How important is “wear whatever you want to work” to you?

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Originally Posted by TGS

No, it's not, because his product is what matters to the overall success of the company.

Not whether he wears jeans and a fleece 1/4 zip instead of a nice "insert relevant customer facing outfit".

What's important to you is not necessarily important to him. What's important to him is not necessarily important to you.

And, if the company is going to be paying him regardless, he has no reason to dress up. Particularly true for hourly wage workers in administrative and technical support services that are so far fucking removed from your problems that it's just retarded to think they need to wow people with their sartorial prowess in order for the company to stay in business.

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We're really talking past each other here. The point is, it's all one company and what's important to one group is important to another, whether it's sales, production, support staff, whatever. Part of your product is not being a dick and making your coworkers' jobs harder or shittier than they need to be.* And when you do that, it makes your own job easier too.


* Not to suggest that jh9 in particular is doing that - I have no idea and frankly I doubt it based on his posts.

To the OP, maybe put the expected usual dress code in the job posting? I've been wearing a uniform of some sort since 1990, but having been involved in hiring, I can tell you we had folks show up in their pajamas for police officer trainee positions. I know that different generations have different expectations as to dress codes and that varies by industry, as well. I know one thing, people are much less tolerant of administrative fiat the farther you go down from Gen Xers. Maybe explaining why you have a company image and what you are trying to project would help with compliance. Folks don't like doing things, "just because."

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Originally Posted by Darth_Uno

Man I'm glad I'm in construction.

I furnish my guys with company tee shirts, but I don't make them wear them every day. My only rules are no rock bands, and no alcohol brands. You can have a dusty, dirty job and still look professional.

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Every job I have ever had, since I was young, supplied uniforms or workwear.
This job, at the the apex of my work career, does not care what I wear, as long as it is not ripped or worn.
It's mostly Carhartt type clothing, working outdoors. I've got about 2 more years left before I retire, and my current job is about as low stress as I have ever had.

If I had to wear a suit to work every day, I think I would go crazy. God bless all of you that do.

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Originally Posted by rob_s

Would you choose one identical job over the other if one allowed you to wear whatever you want to work?

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Absolutely, yes.

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Would you take a $10k/year hit? $20k? $500k over the next 20 years?

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$10k a year might be in the ballpark of what I'd pay to avoid having to wear a suit everyday, but I say that from the comfortable position of living far below my means. If things were tighter, the answer might change.

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Would you choose a more “dead end” job that allowed you to wear whatever you want, while a more “management track” position that pays the same today required you to wear what the company demands?

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I haven't a scintilla of interest in a management track position, so yes (although I wouldn't use the "dead end" pejorative to describe doing the actual work; remember, management is a support role).

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Originally Posted by CleverNickname

I haven't seen a co-worker in person since... sometime this spring? We don't do cameras for teleconferencing, so I'm to the point where I don't shave most days (unless I'm planning on going somewhere after work), let alone put on pants. While there are a few advantages to office work over telecommuting, telecommuting still wins overall. So an equivalent job which required on-site work would need to pay me more to make up the difference for clothes, gas & mileage on my car, and to compensate for the lost time for the commute I no longer have. My choice of what clothes to wear would just be a rather small part of it. Pre-pandemic my job was pretty lenient about that anyways. Jeans and an untucked polo was typical.

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This is where I'm at too. It's less about the dress code and more about the work environment. Now that I've gotten a taste of telework, that's basically become the hill I'm willing to die on. It would take a hell of a lot to convince me to go back to an office even part-time. I go in once every week or two, but it's just to pick up or drop off work, and I'm allowed to do that travel on the clock. I converted my commute into overtime, so I would actually lose a substantial amount of money going back to the office, as well as adding back the gas expense of an hour each way daily commute. Between the...very...casual dress code, the increased ability to work overtime, vehicle-related savings, and the general life flexibility, I don't see a scenario where I would willingly go back to an office unless it was tied to a very substantial pay raise.

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Originally Posted by TQP

Pre pandemic, I had a friend leave a call center job at Chase because they were banning hair colors not found in nature. For call center employees who only dealt with customers over the phone.

Also Chase, post pandemic, they're forcing everyone back in the office half time

'Because we can' is going to make it harder to recruit and retain. I'd almost consider it a red flag. What other dumb stuff do they do just because?

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I know nothing about Chase's policies, but is there any chance that perhaps the 'hair colors not found in nature' edict might an across-the-board thing?

I can see how they may not want someone with multi-colored kool-aide dyed hair to be meeting their customers as a representative of their firm.

In that case, it may not be 'because we can' rather it may because it is fairer to all employees in their eyes to have one policy.

Just a thought.

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Originally Posted by TGS

And if he's getting paid the same regardless of how ever many clients you sign, why should he give more of a shit?

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This my folks, is one of the problems with the America today. Not the only one, but one of them.

Folks on both sides of the equation can't seem to grasp: 1) 'why should the company care about the workers when the workers don't care about the company' or 2) 'why should the worker care about the company, if the company doesn't care about the worker.'

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Originally Posted by Dan Lehr

This my folks, is one of the problems with the America today. Not the only one, but one of them.

Folks on both sides of the equation can't seem to grasp: 1) 'why should the company care about the workers when the workers don't care about the company' or 2) 'why should the worker care about the company, if the company doesn't care about the worker.'

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Don't forget 3) why should the worker care about the company if the company doesn't care about the company? :)

Plenty of businesses go up, burn down, and get bought out/merged/fire-sale. The company itself is an expendable line item, not an enduring entity.

Kind of tough to sell the, "back in my days when Americans were red--blooded and nobody complained about working extra for free or getting the black lung" line....even to people in the management chain.

I have never NOT worn a uniform at work since I graduated from college (not counting training or conferences).

Honestly speaking, I don't know if I could dress myself anymore if not for a uniform.

When I retire and become a door greeter at Wal-Mart I'll probably just wear the blue shirt they give me so I won't have to worry about what to wear.

I guess what I'm saying is that as long as the uniform is professional - I suspect that there is part of the workforce that don't mind a uniform or dress code and may actually prefer it.

Background: 49 years old and have worked in some flavor of the IT industry since 1996 (ie straight out of college). MBA & a pile of industry certs and I have been in the management caste for the last 10 years. Current area of focus is threat management and pre-sales service design support in the complex security bid arena. I'm not really customer facing per se, but I do have the occasional customer-facing meeting (mainly to talk about our capabilities in the threat arena).

All things being the same (salary, commute if there is one, opportunities, etc), I'll wear a suit if necessary. I can't stand them though.

My first job out of school was with Perot Systems (as in Ross Perot) and we wore suits 4 days a week with Fridays being "business casual" (slacks, collared shirt, with non-athletic leather shoes). By the time I left in 2000, it was business casual at least 4 days a week and begrudgingly allowed jeans on Fridays. Many IT firms by then were virtually "anything goes".

Since then, it's been either biz casual or near "anything goes" if you're not customer-facing. I've worked from home full time for 5 years (and part-time for 3 years prior to that), so dress codes haven't been a factor. Even when I'm in a "cameras on" Team or Zoom call, most of us are in jeans & t-shirt mode, maybe a polo shirt, unless the participant is at the office, then some flavor of biz casual (at least from what you can see on camera).

Business Casual vs Smart Casual: I had never heard of Smart Casual until I joined the British firm I work for now (and that was mainly for HQ in London). I could never find a good descriptor of Smart Casual that really differentiated from Biz Casual, but I take it to mean something like a button-down dress shirt and slacks vs merely a collared shirt and khakis. When I'm in the UK, I tend to split the difference and wear button-down dress shirts with khaki slacks.

Speaking of the Brits, people used to talk about their sartorial prowess, but at least in the IT arena, they're not any better at it than dirty 'mericans. In fact, in some cases they're worse as they don't seem to own irons over there.

Also, in terms of our customers in the IT/Security arena, most of them barely get above "smart casual" for vendor-facing meetings. I don't know how many times I've gone to visit customers on site (or hosted them at our location), put on a suit, and had them show up in biz casual or even jeans+polos mode. <sigh>

Chris