Re:Dress codes: Suitable disruption
by logfromblammo on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @02:10PM
(#8143929)
I once worked at a place where the dress code mandated that all employees wear clothing bearing the company logo every day. This, of course, was widely reviled by anyone that did any actual work. The software developers analyzed a loophole and published the exploit to the local branch office. From then on, people wore whatever they liked, and just kept a logo-embroidered fleece jacket draped over their work chairs. A few bolder individuals purchased a company-logo lab coat and wore it around the office.
The branch manager never reported any violation of the dress code--because technically there were no violations--but did take care to inform everyone ahead of time whenever employees from headquarters were scheduled to visit.
At another job, the dress code was to wear clothing when customers were in the office.
The actual median daily apparel worn in those two different offices were virtually identical. The latter simply showed greater variance in styles of dress.
If I had to maintain an entire closet filled with garments that I would never want to wear anywhere outside of work, that would severely irritate me, to the extent that I would almost certainly become well acquainted with a pearl wholesaler, despite the apparent physical impossibilities involved.
But it is a perfect indicator that management is willing to impose arbitrary, capricious, top-down working requirements on employees, without respect to consequences, intended or otherwise.
So not only do I endorse the prejudicial maxim to not do business with suits, I extend it to teams whose dress appears suspiciously homogenous, uniform-like, or logo-emblazoned. I want to deal with people, not mooks, peons, toadies, or serfs. If I see one person on a team in a t-shirt, and another in a pinstriped dress shirt with polka-dotted bow tie, I can be reasonably certain that no one told either of those two what to wear. Especially their mothers.
The branch manager never reported any violation of the dress code--because technically there were no violations--but did take care to inform everyone ahead of time whenever employees from headquarters were scheduled to visit.
At another job, the dress code was to wear clothing when customers were in the office.
The actual median daily apparel worn in those two different offices were virtually identical. The latter simply showed greater variance in styles of dress.
If I had to maintain an entire closet filled with garments that I would never want to wear anywhere outside of work, that would severely irritate me, to the extent that I would almost certainly become well acquainted with a pearl wholesaler, despite the apparent physical impossibilities involved.
But it is a perfect indicator that management is willing to impose arbitrary, capricious, top-down working requirements on employees, without respect to consequences, intended or otherwise.
So not only do I endorse the prejudicial maxim to not do business with suits, I extend it to teams whose dress appears suspiciously homogenous, uniform-like, or logo-emblazoned. I want to deal with people, not mooks, peons, toadies, or serfs. If I see one person on a team in a t-shirt, and another in a pinstriped dress shirt with polka-dotted bow tie, I can be reasonably certain that no one told either of those two what to wear. Especially their mothers.