At the beginning of the summer, the firm where I get my regular paycheck went "business casual." They had done this the previous summer, and since noone came to work naked or in a tu-tu, we were once again granted the privledge of being trusted to pick out clothing to wear to work.We were also informed the firm was reviewing this policy to see if we could go "business casual" going forward, even when summer was over. So, everyone continued to dress like reasonable human beings, and we were allowed to continue dressing ourselves in more comfortable way.

On Friday, we were informed that our group must wear "formal business attire" for the next two days because one of the senior members of the firm from the parent company is visiting from overseas.

I cannot get over how completely childish this is.

Our group is only one of many in the firm. Actually, it's a fairly small group. The rest of the firm is still in business casual. So, our sneaky attempt to trick Mr. Big Cheese is not going to work. He's going to be able to tell people actually work in this building without wearing suits. That's assuming they don't put a hood on him to keep him from looking around.

Perhaps the issue isn't one of deception, but some sign of respect. Maybe Mr. Big Cheese knows we're a casual office, but we're dressing up just for him. This worries me. I'm hoping that Mr. Big Cheese has the position he does because he's good at what he does, and he's a smart man. If this were the case, Mr. Big Cheese shouldn't really give a rat's ass about what we are wearing. He should be knowledgable about the quality of the group's work from our performance, not our appearance. If I were sitting at my desk, without a tie on, would Mr. Big Cheese notice? And if he did notice, doesn't this mean he's a pin head?

It's situations like this that would call for a novelty tie, if novelty ties weren't always so damn tacky.

posted 11:06 AM | link |