Mark Twain had a quote about never taking a job that required you to buy new clothes. I live by that. Perhaps that should change.
The strictest for me was my first job as a programmer for an insurance company. It was all suits & ties for men, I can’t recall if the women were allowed trousers or not. Currently, I’m a programmer for a software company, so pretty much anything goes as long as it is clean, in good repair, and not offensive. I’ll go with Docker’s and a shirt & tie if I’m meeting customers. In the LA and Houston offices shorts are quite common.
Strictest dress code I ever had to follow required slacks, dress shirt, and tie. I’ve only had a couple of jobs that required that, a night accountant at a Best Western and a delivery/collections person for a furniture rental place.
VERY loose dress code where I work, doing tech support in a call center. Sandals, shorts, exposed navels, Marilyn Manson T-shirts - it’s all good, and some of my female co-workers have come to work in outfits that made it difficult not to stare. A lot of people come to work dressed like they just came from a rave. Our supervisors can’t wear jeans and have to wear a shirt with a collar, though.
We wear whatever we want. There was talk a while ago about introducing a dress code, but it came to naught. Some people wear suits occasionally, others wear coordinated business casuals, others wear combats and T shirts. Everyone has their own personal dress code (Except one of my mates, who goes for extremes - either a smart suit and tie or grubby jeans, long sleeve t shirt and a homemade gilet)
A lad came for interview a couple of weeks ago. He was wearing tight black jeans, a shirt, a torn tie and a badly fitting navy blue jacket. He looked terrible (and he didn’t smell so good either). I can’t imagine how he thought he was going to impress anyone.
I used to work at TGIFriday’s, which was the inspiration for Chatchky’s in Office Space. In addition to requiring 15 pieces of flair & those stupid striped shirts, we also had to wear either a hat (but not a baseball cap), or a bow “as big as 2 fists”. (Yeah, I got your 2 fists for you…) The dress code also specifically stated that girls had to wear bras. It did NOT say that we had to wear underpants, heh heh. I don’t know why Friday’s is so fascist about their dress code. I’ve also worked at the Olive Garden, where the uniform is pretty strictly mandated, but it’s not as totalitarian there.
The coolest job I ever had, dress code-wise, was when I cocktail waitressed in this little bar in college. I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans, but other than that I could wear whatever I wanted. Financially speaking, a push-up bra (or none at all)& high heels were required, but other than that, I could be as creative as I wanted. The more outlandish I looked, the better my tips would be.
The first job that says I need to wear a skirt will have me in full Ren Fest tavern wench gear for a week.
I can deal with business casual, I’ll wear pants other than jeans and decent socks. Beyond that and I’ll just get pissy.
No public contact = no dress code at the Cellular Company That Shall Remain Nameless. I don’t think i could stand it any other way, especially since it’s always too hot in the summer and too cold in winter not to be able to dress any way I want.
As a slight hijack, what is the mentality of ‘casual Friday’? I remember an old Dilbert cartoon with (I think) Dogbert sarcastically commenting that somehow it had been determined that Friday was the only day that wearing regular clothes wouldn’t negatively impact stockholder values. However, I tend not to put much faith in what Dogbert tells me…
My company has 26 offices, and except for some very general guidelines, dress is determined on an office-by-office basis.
Currently, when I’m just working in the office, khakis and a polo shirt or other collared dress shirt are fine. My boss dresses in a variety of pants and skirts depending on whether she’s in or out of the office that day. If I’m out of the office at an appointment or an event, it’s a suit all the way. On Fridays, jeans and a sweatshirt are OK.
In the office in which I used to work, it was only in the last two years that the manager there allowed women to wear pants. Before that, it was skirts and hose. Men have to wear ties, even those that have no public contact at all. Jeans and sneakers are OK on Friday, but no T-shirts or sweatshirts.
Yeah, banks suck. Their dress codes are ruthless and harsh.
I work at a public university now and since we have mostly graduate students, we dress pretty much however we like as long as its clean and tasteful. The only prohibition they have is the “no T-shirts with writing on them”, except, of course, T-shirts with the school logo! No problem. I use my T-shirts for running anyway and most of them are pretty beat up.
That being said, I have A LOT of really nice clothes (picked up cheap at consignment shops) so I tend to wear dress pants and blazers more than I wear jeans. But I do wear jeans.
The software company I was at in the past was great ‘cause there was no dress code. If I dressed up, I’d always get asked, "Hey, goin’ for an interview?". Shorts in the summer, jeans in the winter.
I work for a software company. If our dress code were any more casual, we’d all be naked.
[sup]Say, I’d like that! No more “sick” days for me![/sup]
Since I work nights, I can wear whatever the hell I want, who’s gonna see it? A&F tshirts, cargo khakis, and nasty ol’ Nikes for me. Sometimes I’ll comb my hair.
–Tim
I work for myself so I usually wear jammies or boxers and a t-shirt. I hate it when I have to go and meet somebody for the first time to talk about a job and have to dress to impress. Luckily, I’m supposed to be “creative” so I have some leeway, but I still have to look like a responsible person (thus no jammies).
Veb, can they really make you wear heels? That blows, considering what heels can do to your poor feet. Can you get out of it with a doctor’s note? As I have loudly declared before I am a pitiful sufferer of one-toe arthritis, and there ain’t no way in hell I’m wearing heels.
I’ve always worked with dress codes, first in the Army and now in my current civvie job. But I’m in management, so whereas I am expected to wear a tie, non-management types get to wear casual. Oh well.
My dress code is virtually nil - only a decency standard (no exposed midriffs or micro-minis) is in place. I’ve only been here a few months, and have taken full advantage - jeans and t-shirts nearly every day! Woohoo! Since this is a ‘creative’ sort of environment, anything else is fine - no one looks twice at tattoos, piercings, or green hair.
However, I’ve begun interviewing because my actual job sucks, and it’s been difficult to do. How can I wear a suit or even a sweater and skirt when I’ve thoroughly established a slovenly pattern?
Then again, it’s mainly served to make me look for another company with a casual policy. It’s so nice to roll out of bed and throw on jeans rather than fooling around with stockings and heels and ironing and stuff. My mornings are much more streamlined than when I had to wear business attire.
We don’t have an official dress code. But this IS an upmarket magazine . . . So there are unspoken rules (no jeans, nothing out of fashion—unless it’s so out of fashion it’s “retro”).
We Are the Fashionistas! We are the people who forced you all into capri pants and pashminas last year, then told you “those are out of date—you have to wear bellbottoms and plaid scarves” this year!" HAHAHAHAHahaha!
No dress code, per se, around here. Management types wear suits and ties when meeting customers. Most days polo shirts and Dockers. Designers wear jeans and polos. I’m one of the few female designers, and I have worn jeans in the past. Recently, though, I’ve started dressing up a bit, I guess because the other (non-designer) women always do. I always felt WAY underdressed at staff meetings and such. Guys can look semi-dressy in jeans and Polo shirts. Women don’t. I feel better about myself when dressed nice, too. Fridays are “dress-down”, and almost everybody wears jeans and t-shirts or Polos, unless there’s a meeting with the customer. Watch those ties fly off after the meeting, though!
The closest I’ve ever gotten to a dress code was “casual is ok, jeans are not.” Which was kind of annoying, but it was a great job.
The least restrictive? When I asked about the dress code, the guy showing me around the office said that they just started cracking down on people walking around the hallway barefoot - so I needed to at least bring shoes with me and wear them when I wasn’t in my own office.
We have “casual Fridays” here, too.
I wore the faux pearls and the knockoff Dolce & Gabbana suit.
Henry David Thoreau. “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes”. Quoted that fifty zillion times to my mom in the '80s when she shrieked about my preference for thrift-store clothes over mall clothes. What can I say—I was born too soon for grunge.