{"id":99,"date":"2008-02-11T18:00:18","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T00:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=99"},"modified":"2024-07-05T16:03:33","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T22:03:33","slug":"dress-code-indifference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/dress-code-indifference\/","title":{"rendered":"Dress Code: Indifference"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I left Europe last year, as part of my move-induced personal property purge, I threw out seven or eight suits that had seen better days.\u00a0 A couple of these had worn out years previously, I just couldn’t bear to part with them (hey, these were all Paul Smith<\/em>, and I was very attached to them).\u00a0 But the others all seemed to wear out around the same time (regardless of how long I’d had them for), and all in the same place (the arse).\u00a0 It took me a while to figure this out, but I think it was caused by my wallet in my back pocket rubbing against the particularly abrasive office chairs they gave us (apparently very ergonomic, but with seats made of some industrial-grade plastic mesh).\u00a0 It’s not like my wallet is even particularly thick – two credit cards and my driver’s license, and that’s about it.\u00a0 It never has any money in it because I can’t manage to hold onto money long enough to justify the time and effort of getting my wallet out of my back pocket every time I have to shell out for something.<\/p>\n

Last week I was in Manchester (England) again.\u00a0 When I was packing, I was flipping through my few remaining suits deciding which ones to take, when I thought that I’d maybe dress down a bit instead.\u00a0 I’ve noted from my previous trips that the Manchester office is a little more ‘casual’, so I figured “when in Rome…”.\u00a0 It also saved me having to worry about creasing my suits up in a suitcase (I don’t know why they call them suitcases, as they are entirely unsuited to transporting suits…).\u00a0 So Monday morning I stroll in in a pair of Banana Republic chinos, a ‘casual’ work shirt, no tie (I even unbuttoned the top two<\/span> buttons of my shirt (steady, girls!)), and a pair of Doc Marten shoes on my feet.\u00a0 I thought I’d fit in like a local, but I still got stared at like I was some kind of conservative square.\u00a0 I was entirely<\/span> overdressed for the office – I may as well have worn a tuxedo for all I fitted in.\u00a0 Looking around, I realized that if I’d wanted to blend in, I should have kept on the clothes I’d travelled over in: a pair of distressed Levi’s (all the more distressed from 11 hours worth of flights) and a T-shirt with a big wine stain down the side of it from where the fat idiot next to me had knocked over the first of his many complimentary drinks whilst maneuvering his ample arse around the extra-wide-but-evidently-still-inadequate business-class seat.<\/p>\n

Jeans are pretty commonplace in the Manchester office, as are ‘vintage’ (read: faded, with a fake logo printed on it) T-shirts for the guys, and skin-tight fat-ripple-showing tops for the girls.\u00a0 And, apparently, thongs.\u00a0 (Nothing speaks class like having your thong poking out above the waistband of your jeans when you lean over your desk…)\u00a0 And it doesn’t stop at the clothes, either.\u00a0 Bizarre hairstyles (or at least the ‘unkempt’ look – which probably took half an hour to do in the morning) and dodgy facial hair are almost de rigeur<\/em> (the latter thankfully mostly on the men, but there’s a couple of Eastern-Europeans who could do with a waxing).\u00c2\u00a0 There’s one guy (‘biker dude’) who waltzed in in his sunglasses (despite it being uniformly overcast outside) and a short-sleeved T-shirt (despite it being bleedin’ cold) just so we can all admire his full-sleeve tattoos.\u00a0 And there’s enough ear- nose- and lip-rings on display to put Dennis Rodham to shame.<\/p>\n

No-one seems to dress for work anymore.\u00a0 Everyone looks as though they just dragged on whatever they found on the floor of their bedsit (or they were still wearing…) when they woke up that morning, without regard to whether or not it was appropriate (or even clean).\u00a0 There’s no distinction between what they’d wear to work and what they’d wear when going down the pub, or to the football, or scavenging on the local landfill.\u00a0 Maybe it’s just me, but I just don’t like to wear my ‘regular’ clothes to the office.\u00a0 I find the acts of getting dressed for work in the morning, and changing when I get home, to be nice transition points between the two lives.\u00a0 I get home, change into my shorts and a t-shirt, and leave work in my wardrobe along with my suits.\u00a0 I find it easier to switch off, that way.\u00a0 Maybe it’s just my way of dealing with the schizophrenia of shifting between being a well-paid professional and being a regular guy, and of keeping the two worlds entirely separate.<\/p>\n

I asked someone in Manchester, “So what’s the dress code, here?”\u00a0 They looked at me, puzzled.\u00a0 “What, like a password or summat?” I gave up and asked one of the managers instead, who informed me that officially it was “business casual”.\u00a0 Maybe they should also have specified exactly which<\/span> business, because most of the people seem to be dressing for a career in the roadie or groupie business (and not necessarily split between the two options along gender lines…).<\/p>\n

What on earth do they do on Casual Fridays??\u00a0 There’s nowhere left to go.\u00a0 Maybe a dressing gown and slippers?\u00a0 Or they could completely remove the distinction between home and office and lounge around in their underwear – assuming they still bother to wear any.\u00a0 Not that I’ve ever seen the point in Casual Fridays, myself.\u00a0 Here in Houston we can officially wear blue jeans or a Hawaiian shirt (but absolutely not both together) on Fridays.\u00a0 But what’s the point?\u00a0 Why should Fridays be any different?\u00a0 It’s not like you’re doing anything different to what you’re doing for the other four days of the week: “Well, Fridays we generate the weekly performance statistics, and I really need to be wearing comfortable pants to do that…”.<\/p>\n

I’m all for people being comfortable at work, and I know it’s not strictly necessary to wear a suit<\/em> when you’re sat in a call center where you’ll never see a paying customer, but I still think there should at least be a general impression of professionalism in the workplace.\u00a0 Maybe it’s all part of what’s wrong with Britain these days.\u00a0 There’s no respect, no sense of decorum, no pride.\u00a0 Everyone’s an individual, and there’s no communal pressure to dress, or act, appropriately.\u00a0 Dressing the way you want is now a right<\/em>, and doing otherwise is selling your soul to ‘the man’.\u00a0 Never mind the fact that your Nikes are more tools of corporate globalization and oppression than a pair of hand-made Church’s…<\/p>\n

Having said all that, this last trip to Manchester has<\/em> made me reconsider my personal dress code, and I’m thinking of giving up on the suits at last.\u00a0 But instead of just going ‘business casual’ like the rest of them, I’m going to take the opportunity of a wardrobe change to entirely unburden myself from the need to conform to either corporate attire, or the Manc’s loose interpretation of business casual.\u00a0 In doing so, I’m also going to take one decision out of my day and free up the creative part of my brain for more valuable activities than deciding which tie goes best with which shirt, by wearing the same thing<\/span> to work every single day.\u00a0 Not the same exact piece of clothing (which would perhaps be a little unhygienic after a while), but clothing that looks<\/em> exactly the same.\u00a0 And the thing that would best achieve this is one of those nice blue ‘Mao suits’ that the Chinese all wore during the cultural revolution.\u00a0 As soon as I can find one to fit a 6’3″ frame, and with a reinforced arse, I’ll be sorted!\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, the irony of it all: personal expression through dress that was supposed to remove any semblance of individuality from an entire society.\u00a0 Power to the person!<\/p>\n

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