Mar 26 2007
Please Don’t Fire Me
In a class late last week, a few of us discussed the highs and lows of our company’s three-tiered dress code. One woman sat to my right and two others sat to my left. Of course, here at a company that within the past year required everyone to undergo sexual harassment awareness training, I managed to utter an accidental double-entendre-entender-meaning.
Class “C,” the norm, calls for jeans without holes or rips and a respectable shirt (no “Big Johnson” logos or anything of that ilk). It’s similar to what many companies call casual Friday. You wear anything fancier than that on an ordinary work day, and people think you either a) have a job interview, or b) didn’t have any clean jeans.
“With two days of Class ‘B’ this week, I’ll bet some higher-ups will get the idea they like the way all of us look and drop class ‘C’ back to one day a week,” I said. “But, it wouldn’t bother me too much. I kind of prefer wearing Dockers, because they’re more comfortable than jeans.”
“Yeah, well guys don’t have to wear heels,” said the woman to my right. “Or a skirt.” She did all the talking for the other ladies listening.
“You can wear slacks, and shoes without heels,” I said.
“If you want people to think you’re… well, you know.” she said.
“Mary Tyler Moore wore pants way back on ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show,’ and she wasn’t, ‘you know,’” I said.
“That’s different.”
“No, I think most women can pull off pants,” I said. “Wait a minute. Nevermind.”
They laughed. Righty said, “Hey, that’s sexual harassment!”
Class “B” requires Dockers or Dockers-like slacks and a shirt with a collar — but nothing about tucking the shirt. I’m a habitual tucker, even on Class “C” days. I think it’s my aversion to drafts, and the fact that in summer our building is kept at sub-Arctic temperatures. Maybe I just want to show I do not suffer from diminished glute syndrome (DGS).
In my nearly three years with this company, we’ve never been asked to wear class “A” — suit and tie for men — at any of our locations across the country, and Class “B” gets called up only once or twice a month, if that often.
In a workplace filled mostly with software and hardware geeks, that’s a blessing. Class “B” days show the overwhelming lack of fashion sense, but it’s more basic than that. It’s just color matching, and some of these guys have no clue. How the married ones get out of the house dressed in olive green pants with a navy blue and red shirt, white socks and black shoes, I have no idea.
Our national headquarters, in a small town of about 7,000 people in the middle of nowhere, holds about 1200 employees. Most folks who forget to dress up live too far away to run home and change. It didn’t take checkers at the local Wal-Mart long to learn that an early-morning run on tan slacks means our company has visitors.
Now, if there’s any justice in this world, the folks buying said pants will not be strictly males. Women everywhere, fight the stereotypes! Pull off those skirts and put on pants!
The enlightened few of us will be there supporting you.
I had this same conversation where I used to work.
We were the “B” for most of the week, and “C” for Fridays.
However, we were never allowed to wear shorts.
So, how is it, women get to wear “Skorts”??? It’s shorts with a little wrap around piece of material to hide that they’re shorts. They also got to wear the equivalent of a t-shirt, because it’s “a blouse”. Bull.
And I’m with you, any woman can pull off slacks, if they’re tasteful.
Oh, and if men have to wear collared shirts, so should women. Equal rights you know…. *S*
It’s always “B” or “C” here. I haven’t wore a collar shirt in I don’t know when, but they are knit shirts, not tee shirts. We aren’t allowed to wear shorts, either. And I’ve never wore a skirt… not that I can remember anyway.
I work for the regulated side of an electric utility. On the same floor divided by a wall and doors with alarms is the unregulated side of the same company. They can pretty much wear whatever they want. Our side is “B” except on Fridays and the Reds home opener when it is “C”. Shorts are allowed on the day of the home opener since half of the floor will be taking a half day and attending the game.
Men wear trousers, women wear pants and slacks.
Oddly, for the first time in a very long while, my socks are mis-matched this morning. It’s subtle — one dark grey, one light brown, but I attribute it to having pulled them out of my drawer in the dark this morning, whereas I normally lay my clothes out in the bathroom the night before so I’m not fumbling around in the dark.
We’re also “B” most of the week and “C” on Fridays. Though it’s not strictly enforced. Look respectable, really. It’s a construction company; jeans are pretty much the uniform in the field.
By the way, I’m totally kicking my ass for not taking my camera with me on Sunday. There was a Toy & Comic Fair at a local hotel, and Daniel Logan (young Boba Fett) was there to sign autographs. There was a whole slew of Star Wars themed dress: one Darth Vader, a Boba Fett, and a whole buncha fellas (and fellees) from the local garrison of the 501st Stormtrooper regiment. One thing I noticed: get too close to the troopers and there’s a distinct waft of B.O.
I picked up a couple small die-cast toys: an X-wing and and a Tie Fighter, just to commemmorate my attendance. But I was kicking myself for forgetting my camera. If I had a thousand bucks to burn at something like that…
We are sadly a full-time “B” workplace. It’s stupid. We’re the home office for a chain of stores that offer “C” dress on Fridays and Saturdays, but we have to stay “B” the whole time. Rediculous, I say. Why the one place that never sees the public has the strictest dress code is beyond me. But I don’t make those rules.
I am blessed with no dress code on paper. We have no policy on the matter. It is understood, though, when customers are in house, we are at “A” status. And that only applies if you’re going to be in direct contact with them. Otherwise, it’s “C” all the time. And the tasteless shirts appear not to violate a dress code policy that doesn’t exist. I am almost strictly a “B” dresser unless I’m going into the field or sometimes when I take the bike. And I too always tuck. I work for a defense contractor.
Seeing as how there aren’t any Empirial Laundry mats in this galaxy, I can understand a certain amount of B.O. from the fleet’s uniforms.
Dave - I don’t know what’s up with Skorts. I agree that the ladies get away with wearing the equivalent of a t-shirt much of the time, but considering the other things they have to endure as women, I’m willing to overlook that one.
Sometimes, because it gets so bloomin’ hot here, we have shorts and sandals day.
Curt - “Curt the Skirt.” I like it.
Blitz - Now that’s sports fanaticism at its most extreme. I worked at a place where we all left work early (even the owner/boss) to go see “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” on opening day.
Simon - That’s hilarious! You mismatched man. I admit, I’ve worn one black, one navy sock before, after dressing in the dark.
No camera!!? Oh well, I took mine to the Dallas Comic Con recently (still haven’t told that story yet), but my only pic was of a bunch of guys dressed up like the Ghostbusters (complete with plasma packs or whatever they’re called)
Moksha - Revolt!!! Back when I worked a job as a real estate company’s first IT staffer (they had outsourced everything before that), I had to wear a suit and tie every day. Not fun when crawling around on the floor to see what’s wrong with somebody’s PC.
Josh - Somehow it surprises me that such a company (I know what it eee-yuz, neener, neener, neener) has no written policy and such a casual accepted attire.
Fits the surfer in you, though.
Mark, the Ghostbusters’ nuclear accelerative machinery was called a Proton Pack. So you were close. And I’m a geek for looking it up.
Simon - Why, yes. Yes, you are.
But ain’t nuttin’ wrong widdit.
The whole concept of the dress code is a little off - I miss the good old days where management spent time working on productivity and making money.