Dressed for perplexity

Dear Bob …

At the risk of beating a dead horse, more about dress codes. They only exist to inflict the unwarranted judgment of management on the employees who are probably doing a good job anyhow. Those who are far out of line won’t change.

We officially have a no tennis shoes, no t-shirts, no shorts, and no sweatshirts policy, and no jeans except on Fridays. Except there is a huge sexual gap. Women can wear t-shirts if they have a rolled collar. They can wear shorts if they call them skorts (shorts with a loin cloth). You can’t wear jeans, but you can wear a blue denim skirt or dress. They can wear sweat shirts if the call them ….. You get the idea.

The idea has been surfaced in our office that the men should file a sex discrimination law suit contending that men’s and women’s hemlines should be regulated at the same height above the floor. I don’t suppose anybody will ever really get around to doing it, but it sure raises some eyebrows when it is brought up.

Then there is the case of a 55 year old executive VP, who really should know better. She wears skirts that are so short that they don’t extend beyond her palm when she’s standing with her hands at her sides. The VP under her wears skirts that are a little longer, they usually make it to her finger tips, but still immodest in most situations. The junior VP under that also wears skirts that are too short. Then they have the gall to complain about the building being too cold. I run a fan under my desk to try and stay comfortable.

So if the executive VP wears immodest clothes how is any manager, male or female, supposed to get their subordinates to wear something appropriate for the job?

I like your proposed dress code, but that would actually require managers to actively manage their employees. We wouldn’t want to have our mangers actually have to do any real work like exercise judgment would we? They’re too busy going to meetings and assigning work to someone else to have time to do anything like that.

– Separate and unequal

Dear Unequal …

Just a thought – since the company has a fairly relaxed dress code, don’t sweat the gender differences. It focuses your attention on the wrong issues, namely how other people dress. If the no t-shirt policy includes knit shirts with collars I’d be surprised. A golf shirt is just as comfortable as a t-shirt and generally looks better as well. Again, don’t sweat it, unless you think you should be allowed to wear a kilt in the office for ethnic reasons.

Put it differently: Fantacizing about a dress-code-based discrimination suit means you and your co-workers are looking for a way to “get” management. If you feel that way, you’re working for the wrong company and should focus your attention on moving to the right one.

Your 55-year-old executive VP in the short skirts really should know better. You’re right. But she doesn’t. And aside from serving as evidence in favor of the old adage, “The more you can see, the less you want to see,” so what. You should be looking at her face anyway when you talk with her. When you aren’t talking with her, you’re free to look in another direction.

As to your question of how a manager can ask employees to dress appropriately when there’s a manager like that wearing too-short skirts, the answer is really not difficult. The manager should say, “She makes the decisions for her part of the company. In our area we’re going to apply a different standard. We’re all adults here, and all professionals. I expect you all to show appropriate judgment in dressing for an office environment that’s fairly relaxed, but still an office environment. What I’m asking you to do is to focus on what’s appropriate for you, not on what’s appropriate for someone else.”

Oh, one more thing: You really should have a conversation with the building manager, to see about turning up the air conditioning near the 55-year-old executive’s desk.

Work, after all, should be fun.

– Bob

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