At work, that is. I suppose I’m wondering about office workers, but if you’d like to tell us about your steel-toed boots, your brightly colored store-issued shirt, or your stilletto heels and nylons, please feel free.
Ours is casual, to a point. No shorts, sandals, or ripped clothes, for instance. I love it. I’d hate to wear a tie every day. Even khakis make me feel like I’m going to church. And I don’t do my best work in church.
I’m in the tech department, so casual business ( not quite as posh as business casual). The employees who actually see people have to do the whole suit schtick though.
Mine was:
Professional (suits/ties for men, professional suits/dresses/pants for women) every day. Except for every Friday between Memorial Day and Labor day and the last Friday of the month the rest of the year. Those days we could wear jeans and decent shirts - no t-shirts, no sneakers.
Now, with grad school starting today? It’s whatever I feel like wearing in the morning (well, afternoon, since my classes are all late in the day). That may be jeans, pajama pants, shorts, t-shirts…whatever.
So, Daerlyn, what is the difference between casual business and business casual, exactly? I’ve never heard the former. Can one wear jeans, for instance?
When I hear business casual, I figure I can get away with khakis and a button-down shirt. Is this more like casual business?
Since I can be expected to crawl around aircraft in various states of assembly and conditions of cleanliness, I do jeans and Ts/knit shirts. On occasion, I’ll iron a blouse or wear khakis, but mostly, I go for the comfort. When it’s especially hot, we’re allowed to wear shorts, but that would require me to shave my legs, so I opt out.
When we have a meeting with mucky-mucks coming in, we have to be “professional” and presentable. Same deal when we travel. I can handle that. However, I’ve worked at this place all but 3 years since 1985, and I wore a skirt once - for my first day. I also used to wear nicer blouses until I got grease all over a favorite. Never again.
I’m not so sure if we have one. People have been wearing shorts around here for the past summer. I usually wear jeans and a golf shirt, unless I plan on going away for the weekend then I wear a t-shirt so I don’t have to change before I leave.
When I started the job, they had just got permision to ditch ties for the summer, as it gets rather hot in certain parts of the factory we support. No jeans, no tennisshoes. Here it is a couple of years later, I am typing this in jeans, tennisshoes, and I am trying to figure out how ease into harley shirts in my daily wardrobe. Nobody said I could wear these things mind you, I just started. First on fridays I would show up in black jeans. Nobody noticed, then other days, nobody said a word, then blue jeans, no response…By this time my coworkers were doing the same thing. when I got back from having surgery, I couldnt bend over to tie my boots, so I wore velcro walking shoes, nobody noticed.
I work in a grocery store, so the uniform is supposed to be: white shirt (no t-shirts, has to have a collar), black dress pants, black dress shoes, blue apron with lovely name tag. According to “the code” I’m also supposed to wear a tie and have a conservative hairstyle.
What I actually wear: white shirt (NO tie), black jeans (cheaper than dress pants), black runners (hey, I’m standing for 8 frigging hours. I have yet to find comfortable dress shoes), and the apron and name tag.
The “conservative” hair is out too. I have a spiky brush cut that changes color frequently, never a color that is “natural”. Oh, and my skull’n’crossbones earrings.
I’m such a rebel. 
I must say, I sure do love working at a software company. No dress code whatsoever. I ride my bike to work a lot so I’m usually wearing sneakers, shorts and a tee-shirt.
It was so hot last week that I wore flip-flops to work. Boy, I’ll never do that again. No one said anything, but I never realized how loud they are until I was walking around a quiet office with them. Ended up walking around barefoot most of the day. Again, no one even seemed to notice.
shirt with work logo (I get to choose color: black)
shorts. sneakers.
LOL at VanLandry’s story…I did that with flipflops too, and they were too loud!
There’s MY dress code and then there’s the dress code for the office. The office dress code permits business casual (pressed slacks and open collard shirt for men) but I prefer to wear a suit and tie everyday.
Any kind of pants but jeans, any shoes but sneakers, any tops but tube or sweatshirt, and everybody seems to forget to comb their hair every day. This is a BIG corporation. I think neat jeans look way better than WRINKLED khakis, but the rule still stands…no jeans.
Here is my Dress code:
… / -… — -. .----. - / .-- . .- .-. / .- / -… .-. . … … .-.-.-
First to de-crypt it becomes SDMB Director of Counter-Intelligence!
I don’t wear a dress!
software company: Anything goes, it’s great, we work hard and have fun.
This is going to sound a little odd since I work in a very conservative profession. I’m an insurance agent at a small agency.
I dress in jeans and a t-shirt at the office. The reason I do this is because that is how our clients dress. In all the years I’ve been here I’ve never had a client walk in in a suit. When I was hired the only rule as far dress code was, no jeans. Well, now my boss even wears jeans to work.
My clients feel comfortable coming here, like to sit and chat and the turnover rate (account cancellations) is very low.
I also have a pets allowed policy. If you come in to buy a new policy or pay a premium you are encouraged to bring your dog/cat/bird/whatever in with you.
I thought we were here to fight ignorance, not intelligence. 
I work at an art school where the students’ avant garde appearance is a part of the city’s landscape, so it would be kind of hard to impose much of a dress code on the staff. That being said, most of us are not very funky and we all dress comfortably and neatly. The Provost has some jeans wearing ladies in his office, but the administrative assistant in the office that runs the Freshman academic program (where most of the students look like miners due to all the charcoal they use) would never come to work without stockings. I don’t wear jeans or shorts but everything else goes and since I’ve started exercising I like to show off my arms and shoulders as much as I can.
Another high-tech employee here.
I can wear whatever I want as long as I’m dressed.
I get to wear whatever I want! This place is great! I don’t have to shave if I don’t want to!
I used to work for The Really Big Manufactures of Shit Company and the dress code was “professional” when I started, then went to “business casual” soon after. That meant (or so I thought) slack, polo shirt and nice shoes (but not tennis). I did that for a while, even wore a tie now and then. But then I noticed everyone else was in ripped blue jean, tatty sweatpant or worse! (one chick used to come in dirty pajamas fer’ Christ’s sake!) By the time I left, blue jeans, T shirts and tennis shoes were the norm. (Screw that place!)
May the mediocrity of several greeting-card salesman inhabit your soul like unmatched buttons in a empty mayonaise jar.
As the editor I feel compelled to wear a dress shirt and tie (when I was starting out in the newspaper game, I had an editor ask me “How do you expect to be treated like a professional if you don’t dress like one?” He had a point). Granted it is usually an extremely old and ugly tie worn loose, but it is a tie.
My asst. editors generally dress reasonably well too, maybe not a white shirt and tie but a nice sport shirt. My reporters are a bit more casual - seldom do they wear ties or white shirts, but they wear collared shirts (polo and sports shirts) in the case of the males, and nice blouses for the females. Nice jeans are acceptable around the office as are skirts and dresses.
Most of my reporters keep a change of clothing nearby in case something comes up. If they are dressing well that day and a story breaks down near the feedlot, they change. On the other hand, if a senator comes to town and is granting interviews, I expect them to look reasonably good. It’s a matter of respect.
Composing room people - usually polos and nice jeans or blouses and skirts.
Press room guys - T-shirts, jeans and often an apron.
Publishers - suits and ties (although the youngest daughter in the owners’ family just became a “publisher”. Last week she came to the office for the first time wearing a very exciting sundress. It took me about two hours after she left to settle down most of my male reporters and one of my female reporters).