Boyung.com

About four months ago, I started working at a new job for a large magazine publisher.  For the first time in my professional life, I have to "dress up" daily for work.  Of course, what this really means is business casual, but it's still more than the only real requirements at both of my previous jobs - no offensive t-shirts and you have to come in wearing clothes of some sort.  Even my first internship only required jeans and a decent shirt (no t-shirts, but pretty much anything else was okay).  I don't have a problem with this in principle, but I do have a few problems with the way it is implemented.  First, there's the fact that over half of the people in the building do not have to follow these rules for work dress.  These people work in our pre-press room and test kitchens, and I understand that those environments require different clothing for comfort and safety reasons, but that really isn't the point.  The reason for various levels of business dress, as I understand it, is to convey a certain amount of professionalism among the staff.  However, when most people I see on a daily basis are dressed exactly how they would dress on a Saturday lounging at home, this concept is completely lost.  I can understand that if a customer or potential advertiser is coming in to the office, the people meeting with him or her should be dressed up.  I've never had a problem with that at all, at any job.  The problem there is that, being a magazine publisher, customers don't come to our office, and up until very recently, our magazines did not accept outside advertising, so there goes the potential advertisers.  Even now, as best I can tell, the advertising work is being done in our offices in New York, so I don't think this would apply at all.

Another problem that I have with the dressing up for work concept is the differences in what is deemed appropriate for men and women.  With business casual, I'm pretty much limited to dress pants or slacks, and either a button down shirt or a polo.  My female coworkers have little to no restriction on what they can wear.  How are capri pants or a denim skirt really that different from me wearing khacki shorts or jean shorts?  Even a more "business formal" dress code is much more restrictive for men than it is for women.  There, I'm limited to dress pants, shirt and tie.  Women can wear dresses, skirts with just about any shirt, pant suits, etc.  It seems to me that all of that is a lot more comfortable than a shirt and tie.  I guess a part of the problem here is that I, along with most guys that I know, typically wear jeans and t-shirts when we aren't working.  Most of the women that I know wear a lot of the same things when they aren't working that they wear when they are working.  I have to assume that most of the time, this is because their work clothes are comfortable enough to wear all the time, while for us, our work clothes are so stifling and uncomfortable that we can't wait to change.  It may just be me, but I don't really see that as fair.

That all said, the biggest problem I have is with this whole concept of "Casual Fridays."  For some reason, that one day a week, it is okay to wear jeans to work, but every other day there's a problem with it.  This makes no sense to me.  It isn't like Friday is any more or less likely to have something going on that would require you to dress up than any other day.  It's an artificial construct from fifty years ago that some corporate bigwig came up with as a way to try and boost morale among their workers, when what they really needed was a job that they enjoy doing.  The thing that really got me is that when I came in for the interview for this job, the HR person made a big deal about how Casual Fridays was this huge benefit and a really big deal.  I don't really see how it is that different than any other day.  I put on pants, shoes, and a shirt either way.  I guess for people that have been working for companies stuck in the past, this could be a bigger deal, but to me, it just seems dumb.

It seems to me that the crux of the problem is that my company (and those like it) is stuck in the past.  Both my company and it's parent company are pretty old organizations, which both seem to have had fairly strict corporate structures until very recently.  In fact, I was told just last week that up until sometime in the 90's, my office actually had a bell to signify the start and end of the lunch period.  I had thought that that construct disappeared from office environments ages ago.  I was also told that, more recently, someone even got in trouble for leaving for lunch at 11:45 instead of 12:00.  The other "benefit" the HR person told me about when I interviewed was their "flex time."  I could choose to start within an hour window (between 7:30 and 8:30, I believe).  Huge benefit there, right?  That is just insane.  Like a dress code, strict hours on and off of work really don't fit in an office environment.  This would be different if I was talking about support staff or call center people, but I'm talking about people with projects that are typically worked on alone or in groups with those around them.  This kind of work does not need and has never needed strict, specific hours.  Now, I agree that there should be core hours that people are available and at work for meetings, to answer questions, etc, but at the same time, for about 90% of my work, I could be working at home at two in the morning and be just as productive, if not more so, because there are less distractions.  For most people, that's obviously too extreme of a case, but I don't really see a problem with people wanting to work 11-7 or 7-3 in an eight hour day.  As long as everyone can access a person's schedule and know when they will be in the office, I don't see an issue.  With just about everyone owning cell phones these days, it isn't like a person can't be asked a question outside their "normal" work hours if something is absolutely needed right away.

I personally think that it is time to abolish these old constructs and come up with something that is much more conducive to a productive work environment.  Now I just need to get these old, corporate bigwigs to listen.