Office Dress Codes: Appropriate, Casual, and Otherwise
Back when I was an IT manager, the IT director, Bill—my boss’s boss—stopped by my office and asked me if I’d like an intern for the summer. I said no thanks. His response: “He’s starting Monday.” It turned out the intern, a college student named Matt, was his nephew, and yes was the only correct answer.
On Monday, Bill brought him over to me and we got him oriented and busy. The next day Matt showed up wearing shorts. OK, it was summer, and outside temps were aspiring to triple digits. But this wasn’t a high-tech company where anything goes as long as you huddle over your code all day; this was a stodgy insurance company. People dressed professionally. I called Matt into my office, and we had a conversation. He dressed appropriately the rest of the summer. I knew Uncle Bill would back me on this if it became an issue, but fortunately, it didn’t.
Still, it must be nice to work in places where you can dress comfortably, whatever “comfortably” means for you. I never understood the rationale for men having to wear suits and ties when their work entailed coding and testing. (I admit, though, that I envied them their extra layers in the summer when the air conditioning was turned up so high that my hands were freezing and I couldn’t work the keyboard.)
I also never understood casual Fridays, or business casual, as it’s often called. If casual attire is acceptable, why limit it to one day a week? When casual Fridays were introduced back in the ’90s, many employees complained that they owned two types of clothing, their professional attire and their at-home duds, and they had no budget to purchase this in-between wear. Casual Fridays sent companies into a tizzy trying to formulate policies about what, exactly, was acceptable.
These days, opinions vary about what qualifies as appropriate office attire, though the preponderance of opinion is toward the informal and casual, at least for technical professionals. Of course, those of us who have home-based businesses or are otherwise allowed to work from home have the delightful option of working in our pajamas.
For the rest of you, maybe someday you will have the luxury of adjusting the temperature of your workspaces so that you’ll be comfortable no matter what you’re allowed to wear.
