Stuff you can get away with at work now that would have gotten you fired in the old days

Kind of the opposite of this thread currently going on: Stuff you used to get away with at work that would get you fired today - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board.

Anyway, where I work people are pretty lax about the dress code. I myself wear khakis and a dress shirt pretty much everyday, and sometimes a tie. But it’s not uncommon to see workers in my office, and even managers, wearing blue jeans and polo shirts. In the summer I even occasionally see some people wearing shorts.

Also workers will sometimes bring their kids in with them, especially on snow days when I assume they can’t find someone to watch them. From what understand this used to really be frowned upon, but these days nobody seems to care so long as the kids behave themselves.

Dunno about “fired” (some places have stricter dress codes) but along the same line: bare legs on women in skirts. That used to be hella-frowned-upon. Same with visible bra straps.

(On the other hand - it’s Texas. I’m **so **not wearing those monstrosities known as pantyhose when it’s 105 F outside…)

For those of you reading this message from work – that’s not something you could have done at all 30 years ago. (I didn’t even post it back then!)

It’s kind of amazing how much internet slacking we can get away with.

strolling in to work at 4pm…or 5:30pm…::cough::

Sure we could. The SDMB was on teletype back then.

“Hey, boss, just sending an e-mail to say I’ll be working at home today…”

Being queer of any sort and out about it. Gay, trans, whatever.

This thread would have been more relevant during the tech bubble, when punky looking people who brought their dogs to work and played Doom and got renumerated in 6 figures for it. The recession put the kibosh on that nonsense.

Wasting time. Being late. Spending time online. Also, what Quercus said.

All of the above: flex hours, practically no dress code (formal or otherwise), working from home, creative loafing, being different from co-workers.

It is SO much easier to get stuff done when the rules are flexible.

I work at a large international software company headquartered in Redmond, Washington. There are plenty of people with funny clothes and haircuts, quite a few dogs, beer in the refrigerators, and so on. Not too many people playing Doom all day (or Call of Duty or whatever), and salaries are down, but nobody cares how you dress, and “WFH today” emails are legion.

  1. Dress code. Back in the '80s, “office attire” was a suit, “business casual” meant "take off your jacket and “casual Friday” was code for “you can loosen your tie and roll up your sleeves.”

  2. Personal time. You still have to put in the hours, but scheduling a doctor’s appointment or ducking out to see your kid’s school assembly is a lot easier to justify.

I’d trade all of that for the return of the three martini lunch, smoking, and flirting. That’s worth wearing a suit for.

You can get away with flirting if you’re good looking;)

Coming to work visibly pregnant
Refusing the sexual advances of any male that outranked you

I think shaving definately. I’ve worked a lot of jobs and guys don’t seem to shave.

I don’t mean grow a beard but some days they shave others they don’t. I have worked in hotels which tend to be conservative, for instance, all have allowed beards IF you have them, but you can’t grow them.

For the last three years I’ve worked temp jobs and people tend to be slobs. Being a temp, you have to wear what the agency says not the employer, so that may make a difference. I worked in a store a few weeks ago and the clerk was arguing with the big boss about wearing sneakers. He wanted her to go home and get her proper shoes, but she causually said, “If I do that, I won’t be back and you’ll have to fill my shift and it’ll be harder on you.” So he let her stay.

Alcohol and drug abuse are protected from firing now if you’re in a treatment plan. I personally heard a story of a guy who hit-and-ran his supervisor while driving the company car drunk, and wasn’t fired because he claimed he was an alcoholic and started treatment (it helps to be unionized, too). I’m not saying these things shouldn’t be protected, but I think we’re starting to see abuse of liberal non-discrimination policies.

Texting at work. If you work at a job where you aren’t allowed to make personal calls all day long, you can still text your little fingers off.

I’m sorry, but that sets off my urban legend alarm.

Being a woman or minority and expecting to be promoted and treated with respect.

No, unions can be too strong. I have a close friend who crushes suitcases at the airport for a living. One of his coworkers came to work drunk and my guy wouldn’t let him operate any of the conveyor machinery or tractors. Drunk got belligerent and beat him up under the belly of a 747.

My friend was back at work the next day. Drunk got a couple weeks off (paid!) so he could go to treatment cuz you can’t fire someone just for being sick.