Code of the Dress: Revenge Against High Morale
Into every life, a little ridiculous, standardized bureaucracy must fall. In the case of mine, I have encountered the insurmountable juggernaut that is “Dress Code”. This has come up about five or six times in my time here, but never really stuck before. Thank goodness. Working for an Internet company who doesn’t really handle walk-in business (with rare exception), I’m stunned and frustrated by this repeated insistence upon doing things the “meatspace” way. I’ve never been the best at maintaining a budget, a laundry schedule, or a steady weight. These powers combine to create a condition by which I rarely, if ever, have anything that will pass for “Business Appropriate”, whatever that means. As a result I typically make-do with jeans and some kind of shirt that doesn’t look too grubby or trashy. So far so good I wager.
Yet I digress. Dress Code Part 2: Electric Boogaloo, has descended upon our merry band of rascals to lay some foxes in otherwise rather content hen houses. A condensed beam of sunlight seeking out worker ants whose exoskeleton is improperly decorated by worker ant standards as set out in Tomes of Olde. Presumably the goal is something of a mimicry of those who came before us. Even Jack Parsons wore a suit to work, and he was some kind of crazy-ass pagan/rocket scientist who did a lot of field work (in both areas of his life).
So let’s get down to the nitty gritty. The actual body of this extremely local legislation.
“Please use Dress Code Common Sense Law; If you aren’t sure, then don’t wear it!”
What if you’re a self-conscious person, or a fashion hound, or it’s early and you’re hung over and easily confused? Any of those three means that the odds are pretty good you aren’t sure about what you’re wearing for the day. What if you can’t decide what shirt to wear? Does that mean go without one? Technically that would follow that law to the letter. It’s a logistics nightmare. There’s also the believe that “common” sense is by no means common at all, but that’s another discussion altogether.
There’s a statement against wrinkles too. Wrinkles? Wear clothes without wrinkles? Whoever first decided that that was important needs to go right to hell. The individual who first decided that wrinkles were a detriment to one’s business ability doesn’t live in any reality I’ve ever been privy to where people wear clothes and they get wrinkled.
Casual Friday’s entry isn’t even complete in this official document. It’s both curious and a little frightening. As if to suggest the robot overlords terminated the author prior to their completion of the thought.
With the idea appearance directly affecting one’s worthiness as a business associate, or affecting the opinion of visitors so negatively as to be disgusted, I have come to the conclusion that the comedians are right: Business office atmospheres should be soul-crushing places, brimful of quiet desperation.
All employees should wear gray from fear of being offensive, except for the one guy whose wife makes him wear the pink shirt because Marie Claire Magazine told her that it would help him boost his confidence.
Everyone will spend all day whispering about him in lieu of anything worthwhile going on in their miserable lives, and smile really nicely when he shows up at the coffee pot to get his 80th cup of the morning.
In truth, this is just another way of burying his frustration at his utterly failed marriage, and dead-end job.
By the end of the week, he will be found hanging from his belt in the men’s room. No one will ever use the big stall ever again out of discomfort rather than respect and all silently curse their own fates, but express their misery just a little more openly.
But hey, at least they look business appropriate.
Why is this machination - this plot to undermine people’s abilities by overwhelming them with trivial appearance issues - desirable? I’m at an utter loss. Explain please!
“The belief that “order is true” and disorder is false or somehow wrong, is the Aneristic Illusion. To say the same of disorder, is the ERISTIC ILLUSION.”
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whaaargarbl said,
December 14, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
Many souls have been crushed under the oppressive weight of the Rubber Mallet of Communism.
dr.hypercube said,
December 14, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
JPL = Jack Parsons Lives. Can I trade a dozen scientologists for a Heinlein and a Parsons? On dress code - treat it as a minor nuisance. Subvert and/or transcend…
Giania said,
December 14, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
Personally I have absolutely no desire to let this bother me. I mean, it does bother me on principle that I could be judged for the subjective quality of my attire.
But I realize that any “dress code” implemented by this company is meant to be documented reason for firing (not that you need one in NH) for the day someone shows up in daisy dukes and gives some older staffer a heart attack.