For many reasons. Firstly my work has a dress code for casual Fridays. It is just different to the normal dress code. It is of the ‘smart casual’ variety. The only real difference I see is that on Fridays middle-aged unattractive women who should know better wear jeans to work.
Secondly - I work in a call-centre. I do not see why we have to have much of a dress code at all. My manager wears jeans and running shoes on Fridays. So why can’t he/we wear those every day?
Thirdly- Casual Fridays are one of those so-called benefits that we get instead of a pay rise. The powers that be sit around and think if we let them wear jeans every Friday we can deny them that $1000 per year pay rise. Give me the pay rise - I will buy a suit and wear it to work every day.
I wish I could sum up more vitriol to get this into the pit, but I cannot. Feel free to if you have similar but stronger opinions.
Well, I like them. Here’s one advantage: You’re already in your casual clothes for going out right after work. I don’t like going out in my cubicle drone clothes. At least on Friday, I can dress in my typical clothes and meet up with friends.
I worked with a woman who said a study had been done and it found that people work harder when they’re dressed in work clothes. This was when I worked for IBM, a.k.a. Uptight Power Tie Center of the World, so there may have been some bias there.
I liked Casual Friday back in the day when I worked in an office. What I don’t like is people who come to work dressed so casually that it’s difficult to tell whether their in casual clothes or pajamas. But other than that, it’s a nice break from the usual mundane office thing (and it’s one less outfit you have to figure out each week).
Plus, it gives you a day to take your regular work clothes to the cleaners.
I’d like to know what you’re wearing for a four-day formal week which needs a special trip to the cleaners. I’m shirt-and-tie, and active (to say the least), so everything is in the machine. (I rarely get the suit jacket on.)
I don’t think I have any work pants that aren’t dry clean only, since I had that moment where I saw myself in the mirror a couple months ago and realized I’d gotten way too sloppy. I take my suits to the dry cleaner maybe once every two weeks - I stretch a lot of wear between cleanings, which is better for the suits anyway.
Pay raise? I wish… I work for a bank and we have to pay for the priviledge of wearing jeans. $1.00 every Friday. And we can only wear jeans if we wear our logowear.
Not a huge deal, it goes into a charitable account that we use to sponsor families at Christmas time and whatnot, I usually just pay ahead $20.00 at a time.
Codpiece.
Heh. I guess that people at Microsoft and Intel and just about anyplace in Silicon Valley don’t work very hard then.
I’d dislike them too, since I much prefer the causal any day policy I’ve lived under for 28 years.
What, only people under the age of 30 can wear jeans? We invented jeans, you whippersnapper!
That screwed me on a few Fridays at my last job. The place we used to go for happy hour didn’t allow casual dress.
Yep. In high-tech every day is casual Friday. Wearing shorts, tee-shirt and sandals is fine just about any day. Heck, some people dress like that for work in the winter here!
I used to work in an office where there was no dress code at all (magazine publishing, so everyone was a journalist or editor) and we worked prodigiously until four in the morning if necessary. The study showing that people work harder when they are dressed up is either (a) circa 1948; or (b) an urban legend.
Back to the dress-code-free-office: we were part of a larger business (all housed in the same building, which the parent company owned) that did more than publish magazines; for example, the business owned the Western Union concession for Egypt. All the other floors dressed like proper little business drones. (The lack of a dress code for us was probably a concession to the fact that journalists don’t do dress codes if they can possibly help it, and it was hard enough to find employees without imposing such an off-putting rule.)
The CEO hosted monthly “business luncheons” for prestigious business and government types such as the US ambassador. On those days, the journalists were not allowed to use the front door of the building. We had to sneak in and out the back way (and there were guards posted to be sure we did). I guess diplomats are at risk of heart attacks if they see a Flying Spaghetti Monster t-shirt…
ETA: I’ve posted this picture before, but this is how we dressed at that office. Blinkingblinking, please note I am middle-aged and I’ll wear jeans if I feel like it, got that?
I think the people at my work (myself included) who have been in the office until 2 or 3 AM lately in advance of Certain Hyped Cellphone that began it’s international launch a couple of hours ago would have rioted if someone told them they had to spend their 18-20 hour days in pantyhose and ties.
Pajamas are actually seen at big enough crunch times. The other day my boss was wearing an undershirt, sweatpants, and flip-flops.
I don’t like casual Fridays, either. We’ve just gone to them. I prefer to feel at least as if I’m in my office role when I’m in the office, and the clothes help. Also, summer and casual Fridays equal more skin than I think I need to see.
I’m very pleased that it’s a casual Friday. We had a farewell lunch for someone today and the waiter spilt food on me. Nothing really serious, but if I’d been wearing a suit it certainly would have required dry cleaning. The jeans, on the other hand, can go straight into the washing machine when I get home.
So, you don’t go out on the street during the summer, not to mention anywhere near swimming pools and beaches? Because if you did any of those things, you’d see “more skin.”
I’m sorry if that sounds snarky, I’m not trying to pick a fight. But seriously, unless you’re an uncontrollably lust-filled teenage boy who can’t help being distracted by bare flesh, I don’t get why someone else’s style of clothing would have any impact on your job performance.
The study was probably done by a designer of dress clothes!
The same people who write, “The suit is back!” articles and get them published in newspapers.
My workplace has a “casual friday” program that let’s you wear jeans insetad of the standard black pants (SBP If you choose to do so, you pay $2 to our corporate charity (Scholarships for tradespeople)
I wear the standard black pants. Why? I get my “SBP” for abouyt $10-$15 at the local good will. All day long, I am up and down on my knees, scuffling around on unfinished concrete.
No way am I gonna pay $2 for the priveledge of wearing out my jeans.
At least not that way!
FML
Word!
I’m currently in the kind of office that has casual fridays and I don’t know what do I find more absurd:
- having to work four days a week in uncomfortable clothes, many of which we wouldn’t have bought if it wasn’t for dress-like-a-woolly-sheep policies,
- the contrast between the folks who fly in every monday morning in jeans and tees/polos (some of which are plain inadequate for office wear, a polo cut doesn’t make the slogan “babe tester” professional unless you work in porn) and those of us already there,
- or seeing someone whose sheep suit includes handmade shirts with cufflinks and a pin tie come in a tee so old it’s starting to be transparent. Dude, a hint: if I want to see your chest hairs, I’ll want to see them someplace other than the office.