and my co-worker (hired the same day) that we were not allowed to wear jeans, had to be business casual, which meant yakkity yak yak…

Co-worker had already looked up the dress code. Corporate standard basically said you cannot wear anything offensive, dirty or torn. That’s it. Manager started going on and on about the divisional standard. We asked him where that was, because we couldn’t find it. He said he’d find it and send it to us, but we were to adhere to it starting right then. A couple of days later he was forced to admit that not only could he not find one, but that his boss would not allow him to enforce his made up dress code on us.

Back in the day I worked for a music retailer, in their corporate offices. We worked in the next room from a bunch of women in an Ad department. One of them was a very tall, buxom woman who frequently dressed inappropriately. She came in one day in a thin shirt and short-shorts. By mid-afternoon she was in some VP’s office screaming about “those nerds” staring at her and how she wanted us punished. The VP sent her home with a warning not to return wearing inappropriate clothing.