I can definitely identify with the woman who gets asked all kinds of questions when she wears a dress to work. I have worked in the business office of a nursing home for 24 years, and I love to wear dresses to work. However, like this woman, I am constantly being asked questions like "What are you doing all dressed up?" and receiving remarks like "You must have a hot date tonight." I also am made very uncomfortable by questions and remarks like this, and I often reply with a simple quip like "I'm working." I have even said a few times, "Would you rather walk into an office and see someone sitting here in blue jeans and a T-shirt?" I can remember when people who worked in offices and even at jobs like bank tellers were expected to dress up for work. That was standard code because they were expected to look nice because they deal with the public. What ever happened to those days?

What happened to those days is that people realized dress clothes were uncomfortable, expensive and did not improve a person's ability to their job. Personally I wouldn't care if you were wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt or a dress, so long as you could do the job I was paying for in an efficient and compentent manner.

I never had a problem with dressing for work. Sounds strange, given that I live in jeans in the winter and shorts in the summer, but it's true. It wasn't that expensive, either - you can get great business clothes on sale for the same or less money than good jeans.

I don't really care what people wear to work in, that's true, but I have to say that it's become an excuse for some to get sloppy. I'm not interested in seeing bank tellers dressed in ripped jeans, thank you. If they can't bother to make sure that their clothes are clean and pressed, how can I trust them not to make mistakes with my money?

I can't take anyone seriously if they go to work looking like an unmade bed. Maybe it's age, but if someone looks like they're being lazy, generally they are. It takes nothing to show up with clean hair and hands and clean pressed clothing.

Depending on the job, I think dressing nice is a necessity. I know when I go to job interviews and when I was interning at a magazine, I always planned my outfits the night before so I looked professional and fashionable.

However, feeling uncomfortable when people ask you if you're dressing up because you're going on a date? Talk about petty! It's not sexual harassment, and it's not an insult, so who the hell cares? Just say "No, I'm not going anywhere" or "I just like wearing skirts sometimes" and go to your desk. There. Problem solved. I'm a friggin' etiquette genius. I should write a book. Really, it'll be $60 for a hardcover...

You betcha!

I don't care how people dress, as long as it doesn't cause a commotion. There have been studies which people receive more respect when they dress up - in appropriate situations - than if they do not. For instance, teachers who dress up tend to have more attentive and well-behaved students than teachers in jeans.

However, unless you are a doctor, lawyer, or other professional, most people do not expect you to dress up. Particularly if the company environment encourages casual dress, people tend to stand out when they dress up. Imagine a high schooler showing up to class with a tie on. He would stick out like a sore thumb.

If this person wants to go against the norm, no problem. People will notice, just as they would notice if she shaved her head, got a tatoo in a prominent location, or suddenly came to work with facial piercings. When people notice something different, they tend to comment. If she were to wear dressier clothes regularly, people would soon accept that it's just who she is, and the comments would cease, just as the comments would cease or at least diminish for piercings, etc.

However, she doesn't do this every day. Apparently, she doesn't even do it regularly enough for people to expect it from her on occasion. In most offices, when people dress up suddenly, they are going to a funeral, or they are interviewing for another job. Since they haven't heard about any deaths in her family - or perhaps the clothing is brightly colored - the assumption becomes that she is planning to leave. Inquiring minds want to know.

If she wants the comments to end, either conform with the norm, or set her own standard by dressing up every day or every day but Friday. Short of that, she must learn to live with it. Or go interview for another job.

Darn right, you are treated differently when you are dressed nicely. I have noted this from my own personal experiences. It doesn't always work, though. I had a teacher in high school that always wore a tie and the class totally ignored him. I felt sorry for him and sat up front with the handful of "nerds" that did pay attention. I guess I was a nerd, too. Hey, I got an A.

I agree with both Messy and Physics. Physics said she didn't care what the person wore as long as he/she was competent. Messy said she would have little faith in someone who came to work dressed as an unmade bed. (made me chuckle, btw!) If someone is neat and clean, even jeans can look fine. That is the key-don't look like you just rolled out of bed and think how you are presenting yourself.

I have had very few jobs where you didn't either have to dress up or wear some sort of uniform. I was a bank teller at one time. I wore a plum colored suit one day that included a skirt. My boss asked me if I had a date that night. I knew I was not wearing inappropriate attire so I just took it as a compliment.

And true, Incog, I wore slacks more often than skirts. At the bank, women had to wear pantyhose or stockings with a dress or skirt and I hate those things. Who was going to see my legs behind my teller "cage" anyway?

You are right, too. That LW should just dress all the time and the comments will stop. Gee, I wish I had HUGE problems like this.

You know, that's a fair question, and I believe the answer is mostly "yes." Having said that, however, I think there's still some truth to the localized nature of this issue...if you can call it an issue.

I worked a long contract at Xerox in Downtown Rochester and encountered a must higher than usual number of fashion renegades: suits and ties, old-school business dress. As a consultant I was required to wear a suit, but the relaxed the requirement after 6 months.

Funny - I was asked "what are you all dressed up for?" about half as mush as I was asked "why you don't you dress up any more?"

In the end, going to khaki's and polos was how I discovered the answer to this whole issue. A coworker was growling about some woman who, frankly, looked fantastic. I asked what the problem was, and the first response was "she's a goddamn analyst. Makes like ten bucks an hour. Totally overdressed."

I admitted it was likely true, but asked "what's the big deal?"

"She makes the rest of us look like slobs."

Oh. Ohhhhh. NOW I get it!

The question "what, you going out for a hot date" really means "what, you trying to make even more people notice that I look like a goddamn slacker junkie homeless loser by getting all tarted up, you bitch/son of a bitch?"

Consultants are sometimes chameleons. When you're invisible, you belong amid the crowd you're in. I make it a habit to dress to the level of my contract, with the minimum of business casual - if the room is filled with t-shirts and jeans, I'm in Khakis and a collared shirt, but if the room is filled (on that very, very rare occasion) with suits, I'm wearing one of them.

By the way, Sandstormz60: I've had about 20 of the 30 years I've worked in technology with banks. I knew a lot of tellers, and I was in LA, which means I knew a lot of people who'd had guns pointed at them and one who was shot dead.
I dated one, and she fought tooth and nail for comfortable ("sensible," she called them) pants and shoes at the both the teller line and the platform. She won, too. Her reasoning: "it's harder to pistol whip me if I'm running my ass off, which is a LOT easier in a pair of slacks and flat shoes."

There's the flip side to this, of course. I always dress to the nines because I like looking like a hot lil boom boom and on the rare occasion I stop by my office to pick up some paperwork or something and I'm dressed in anything less I get "what's wrong?!" Yeah, you guessed it; I'm wearing flip-flops 'cause somebody died.

schuylercat:

In the end, going to khaki's and polos was how I discovered the answer to this whole issue. A coworker was growling about some woman who, frankly, looked fantastic. I asked what the problem was, and the first response was "she's a goddamn analyst. Makes like ten bucks an hour. Totally overdressed."

I admitted it was likely true, but asked "what's the big deal?"

"She makes the rest of us look like slobs."

Oh. Ohhhhh. NOW I get it!

So that means the analyst didn't know her place. Reminds me of the cartoon where the first young humanoid walks upright. His horrified parents are shouting at him, "No, no; walk on all fours, like mommy and daddy!"

I gave up Corporate America ages ago. All of that uncomfortable suit + shoes + walking + no pockets + stockings + runs in stockings eventually got to me. For the past five years now my best friends have beenb haranguing me because they have only ever sene me in jeans, a t-shirt, and sneakers. I wear them to the bar, I wear them to any meeting I go to (Seeing the accountant? Jeans and a t-shirt and sneakers.), I wear them to any and all events, parties, meals, dinners, visits, etc.

I suppose if I ever dressed up people might think I was up to something, and I would have to be, really, in order to wear something besides my usual. I think at this point it is really a matter of taste. Some people (like my sister) enjoy makeup and nail stuff and pretty clothes and those shoes you can't walk in unless you plan to do more sitting than walking. I, on the other hand, embrace with joy the concept of casual. I don't even own a pair of high-heeled shoes or a skirt or a blazer. It feels real nice and it doesn't take me all day to get ready or all night to undo what I did getting all of that on.

That's the best you can manage? It's comfy, I guess, but not terribly creative. You could be just as comfortable and far more interesting than that. There's a difference between not being a victim and being a drone.

There's taste, and then there's the clothing equivalent of slouching.

I'm also a jeans,t-shirt & sneakers kind of person. & in the summer, sun dresses. I dress for my own comfort, not to impress others.

An excellent observation and seems to be a reflection of a culture that shuns all ground rules for respect and courtesy. Instead of identifying oneself with clothing that elevates one's appearance, there is much more of a desire to adorn one's "special" identity with nose rings, eyebrow and tongue piercings and the dreaded tatoos. Angelina, do all those stamps on your body really make the world more beautiful?

I hadn't realized that wearing uncomfortable clothes made for a lack of respect or courtesy. I have a tattoo but it's certainly not visible without a little searching, definitely not visible when i'm wearing a normal complement of clothing.

I don't see why clothing has to "elevate" my "appearance". I'm not wearing jeans with holes in them. I don't wear dirty t-shirts or raggedy shoes. I think it is very telling that in our society in the end, it's still about looks. If you don't look like you like to wear dress-up clothes then you're still nobody important, is the vibe I am getting. I live in Vegas where only Stepford Wives (like our future SW, LW#1) and (very pompous) business people get all dressed up just to look good for people who would only notice what they were wearing if it happened to be comfortable and therefore not professional enough.

And why need I be creative, MessyONE? I am asking not to pick (I quite enjoy reading your posts), I'm asking because I honestly want to know what it is that my wardrobe says about me that is more important than who I am. I go for easy, comfortable, easily replaced, and not-a-skirt-or-a-dress(or heels). For me it's the equivalent of a uniform, saves me time having to pick something out, find just the right thing to go with it, accessories, etc. About the only matching I do is "does this purse go with these sneakers?" which suits me just fine because I have developed an aversion to dressing for social approval, mostly because if clothing is *really* that crucial then society has a lot more scary issues than I thought.

MessyONE:

That's the best you can manage? It's comfy, I guess, but not terribly creative. You could be just as comfortable and far more interesting than that.

Why should she? If she's happy and comfy, she's definitely ahead of the game. There are people who use their clothes as an extension of their image, but I don't find it particular creative.

Though I admit, the girl in my math class with purple hair, miniskirts and roller blades is a hoot.