I am a manager at a blood collection centre. I am not uniformed staff. Clothing options for non uniformed staff at work tends toward business casual… I sometimes wear suits but no one else does. My boss wears slacks and blouses, the other manager tends to wear shorter skirts and heels. I am still a nurse, so I have to follow footwear policy but she doesn’t have to. This other manager is roughly equal to me on the food chain within the company, but she has no direct boss in our centre. Her boss is in the regional office, so she doesn’t answer on a day to day basis on her wardrobe choices.
A few months ago we were talking about clothes and I asked my boss if capri pants were allowed. She said no. Later on reviewing the dress code I saw that they were permissible. Other manager said “In the summer you can wear long shorts or capris, you know.” I don’t have a lot of business casual clothes for summer, and most of the stores don’t sell summer dress slacks, more capris and skits. I dislike most dresses and skirts so I won’t be doing that option. Ive seen a few capri (hitting mid calf) pant options that look nice for summer, but I won’t be buying them if I can’t shouldnt wear them.
What do dopers think? Knowing my boss said No, but they are permitted by policy, should I take the plunge, or just keep shopping for a different options?
It could well be that your boss either doesn’t know what capris are or was having a brain fart. Or, perhaps she was misremembering the policy. In any case I’d say that this isn’t an issue worth getting in dutch with your boss, but it is worth a second conversation, with the manual to back you up.
In this situation, I’d wait to see what happens if someone else wears them first. If she “gets away with it” without comment from the boss, great. Otherwise…
Yeah, I’d show her the manual and ask again, if you don’t have the kind of relationship with your boss where you know this would be a bad idea. (I know some people do.)
Talk to your goddamn boss. Don’t go with the passive-aggressive “Jenny wore them!” bullshit and so on.
Take the manual to your boss, with a pair of your capris and ask “Why are they not allowed? These are the ones I intend on wearing, here is the section in the book where they’re allowed”. Have a discussion about it. She may just be under the impression capris are something else, she may poitn to another section of the book that says “This is allowable at manager discretion”. At least you’ll know.
And well-fitted, tailored capris with a nice shirt and proper shoes can look very professional, in a business-casual way, especially if they’re a nice neutral beige or dark blue/black.
Just to let people know I have not abandoned thread, but I am neither reading posts nor looking at the poll results until there are larger numbers of responses. My mind is pretty much open on this, and I am hoping there is some kind of majority response. I will however respond to posts later, so don’t think I am ignoring your* intelligent well thought out reply, pithy snark, bad pun, attempt to thread-shit or concise and to the point response.
*“Your” being a generic-to-anyone “your”, not the post of the person posting directly above me. Like I said, I haven’t read any responses or poll results yet.
I don’t know how to vote on this. I’m leaning toward the first option, because hey, it is in the regulations. But then maybe you don’t want to piss off a boss you’ll have to keep working with. I guess it comes down to your relationship with her. If you’re not comfortable discussing it with her, say in a non-confrontational manner, just a discussion along the lines of “Hey, I just noticed these are okay in the regs after all,” that may be a sign it’s time to look for a new job.
Generally, not a good idea to piss off the boss. Even if the official dress code permits them if the boss doesn’t like 'em try to find something else you can both be happy with.
I think you should talk about it with your boss, policy in hand and starting with something along the lines of “I’m not trying to be a pain - but I’ve seen that the company’s policy actually allows for capris and the thing is, I’m very uncomfortable in skirts…”
I look like shite in capris (beached whale in aisle seven!) but have been able to get away with jeans in no-jeans places because the policy said “no ill-fitting jeans” and mine fit like they’d been cut on me.
I said no because first off, it’s bad to piss off the boss. But mostly because I hate capri pants, especially in the work place. They look like beach wear to me - thoroughly unprofessional. There was a woman at my work who had a suit with capris - I still thought it looked ridiculous.
So my opinion may be biased - OK, it *is *biased. I absolutely hate capris with a white-hot hate that probably transfers to the wearer!!
I worked in a professional office with no "official " dress code per se, so while I could have worn flip flips, I didn’t because my boss HATED them. Yeah, I could have said there was no official policy against them, but why make an issue?
Ok so I peeked. Exactly what I hoped wouldn’t happen has happened, relatively even numbers for Clarify vs Just Plain no.
A little insight.
I have worked at this place for 8 months. My boss and I get along great. She worked without someone in my capacity for several years, since was in my job and the old boss left. She has had a busy and stressful time of it, and a lot of intrigue and politics at this site have left her a bit wary of people. But we see eye to eye on almost every issue that has come up, and I am very much her employee. We aren’t “friends” outside of work, but have a close and friendly working relationship and do share a sensibility and sense of humour. There have been a few attempts to cause dissent between us but it hasn’t happened.
I am the only non union non uniformed staff member who has a direct reporting relationship to her. Everyone else has another boss or has a dotted line report to her while reporting to someone off site. There are only 5 non uniformed people in the centre, 4 women and one man, all the other 4 are over 50. I am 42. Most of the staff are over 50. I deal with the public probably 25% of the time. I will never be wearing sandals, open toed shoes, high heels, or showing any more skin than arms (with at mimum short but not cap sleeves) and 3 or four inches of lower leg/ankle if I do opt for capris. Also I am short so capris hit me long anyway.
I don’t know if this clarifies anything for people weighing in with opinions. I am neither tied to nor defending one particular opinion, and I am very interested in all points of view. This is not a poll where I am seeking confirmation that I am right.
As a back ground I have spent 16 years of my life as a uniformed staff member in other places. I never had to think about work wear before, it was nurses uniform and done.
From my experience (and I apologize if my earlier comment was too harsh) is that men and women often have differing opinions of casual and professional dress. It’s probably because men wear a very narrow range of clothes in the professional category. To me, capri pants are waaaay into the casual range. Something to be worn on vacation on a cruise ship.
Even if it’s allowed under the code of dress I would defer to a higher level of office apparel both for your boss and for your benefit. It never hurts to look the part of your next promotion.
I would talk to my boss about it some more before actually wearing the capris. I work in a business casual environment and I do wear capris but only on Fridays (the day most others wear nice jeans). Other women wear capris during the week. I think the key here is that the capris be business-like. The ones I wear to work are linen and look more formal than most of the capris on the market. I certainly would not wear the ones with the drawstring sides or rolled cuffs to the office.
But that is my place of business. I can see where casual capris would be completely within the realm of work wear at small offices for supply companies or where clients or the public don’t interface with you.
The dress code where I work has been expanded for the summer to include cropped dress pants and open-toed shoes, but specifically disallows capris, clam-diggers and pedal-pushers. It’s the degree of casualness and tightness, I feel. I have exactly one pair of capris I wear for yard work…I can’t wear cropped pants in public more than the yard, so I’m no expert. But it could be your boss thinks capris mean something other than what you think they do. Talk to her again.
Show her a picture of what you’re thinking of wearing and ask if it’s okay. If she says yes, tell her this is a capri. She might be surprised. (I myself have no idea what a capri is. I’m sure I could Google it.)