The other day an email went round my company saying that “Casual Friday” was now being cancelled and that no one would be allowed to wear jeans anymore.
“Casual Friday” was a privilege (for which employees were asked to donate $1 to charity) and it had been abused. (Apparently. I can only assume that someone at head office had arrived at work looking a little sloppy and had obviously caught the eye of the MD.)
The uproar and debate that this caused! All over jeans. (What would Mr Levi Strauss think of all this??)
The thing is – I totally understand the management team wanting to maintain a certain standard and appearance. What I don’t understand is why not address the sloppy individual? Why is everyone suddenly lumped into the same boat?
Oh – and if anyone does arrive to work in jeans their manager will send them home, they will have to change, and work in the hours they have missed as a result. It really made me laugh – because I thought – well, why not send the sloppy dressers home to change then?? No no … just those crazy folk wearing jeans. (I am thinking that the poor jeans are really the scape goat of this sad little tale.)
I work for a global company – and I have to say, this kind of thinking made me quite relieved that I am in fact moving on. I didn’t ever consider myself poorly groomed … but apparently it’s all in my jeans.
It's all in the jeans…
Crazy stuff, Simone. However, I wonder if they only mean BLUE jeans. In some cases where jeans are not allowed (my parents-in-lae belong to an old school golf club and we often go there for lunch with them), I have taken to weraing black jeans. No problem at all…
What are they thinking?
But seriously, this is just one more example of the Boomer’s approach to office management. Everyone knows who the culrpit is – the one person who has abused the privilege, but they’re not prepared to deal with that person. No. Instead we have to have a company wide policy that puts everyone in the same box.
say good bye to your Bright Young Things when you start down that road.
It’s not all that different from Casual days (Civie Days) in our schools! As soon as you have one or two pupils who express their fashion sense the way they would at the mall, it challenges the strict “blue jeans and white golf shirt only” policy … BAM! NO MORE CASUAL DAY!!!
It’s not only Boomers who react like this in the workplace – I’ve had 2 very Xer managers react the smae way. Perhaps it is an attempt to run the workplace like a school? As Xers, what other example of management have we experienced than school management?
Ah, decisions like this irk me. This is management at their worst.
Kathy Sierra has a good posting on this topic over at http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/05/managements_rol.html
Enjoy the connections and common interests!