I also spend the money on getting my suits tailored or i just look like a child playing dress up. I’m 30 but i still get carded for get this not just liquor but the MOVIES!!! people still think i’m in high school and that’s with my suit. No one believes i’m a lawyer.
I took a pro bono case. I went in my best suit to meet my client and she burst into tears thinking that they sent her a child. it was quite funny actually. she felt bad afterwards.
My firm expects you to work hard so they want you to be comfortable. They expect you to arrive professionally for all hearings, depositions, client meetings etc but anything else, clean casual clothing.
I didn’t see my boss in a suit until 3 months after I started working there. Though in my firm. its the support staff that wields all the power.
As long as people wear clothing that covers their bodies and doesn’t smell bad, I don’t care what they wear. IMO, our society is way too hung up on appearances.
The expectation to dress up every week is why I stopped going to church. I only dress up for funerals, weddings and (paid) work…because I feel obligated, not because I like it.
The place I work right now is pretty casual. It’s a family publishing business. My typical work attire are capri’s with a nice top and shoes (flip flops are ok). I was told when I started working here all that mattered to them was that my clothes were clean and neat. I am a plus sized gal and very self conscious about what I wear right down to my shoes. I am little wacky that way. My father was a stickler for neatness. I kinda picked up his habits. I am always checking for wrinkles, loose threads, tags. :roll:
I don’t support the wearing of flip flops from an occupational, health and safety perspective. Even if you just drop a stapler on your foot that can cause a lot of damage. By all means slip them on to go outside for lunch but I would not accept flip flops within an office space itself.
Apart from this, I actually don’t care that much although I don’t like seeing bellies or ultra short skirts. You see some girls/women who can’t even reach for a sheet of paper without you seeing their underwear. No thanks.
I wear scrubs to work.
Actually, I hate scrub tops, so I get away with scrub pants and plain colored, reasonable length t-shirts.
The funny thing? I HAVE to go home and change before I’ll do anything else - even go to the grocery store. I feel icky being out in public in my work clothes. My department has the option of scrubs or business casual (men must wear ties, no open toed shoes for anyone, and if you’re a tech like me, you’d be insane to wear heels), so if I know I need to go out after work, I’ll do the “business casual” thing.
Before my current job, I worked for a group of physicians that had a dress code. In SoCal, women were required to wear stockings and closed toe shoes. I do understand the reasoning - it’s a modest industry despite the patients’ disrobing for the doctor. Or perhaps because of that fact.
Now that I’m back in accounting, I can wear my open-toed slides with bare feet! There’s no published dress code because we’re expected to know how to dress when meeting with clients. It’s good.
I’m about to hopefully become an attorney, and I start training with the Public Defender’s office on Monday. It’s court clothes for court, business casual for training, and I think as well for non court clothes. However, I think most people don’t realize that business casual should not be casual. Business casual is a nice skirt and blouse or sweater or a nice pair of slacks and a nice skirt or blouse. Those slacks can be a pair of trouser khakis. This is my opinion, but appearance is important in how you are viewed. It might not be ideal, but it is how it is. I look younger than my age as well, people NEVER believe that I am 26 and a soon to be attorney, but I am, and a suit helps make that clear and who the lawyer is. I also get a lot more respect in the lawyer clothes rather than other clothes. Appearance matters, and you project an image of your level of maturity with your clothes when in an office setting. We might not like it, but I think that is reality. You can either try and change that reality or go with the status quo.
I work in the music industry. Flip flops are fine in the office, belly shirts too though mostly where I work people don’t wear shirts that show off their bellies. We are a little older here. We all wear jeans, shorts, short skirts with leggings underneath etc etc I always wear jeans and a t shirt. In summer I’ll wear cropped jeans and a t shirt. In winter usually jeans and a sweater.
Some people here would make you freak out - tattoos and piercings all over. Men with hair down past their bums in length and dyed hair in all colours you can imagine. Women with shaved heads, cropped hair etc etc etc.
All of it is fine. It doesn’t affect how anyone does their job and everyone who works here is well respected and liked across the industry.
That’s the status quo in your industry. It’s interesting isn’t it, how the status quo varies across industries? I got rid of some of my piercings when I started law school, but some of my friends from school are tattooed and pierced all other (most of them came from the music industry). They get by fine, but that’s probably because they are into areas of the law that aren’t so much “practicing law” but more social justice work.
Ya know, I posted earlier about how I think there is “work clothes” and “play clothes” - but I was looking at it from the perspective of the industry I am in…I really think when it comes to dressing appropriately at work you need to take your cue from the work environment - as many have pointed out, funky is fine in some industries, but in others it just isn’t. A while ago I had a woman working for me who my bosses asked me to speak to regarding the “gaps” in her clothing - her response to me was “I’m tall and thin, and that’s just the way it is - I like what I wear”…any wonder why, when it came time for layoffs she was the one that the bosses picked to let go? She looked cute in a general sense but logo t-shirts and belly showing wasn’t the image the the company wanted to project and she paid the price for not recognizing the culture of the company…
In a more general sense, I do think that the way we dress is the “public image” we present to the world around us and affects how people view us and react to us. How mny times have you been out shopping and seen someone and wondered if they own a mirror at home, or bothered to look in it before leaving the house?!
I’m enjoying this thread - I find the different perspectives really interesting to read :think:
Alot of it boils down to if you give people an inch they will take a mile. Alot of people ruin it for the rest of us when it comes to things like this. Instead of having some manners and class they have to take it to extremes. Pretty soon it’s back to full work dress because some idiot decided to wear a Speedo to work.
Did you take the bar yet? if so good luck on the results. I know they come out in november. At least they do here in California. The bar is the most nerve wracking test isn’t it?
Knitting is the best way to relax after work I found. So keep it up!! I even bring it with me to lunch. I’ve had request from other attorneys now for gifts. One other attorney here knits with me. we have a knitting line we joke bc its only 2 of us that knit.
Thank you! I did take the bar! I hope it turns out ok. Knitting relaxs me as well, and I hope there are some other knitters in my office. I will be working right down the street from Ewe’ll Love It, so there are at least knitters nearby!
Well definetly update us on your results!! I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you!!! As a fellow attorney and former resident of Massachusetts I’m rooting for you!! (twin and best friend still lives there in fact)
Alot of it boils down to if you give people an inch they will take a mile…Pretty soon it’s back to full work dress because some idiot decided to wear a Speedo to work.
:roflhard:
we have a guy in our building but not in my office who dresses business casual but has not noticed that he is no longer a 32w and all his clothes look like belly shirts and tights.
I haven’t worked in years, but my daughter has had various dress codes depending on the job. As a pre-school teacher she couldn’t wear jeans, shorts, tank tops or open toed shoes. Now in an office she wears skirts, dresses, slacks and nice tops except on Friday when she is allowed to wear jeans, but with a nice top not a t-shirt. No car washing attire.
It seems that attire is not only dependent on the industry, but on the business owner.
I am absolutely 100% against dress codes. It especially cracks me up when I see the men in their suits and ties in 90 degree weather all looking exactly alike.
I could not care less how any of my co-workers dress.
I am very lucky as I manage a college dormitory and we have no dress code.
I teach kindergarten and I wear jeans to work often, as well as wild flowery flip-flops. I sit on the floor, kneel next to my students at their tables, and am “assaulted” with marker, crayon, pencil, paint, glue, etc. every day. All my shoes are scuffed on the toes. Jeans hold up to the crawling better than any other pants and don’t need to get dry-cleaned. I find it hard to wear skirts and dresses, too, because of the sitting on the floor thing. I like wearing sneakers to work, too, because I walk backwards leading my little “ducks” all over campus (although it can be done in flowery flip-flops). I feel very lucky that my administrators recognize the physical nature of working with 5 year olds.
My father was a stickler for neatness. I kinda picked up his habits. I am always checking for wrinkles, loose threads, tags. :roll:
I do understand the reasoning - it’s a modest industry despite the patients’ disrobing for the doctor. Or perhaps because of that fact.