1. Putting appliances in random places (like your cubicle) can sometimes lead people to running extension cords to power these additional devices. And excessively long, or poor quality, or "excessively long, poor quality" extension cords can absolutely be a fire hazard. This is especially true when people don't understand "current carrying capacity" vis-a-vis wire gauge and choose the wrong cord for a given load.
2. Space heaters. If you include space heaters in your definition of "small appliance", then there is a fairly real risk. First, it's very easy for flammable materials to simply get too close to the heating elements of the heater, and catch fire. Second, space heaters tend to draw a LOT of current - typically more than can be handled by your generic power strip. And people don't understand this, and will happily plug a space heater into a power strip, which will then melt, short out, and catch fire.
On balance, the odds of having a fire caused by most small appliances in offices is still probably fairly low, but the risk is non-zero. And having a blanket ban, instead of trying to distinguish "well, your blender is OK, but the space heater has to go" is just the slightly lazier way to dealing with it.
While 110V might be less of a shock risk compared to 230V, I have to wonder how much of a difference it actually makes in practice, like how much less likely are to die from the lower voltage?
Because on the other hand, the lower voltage increases the fire risk.
And by all means, if you have some high-risk area (storage rooms are quite common ones), do make special policy for it. But if you insist on the same policy for every area, you are actually endangering people.
The other limitations, particularly regarding space heaters and fans, usually come from fire insurance. Your premiums will be substantially lower if you prove your business gets regularly inspected for compliance and that electrical appliances get regularly checked if they are properly installed (i.e. no stacks of extension cords, no damage on the cable from chairs rolling over it or from floor tank lids).
In contrast, home fire insurance will often have priced in damages from such unsafe practices, and a no-pay clause for gross negligence - particularly the latter is what any reasonable business will be keen to avoid given the disastrous impact a fire can have.
Assuming that 10 dollar phone charger that Joe from Accounting got on Amazon or the airport store on the last vacation was not a dangerous counterfeit, that is. A sensible IT department will buy original chargers directly from the manufacturer or at the very least name brands such as Anker.
We laugh at pictures of managers wearing near-identical suits and ties, and then we can look at a bunch of techies wearing near-identical tee shirts and hoodies and somehow not see a culture using clothes to signal belonging to the tribe.
There will always be tribal signals. It's clothes whether suits or plaid flannel, it's drinking bourbon or craft IPAs, it's playing golf or ultimate, it's being clean-shaven or bearded, it's driving a Tesla or a Caddy.
Some of us are not "joiners" and chafe at the idea of carefully selecting our clothes, grooming, music, possessions, and neighbourhood to signal that we want to fit in. But we should at least understand and empathize with why others may find these things comforting.
The issue is when people want to impose their dress code on others, especially for non-client/customer facing roles.
Putting a large emphasis on the dress code has downsides as well. The more focus people spend worrying about their attire and judging others, the less focus they have for more substantive matters. It's an easy crutch to dismiss someone for dressing "wrong", a crutch which plenty of lazy employees and managers are happy to latch onto.
I think de-emphasizing dress codes encourages a more productive workplace.
I didn't end up getting the job but I consider it a bullet dodged. It was like a white-collar McDonalds where you had to "earn" the white collar.
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There is a historical reason for dark-coloured clothes being associated with people of lower social status/rank. In earlier times, poor fabrics didn’t dye bery well, so the only way to get an even tone was to use a dark colour.
To get a white fabric or pastel shade (like cream), you needed to start with better fabrics, higher-quality dyes, and have the dying done by experienced craftspeople.
The result was that light-coloured clothes became associated with wealth and prestige. This has carried through to this day, even if the rationale for it has been obsolete for a century or more.
In a related area, PayPal once no-hired an otherwise qualified engineer because when asked what they do for fun, the candidate replied “shoot hoops,” and PayPal’s cultural belief was that “No PayPal engineer shoots hoops.”
I would never work for a company with cultural filters like this, but I can understand their reasoning even if I deeply believe such workplaces are toxic monocultures with a side of racism.
Here I'm thinking specifically of school uniforms. It can be easier to be able to just wear the uniform rather than having to choose what to wear every day.
That said, I probably wouldn't like to work at a place with an overly stringent dress code.
If someone really has so much trouble deciding what to wear ... just get a bunch of gray t-shirts and sweatpants/blue jeans. You (or the parents for a young child) are free to make your own uniform. However, if someone feels the need to express themselves through clothing, they are free to do so.
That said, if you’re not a school girl and it’s not the first week of work, I hope you’re not so focused on your clothes that you can’t focus enough on work.
We sit in the meeting room, and 2 people enter. A distinctive gentlemen wearing a suit and tie, talking in a calm, authoritative voice. Next to him, a hyperactive tshirt wearing creature, think Adam from Mythbuster, talking excitedly about all sorts of tech, while making excessive arm gestures. My colleague whispers a joke comparing him to a monkey swinging from tree to tree. We both immediately knew who was the architect and who was the lowly tech.
Wrong, it turns out. Gentlemen spends his time in floor crawlspaces pulling cables between servers, and had dressed up for the meeting. Monkey Head Architect was just his manic normal self.
Both were incredibly competent, BTW.
Now we're midwest through and through. In the Before Times, the women tended to wear out of fashion clothing, while most of the men wore golf shirts and slacks. And if you wore something slightly out of the norm, people would sniff and tut-tut you.
Then COVID happened, and CurrentCompany went 100% remote. Then vaccines came out, cases dropped, and the whole RTO movement started up. And CurrentCompany realized that everyone was used to working in WhateverTheFuckWeWantToWear. And actually made a good decision. We could now wear jeans. Or shorts! OMG shorts! That was previously treated as if you were coming to work naked. And t-shirts were allowed. Sneakers/tennis shoes too! Anything to get people back in the office.
I'm 100% remote, but every now and then I need to pick up something, or PushLargeButtonInDataCenter, so I go visit those who are hybrid. And what do the majority wear? Jeans, golf shirts, out of fashion women's clothing, and very rarely, t-shirts.
It takes a long time to turn around a company that has been operating for a century.
No, casual dresscode allows for a much wider variety of clothing and goes in the opposite direction than "signal belonging to the tribe".
All of the men wore golf/polo shirts, khakis, and tasseled loafers, but some wore oxblood loafers while others wore black or even brown loafers. And some wore plain leather belts, others wore woven leather belts.
</sarcasm>
Some cultures value conformance, and even if the rule is “wear whatever you like, as long as it’s not jeans or tee shirts,” they’ll self-organize around an unwritten rule of what to wear.
Who is "we" here?
Specific examples of prohibited items in office spaces include:
- Hotplates
- Hair dryers
- Cooking devices using an open flame, including propane, butane or wood.
- Car batteries and chargers.
There’s then a list of about 30 items that require a permit.
We were joking about the oddly specific nature of the items. I’m assuming some lunatic at one time had a camp chef or Weber Q in his cube cooking up some lunch.
That lasted about a month, and then shorts were no longer allowed.
When there’s no clients it can be a bit silly. But if one department has to toe the line all of them will.