There is a woman at my office that seems to be confused about the dress code. The rule is “business casual”, which around here is a little more casual than business. We do have Casual Fridays, which means we can wear jeans (Within reason. I got the “We Can’t Walk Around Looking Like Student Workers” speech one Friday when my boss noticed the tiny pinprick hole in my favorite pair.).
Anyway, this woman is fairly new – I believe she started in early January. So I guess she hasn’t been around long enough to know the ins and outs of specific situations – like Spring Break. We only had to work Monday and Tuesday that week and I guess she thought that entitled her to wear jeans. BOTH DAYS. Had we received a memo from our CEO allowing jeans? No, no we did not. Did my boss say anything to her about this error? Nope. Which I truly fail to understand, because if someone else in our department had done that we would have been sent home to change clothes right away (this has happened before, as well it should). Not to mention – shouldn’t this woman have noticed that she was the only person in the whole company wearing jeans those two days?
She is in my department, technically, but that has been a recent development (we’ve been doing some restructuring and combining of areas). I think my boss is maybe trying to make her and the two other new departmental additions feel welcome, but my question to you is this: How does overlooking a blatant disregard for company policy help in smoothing this transition? All it is doing is angering those of us who have been in this department all along, wearing the proper clothing on the proper days, and making us somewhat resentful of the new people since they are obviously being favored. Grr.
This very same woman has a black pleather vest that she wears to work. Pleather. To a business casual office. So, so ugly and also grossly inappropriate (for many reasons). Oh! I can’t believe I forgot about the do-rags! She wears do-rags! On her head!! To work, at the aforementioned business casual office. We are not cleaning houses here, we do actually have desk jobs. Inside, even, where there is no wind that your hair may need protection from. And no one says anything to her about it. Is it just me, or should someone have maybe clued her in by now? Why do we have a dress code at all if it isn’t always going to be enforced, particularly for these heinous crimes of fashion? GAH. She seriously must be stopped. I’m about to take matters into my own hands. Suggestions? Perhaps a do-rag of my very own, just to see what would happen?
* I was watching Pirates of the Caribbean last night. So sorry.
I used to work in a pharmacy. Our outfits were mostly covered by our white coats, and sneakers in good condition were allowed because we were on our feet all day, but we did have one absolute rule: NO JEANS. And yet there was one woman who wore jeans every single day, and none of our bosses ever made her change. Not once. I couldn’t understand it at all. They would make little jokes about it as if they hoped she’d get the hint, but if she wasn’t getting the “NO JEANS ALLOWED” hint I don’t know what made them think she’d get their little ha-ha jokes.
Right now, my company is selling wristbands for MS150 – for $10 and if I buy one I am allowed to wear jeans on 3 very specific Fridays. It irritates me to no end that they think that people will die if we wear jeans on Fridays. We also have a no tennis shoes rule and the jeans rule is very clear about no jeans of any color, and yet one of the worst employees in my department consistently wear both jeans and tennis shoes and NO ONE says anything…I had to get a note from my doctor to be allowed to wear tennis shoes while I was pregnant, and I know of at least one girl who got called into HR for wearing shirts they deemed not business casual enough, but blantant disregard for the jeans and tennis shoes by a terrible employee…totally ignored. And don’t even get me started on the woman down the aisle here who is clearly trying to signal something to the aliens, because there is no other reason to dress in flourescent colors from head to toe EVERY DAY.
One day at work, my boss got on to our secretary about her shirt being too revealing. Now, granted it was a little low cut, but nothing over the top. My boss’s way of telling her this was handing the secretary a safety pin and telling her to “take care of that.” What really bugs me about this story is that our front desk people, who are the first people our patients see, get away with wearing extremely revealing shirts and skirts that barely cover their rearends. Nothing EVER gets said to them. Just very annoying!!!!