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

[rob_s]

To the OP, maybe put the expected usual dress code in the job posting?

Fwiw, these aren’t really “postings”. I’m both always, and never, hiring. When people come across someone they think might be a good fit for my group they send me resumes. When we don’t have enough right people, we outsource some tasks.

Many of the people I hire or interview are simply off of a resume someone hands me.

[rob_s]

So you weren't really asking a question in your OP. You were fishing for agreement and surprised you didn't find it.

Cool. You do you.

Hahahahahaha

Actually I expected pretty much what I’ve seen here.

I was most,y looking to hear explanations as to why someone would be willing to sacrifice improving their financial situation over crocs, or give up an improved financial future (potentially double lifetime earnings) just to be able to dress however they want.

Turns out, those are some expensive fucking crocs.

[rob_s]

This is correct. I work in a traditionally conservative profession at a traditionally conservative firm and if we went back to requiring suits we would absolutely lose people and our recruiting efforts would take a substantial hit.

Just to be clear, we aren’t talking about suits in this case. We are talking about khakis and a company polo.

What I’m seeing from many of the responses here is that it’s really got nothing to do with expression or the clothes. It’s got to do with “fuck you I won’t what you tell me”.

Management could tell people they “had to” wear jeans and a t-shirt and half these guys would refuse, even if that what they’d been showing up in for 25 years.

[rob_s]

[QUOTE=TGS;1408108]

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

What do you do for a living again?

[Erik]

I'm a lawyer and the portion of that post you quoted was TGS' response to an earlier post by me.

[jh9]

(potentially double lifetime earnings) just to be able to dress however they want.

They're only mutually exclusive in your (shrinking) world. 10 pages of people telling you what the overall trend in the marketplace is, regardless of industry. (Though obviously more extreme in some than in others.)

[mmc45414]

So I texted our pseudo-brother and got (basically), "Montana formal: Button-up shirts and jeans."
It would have been easier to just explicitly state the dress requirements/expectations than to use a term like, "smart casual".

I think the term also frees up the women to dress up as hot ass smoke-shows in tight and short cocktail dresses with minimal/no foundation garments while just expecting their plus one to wear his clean boots.

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).

A friend was with EDS for a time and said you were expected to put your coat back on when you walked down the hall to take a wiz?

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).

The home office is just a few steps away from the laundry area. I keep a shirt with a collar handy and hang it back up when the call is over, being mindful not to use it again with the same customer for a while. This can be a little harder to track on internal calls.

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>

One of the companies I have worked for developed CAM software for offline programing of CNC machine toolpath. One of my best dealers was part of an implementation company that primarily did large scale office automation projects, and the owner's background was IBM. My guys were required by dress code to wear suits with white (not blue, white...) dress shirts and ties, while presenting and demonstrating to decision makers that were frequently wearing steel toe boots and shop aprons with their short pants. It was just tone deaf.

[orionz06]

Not sure I'd take less, but I'm also in a changing world where jeans and t-shirts are fine. I won't change how I dress now at the current job, and if I move, the place I'd be moving to is the same.

[mtnbkr]

A friend was with EDS for a time and said you were expected to put your coat back on when you walked down the hall to take a wiz?

Yup, I heard the same from a coworker who came from EDS.

Chris

[TQP]

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.

Good point, and it's most likely correct. Doesn't make it any less dumb. I mean, I'm working for arguably the biggest dinosaur bureaucracy on the planet, and the expectations are different for different people in the same (small) building. It's not like the McDonalds IT staff is going to work every day in a polyester apron and a name tag...

At least I hope they don't. Funny mental picture, all the same.