However, I changed my mind about writing the unemployment column. Investigation into the matter revealed that it ain't as bad as I thought. More people qualify for it than realize, including people work as temps.
Now, the other column will now be about dressing for the "office." Does the way you dress cause friction? How do you feel about "business casual?" Do you think people treat you differently when you dress up?
xmeredithx said at 3:06 PM 01-16-2002: my office is strictly casual, but there is a weird mix. some people wear ties everyday. other people [like paverben] wear "whitey will pay" t-shirts. i'm generally a mismatched scum. i've often had discussions/arguments here about how your dress affects your work. some people say that when they're dressed professionally, they get more work done. i think it's complete idiocy to assume that a skirt and matching shirt, or a suit, are going to make me more productive, the quality of my work does not depend on what i'm wearing. it's just another facet of our fashionistic society, dress clothes vs. casual clothes, to sell more money for the companies who design, manufacture, and sell all that shit.
also, i don't have clients that i would need to look nice for and i spend my days holed up in a dark office. if i dress in dirty/weird clothes and scowl, everyone pretty much leaves me alone.
katie said at 3:55 PM 01-16-2002: i go to work dirty. i come home dirtier. i don't wash my one table-waiting shirt till the end of the week.
no one complains. it's dark in there.
but i get somewhat jealous of the other girls who work there, since they seem to own washer/dryer machines, and seem to own not only more than one white collared shirt, but also makeup, hair product, and if my nose doesn't fail me, nice-smelling hand lotion.
but i guess you meant this thread for people who have real jobs.
Daniel said at 5:22 PM 01-16-2002: at my job i have to wear a suit. i hate it! i would gladly take a $20,000 salary cut to go casual. i'm not kidding either.
jeni [email] said at 8:20 PM 01-16-2002: i used to work for software game companies where jeans and gimme-tshirts where the uniform. if you got dressed up nicer than that you were signing yourself up for a day of everyone asking you if you were going out for a job interview.
i got kinda tired of dressing like that day in and day out. not that i'm ready to sign up for wearing pantyhose all day, but it's fun to dress like a girl now and then.
jeni [email] said at 8:22 PM 01-16-2002: and even in laidback sillyvalley, i noticed dressing nicely lends you more credibility with exec staff. i especially made an effort to dress nice if i had meetings with anyone outside of the company.
jeni [email] said at 8:29 PM 01-16-2002: oh yah, one more thing (i seem to be thinking in 2 sentence spurts today, sorry about that)...while i agree in theory that its silly for someone to make assumptions about the quality/quantity of my work based on my clothing, in practice I don't want to have to deal with overcoming those prejudices--i figure if dressing nicely allows my coworkers/clients to form a positive image of me, then that's one less obstacle for me to overcome on the path to making them submit to what i want to get done at work. choose your battles.
courtney [ url ] said at 2:50 AM 08-10-2002: At my company in Hawaii, we had a pretty lax dress code... but the salespeople that had to go out of the office were expected to dress nicer for sales calls. I still chose to wear black skirts and monochrome tops most days... must be my SF upbringing.
The only wrench thrown into the works was one chick who constantly tried to push the limit with her provocative clothing and way-too-high shoes. Then the all-male management decided to put a dress code on the females ONLY, for the most part.
I hate it when one person ruins it for a whole company. Grr.
gen [email] said at 1:50 PM 08-10-2002: Do we have a dress code at the health and clinical informatics research group? ...Not an explicit one.
The admin staff tends to go for that casual business style: slacks and shirts for men, anything casual goes for women. The research staff has strutted in wearing distressed jeans and cowboy boots before, but they'll dress up a notch when entertaining big guns from government or industry.
I just wear whatever isn't likely to attract undue attention. The spectrum of clothing I own extends from uber-slob second-hand clothes bought years ago and worn to shreds to uber-trendy, wear-it-once clubwear, so what is worn to work is somewhere in between the two extremes. With medical school interviews and business trips coming up, I've resolved to buy nothing but suits this Fall ...And slinky boots that are made for walking all over you, of course.
mary [email] said at 4:00 PM 08-10-2002: As I am paring down my wardrobe, I realize how schizophrenic my tastes are. khaki pants. bright orange T-shirt. Navy blazer. silver metallic skirt. hmmm.
