People's dress sense/standards at work

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#1644806 3-Oct-2016 16:29

MikeB4:

frankv:

MikeB4:

I decided to purchase a corporate wardrobe for the team such as Polo Shirts, Drill pants that had a discreet logo and name, [snip] . I only had a small number of non conformists that were dealt with individually as performance issues.

Jeezuz... have you nothing better to measure a worker's performance with than whether they'll wear your uniform or not?

Yes I do. The required dress standard for the rest of the organisation was far more rigid I could have just enforced that but I decided to do a business case to the CEO for a variation in the code for my teams, and to have the wardrobe paid for. This was was approved with a caveat that I fund it out of my current capex budget. This is did after spend many days and nights rejigging my budget to accommodate the purchase of the attire for my staff. I know I was such a tyrant for paying over $1,000 per staff annually for their work attire, and such a b*******d to go to the effort to do a business case get approval and spend many hours of my own time facilitating this.

I wasn't saying (or at least trying not to say) anything about you being a tyrant or b'stard.

But you've spent thousands of dollars and days and nights rejigging your budget. Clearly it was important to you.

But for the life of me, I can't see why. It seems to *me* (and maybe that's why or because I'm not an IT manager) that there's a bazillion other things more important than clothing, and the uniformity thereof, to (a) spend your employer's money on, and (b) to judge and reward your staff on.

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MikeB4

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#1644810 3-Oct-2016 16:44

frankv:

MikeB4:

frankv:

MikeB4:

I decided to purchase a corporate wardrobe for the team such as Polo Shirts, Drill pants that had a discreet logo and name, [snip] . I only had a small number of non conformists that were dealt with individually as performance issues.

Jeezuz... have you nothing better to measure a worker's performance with than whether they'll wear your uniform or not?

Yes I do. The required dress standard for the rest of the organisation was far more rigid I could have just enforced that but I decided to do a business case to the CEO for a variation in the code for my teams, and to have the wardrobe paid for. This was was approved with a caveat that I fund it out of my current capex budget. This is did after spend many days and nights rejigging my budget to accommodate the purchase of the attire for my staff. I know I was such a tyrant for paying over $1,000 per staff annually for their work attire, and such a b*******d to go to the effort to do a business case get approval and spend many hours of my own time facilitating this.

I wasn't saying (or at least trying not to say) anything about you being a tyrant or b'stard.

But you've spent thousands of dollars and days and nights rejigging your budget. Clearly it was important to you.

But for the life of me, I can't see why. It seems to *me* (and maybe that's why or because I'm not an IT manager) that there's a bazillion other things more important than clothing, and the uniformity thereof, to (a) spend your employer's money on, and (b) to judge and reward your staff on.

The team was not happy with the required dress standard this was they way to make it better for them, my business case to the CEO was prepared with consultation and agreement of my staff. There are intangible returns for the money spent and the bottom line was the annual Opex was not increased for on going costs and capex was not increased for initial purchase. It was not a reward it was a way to meet approved dress requirements and make things nicer for the staff.

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#1644811 3-Oct-2016 16:44

MikeB4:

frankv:

MikeB4:

I decided to purchase a corporate wardrobe for the team such as Polo Shirts, Drill pants that had a discreet logo and name, [snip] . I only had a small number of non conformists that were dealt with individually as performance issues.

Jeezuz... have you nothing better to measure a worker's performance with than whether they'll wear your uniform or not?

Yes I do. The required dress standard for the rest of the organisation was far more rigid I could have just enforced that but I decided to do a business case to the CEO for a variation in the code for my teams, and to have the wardrobe paid for. This was was approved with a caveat that I fund it out of my current capex budget. This is did after spend many days and nights rejigging my budget to accommodate the purchase of the attire for my staff. I know I was such a tyrant for paying over $1,000 per staff annually for their work attire, and such a b*******d to go to the effort to do a business case get approval and spend many hours of my own time facilitating this.

Hmm, funding it out of the capex budget... Surely, uniforms can't be capitalised and they are more of a consumable, therefore a P&L cost, rather than a balance sheet item.

Rikkitic

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#1644815 3-Oct-2016 17:02

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

thinus

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#1644828 3-Oct-2016 17:46

networkn:

thinus:

Rikkitic:

I have always strongly felt that dress codes are demeaning nonsense, like the idiotic obsession with stamping children into identical school uniforms. I detest this practice. I have always felt that people who worry about appearances do so because they lack the brain power to deal with more serious matters.

At the same time, I also think there are minimum standards that must be adhered to. I hate bad manners and poor taste. My dress code is clean and tidy, nothing else. What people wear says nothing about who they are, only who they are trying to pretend to be.

I can't tell you how much I detest the school uniform thing. It is almost as if we are teaching our kids to judge others based on their appearance. Personally I hate wearing suits and ties, give me comfort over having to try and appeal to someone else's sense of appropriateness and split second judgement based on appearance any day of the week. The whole obsession with appearance is to me like the obsession with celebrity's personal lives. Superficial and annoying.

I hate to break it to you but it's done for CONVENIENCE and cost.

I'd prefer my kids were in uniform, they are easily identified, the cost is relatively low, and it avoids peer pressure due to some parents being unable to afford the latest clothing. It also saves hassle on picking clothing etc for kids or having them do it themselves.

Maybe we should be teaching our kids independence and not to be swayed so easily by peer pressure. Focus a little more on their own individuality and not on the herd mentality. But, yeah, just getting them all to dress up in the same uniforms is much easier. Let's use perceived convenience as an argument to decide what our kids should wear to school.

Cost? We have clothes coming out our ears passed on from friends and family. Clothes as birthday and christmas presents. I *still* get clothes from my mum and sister as gifts and I am 40+. The clothes we *have* to buy from the school is ridiculously over priced compared to what you can get on specials and a little creative shopping. The cost argument is complete nonsense from my pov. Kids do not have their school uniforms as the only thing in their wardrobe. They have stuff they wear when they do not go to school like weekends and holidays. So you now have their non-school wardrobe *and* their school wardrobe. (My child is still primary school and I assume he will get fussier as a teenager but maybe not. I never was overly fussy about what I wore.)

Linuxluver

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#1644833 3-Oct-2016 18:04

dejadeadnz:

I sometimes wonder if I am just amongst the really, really small minority that's aghast at how people in professional roles (in places without formal dress code) dress in NZ. And I'm talking about the men especially. It also seems that the dress sense gets worse the further north of 35 or so one is.

When I was in traditional legal practice, full suit and tie was obviously compulsory for going to court and for the bigger, more traditional firms. You might get away with no tie on a Friday and during summer. Aside from the formal nature of the dress code, the thing that always struck me was that everyone's shirts were always tidy, the proper size for their bodies, ironed properly, and never looks excessively garish. Certainly nobody wore anything with frayed cuffs, stained collars and the like. Once I moved on to risk/compliance in the financial sector, I went to work in mostly a dress shirt, leather shoes and a blazer or bomber jacket (the latter is more towards the serious end). My clothes were always the correct size, new/newish, tidy and so were my team's. We are/were all under 35. But we (mostly ex-lawyers/accountants) would notice how some people seem to interpret smart casual as meaning really casual jeans and there were many people who seemingly hadn't bought a new shirt for 10 plus years. And quite a few people would wear print shirts that are much more suited for Loud Shirt days to meet with external people.

I've recently moved into a role with a listed entity in another sector and the dress standards there are even worse. Many people (all in non-field roles) come in with dirty shoes that have never seen a bit of polish, shirts are often barely tucked in, and the odd person who wears a tie to meet external parties don't bother to tie up the top button because the shirt doesn't fit.

I am personally not a huge stickler for how people dress but the sort of stuff I described doesn't seem to me to be very professional. And despite my generally pretty relaxed attitude over the years I have excluded people from client meetings and so on because I deemed their dress standards unacceptable. It's often been a source of conflict as a younger manager. Ironically, some of the younger guys who "down dress" a bit are actually far more tidy and professional in appearance. Their t-shirts are clean, in good condition, and their jeans don't look like the sort that tradies wear but I have seen people pulled up just because they are wearing a t-shirt despite otherwise looking far better than older colleagues.

How do other people see this issue?

In my role, I've found I have to blend being professional with the need to not out-dress the customer / client. So I'll turn up in a freshly ironed shirt with non-jean trousers (pressed) and wearing a tie. As often as not, the t-shirt-clad client asks me to please take my tie off as they are feeling under dressed. We have a laugh...and I remove the tie and don't wear it again during the days we are together.

Or, there are the times where the client is at the same level....and they often comment that it's not common these days to see people "properly dressed".

You can always dress down after the fact, but if you blew the first impression.....it's blown.

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tdgeek

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#1644865 3-Oct-2016 18:41

networkn:

thinus:

Rikkitic:

I have always strongly felt that dress codes are demeaning nonsense, like the idiotic obsession with stamping children into identical school uniforms. I detest this practice. I have always felt that people who worry about appearances do so because they lack the brain power to deal with more serious matters.

At the same time, I also think there are minimum standards that must be adhered to. I hate bad manners and poor taste. My dress code is clean and tidy, nothing else. What people wear says nothing about who they are, only who they are trying to pretend to be.

I can't tell you how much I detest the school uniform thing. It is almost as if we are teaching our kids to judge others based on their appearance. Personally I hate wearing suits and ties, give me comfort over having to try and appeal to someone else's sense of appropriateness and split second judgement based on appearance any day of the week. The whole obsession with appearance is to me like the obsession with celebrity's personal lives. Superficial and annoying.

I hate to break it to you but it's done for CONVENIENCE and cost.

I'd prefer my kids were in uniform, they are easily identified, the cost is relatively low, and it avoids peer pressure due to some parents being unable to afford the latest clothing. It also saves hassle on picking clothing etc for kids or having them do it themselves.

I agree with all that, fully. And I think kids at that age like a uniform, its fitting in, part of a place in their young life. Not everyone wants casual school clothes, ban the bomb T shirts, I Love Dope T shirts, ban GeoBlocking T shirts. Not looking at anyone in particular mind you....

tdgeek

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#1644866 3-Oct-2016 18:43

BurningBeard:

The only "suit" I need...

(and yes, I have worn it to work!)

What about Colin Craig's suit, thats 128k towards the secretary

dejadeadnz

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#1644902 3-Oct-2016 20:01

Rikkitic:

*silly photo*

Look, you go on and on about freedom of choice/people's individual freedom. But I love how you seem to have no regard for the standards of a workplace that an individual freely signs up to work at, nor the consequences for other colleagues were an individual to be perceived as inappropriately (or culturally offensively) underdressed when meeting clients, for example. As usual with a lot of your arguments, it's just all about what you like.

DarthKermit:

In my not so humble opinion, the tie has gotta be the most useless piece of attire ever invented.

What practical purpose does it have? Oh I know: a stockbroker has a handy implement to hang himself with, when the share market takes a huge dive.

I personally also never wear a tie. With the way most NZ men basically fail to tie a tie properly and choose to wear poorly fitting shirts, I'd say peop,le would look gazillion times more professional if they just didn't bother with ties.

gbwelly

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#1644965 3-Oct-2016 23:19

dejadeadnz:

I personally also never wear a tie. With the way most NZ men basically fail to tie a tie properly and choose to wear poorly fitting shirts, I'd say peop,le would look gazillion times more professional if they just didn't bother with ties.

Are you a he or a she, and were you raised in NZ or overseas? I ask as both gender and country are mentioned in your statement.

I'd also ask: Who are they looking a gazillion times more professional for? Other men in poorly fitting shirts and badly tied ties?

MikeAqua

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#1645039 4-Oct-2016 08:55

I've work in a few places where high quality monogrammed clothing was available (at cost not free) but not compulsory. It was good value at cost but still not cheap. Interestingly most people bought something.

A lot of people wore them day to day at work and in particular people used to wear them when going to conferences etc.

Mike

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#1645046 4-Oct-2016 09:11

The vast majority of NZ schools are not particularly focused on dress standards. Most parents would find it a bit silly and annoying if that was the case. That may explain some of the differences in expectation. Short answer, it's a Kiwi thing.

Fred99

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#1645061 4-Oct-2016 09:39

gzt: The vast majority of NZ schools are not particularly focused on dress standards. Most parents would find it a bit silly and annoying if that was the case. That may explain some of the differences in expectation. Short answer, it's a Kiwi thing.

My understanding is that the quaint concept of school uniforms has survived to this day for only a few reasons:

Snobbery value (as in the case of schools for children of the the well-to-do)
Fund-raising (in the case of the official uniform supply rort)
Expectation that it promotes some kind of "team" or "military" pride concept.

Very false assumptions that high-school age children would either go completely wild if there weren't uniforms or at least strict dress codes, or that kids would turn up in expensive designer clothes to flaunt wealth - some kind of socialist "leveler" thing - which even if it had merit - is completely futile. By about age 8 kids know what mommy dropping them off at the gates in a Porsche Cayenne GTS - means.

Our son went to high school where there weren't any dress code rules at all. Surprisingly few "went wild" - almost all just wore the normal clothes that teenagers wear. A very few had plenty of body piercings and wore some pretty radical teenage fashion (none of which ever offended me in the slightest), but as that had zero shock-impact and there was no need to "rebel" against a rule that didn't exist, there wasn't any problem for which a rule might have been needed.

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#1645063 4-Oct-2016 09:42

Fred99:

gzt: The vast majority of NZ schools are not particularly focused on dress standards. Most parents would find it a bit silly and annoying if that was the case. That may explain some of the differences in expectation. Short answer, it's a Kiwi thing.

My understanding is that the quaint concept of school uniforms has survived to this day for only a few reasons:

Snobbery value (as in the case of schools for children of the the well-to-do)
Fund-raising (in the case of the official uniform supply rort)
Expectation that it promotes some kind of "team" or "military" pride concept.

Very false assumptions that high-school age children would either go completely wild if there weren't uniforms or at least strict dress codes, or that kids would turn up in expensive designer clothes to flaunt wealth - some kind of socialist "leveler" thing - which even if it had merit - is completely futile. By about age 8 kids know what mommy dropping them off at the gates in a Porsche Cayenne GTS - means.

Our son went to high school where there weren't any dress code rules at all. Surprisingly few "went wild" - almost all just wore the normal clothes that teenagers wear. A very few had plenty of body piercings and wore some pretty radical teenage fashion (none of which ever offended me in the slightest), but as that had zero shock-impact and there was no need to "rebel" against a rule that didn't exist, there wasn't any problem for which a rule might have been needed.

I think your assumed reasons for uniforms in NZ are wrong, period.

Linuxluver

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#1645073 4-Oct-2016 10:18

gzt: The vast majority of NZ schools are not particularly focused on dress standards. Most parents would find it a bit silly and annoying if that was the case. That may explain some of the differences in expectation. Short answer, it's a Kiwi thing.

Schools not focused on dress standards?

Try not wearing the uniform....or the wrong colour of socks.

(School uniforms are a bizarre 'religious' statement of faith in stuff that mostly isn't true......and big waste of money.)

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