Dear Prudence,

I am quite disappointed at your advice to the young woman who is in her first job with the mean girls discussing her look as a 10 day rotation. Being out of college in your first job means being broke and paying back student loans. I think these women are just like the mean girls that do not realize the bond of sisterhood and demeaning another woman because of what she is wearing is shallow. Advising her to 'look in fashion magazines' will only make this woman continue to feel insecure. Where is feminism these days? This woman is conscious of what she wears, so why make her feel worse?

Sincerley,

berly

No amount of magazines or clothing will make those women happy. They are common bullies who need to feel better about themselves by criticizing others. They would simply pick on some other aspect of her personality or looks if the clothes were no longer an easy target.

Her best advice-get another job. You dont work for people who dont respect you.

It is possible that the mean girls actually do respect the younger woman's work and her as a person and just happen to be catty about superficial stuff like clothes. Ever work with engineers or actuaries? Wicked smart people, but many with so little fashion sense that they're almost asking to be ridiculed a little behind their back. Many of them are the first "go to" people when you need something done well.

If she leaves, she should know that short of working for herself from home, SOMEBODY in the workplace is going to make a judgement about her based on her clothes (and her hair, and her makeup, and her voice, and etc. etc.)

Bond of sisterhood? The bosses may be shallow and snarky, but a lot of people complain about their coirkers to one another without necessarily being terrible people themselves.

I feel like this one could go either way because we don't know how this woman actually dresses. It's possible that she does the best she can with a limited budget and her bosses are snobs. But it's also possible that she underestimates the office dress code and comes in looking like a slob every day. It's her first job out of college after all. If her bosses are wearing designer clothes, there's a good chance the office dress code may not be as informal as she thinks it is.

And admit it, if your new coworker started coming in to work in ridiculous looking clothes, you might comment on it too. Of course, her bosses should address her directly if her clothing is a problem, but maybe they hope she'll catch on herself.

sorry to be so confrontational, but in case this young girl reads your advice, i'd like to balance it with a counterpoint.

first off, job hopping automatically brands you as a volatile employee. your prospective does not care why, or your innocence. even if you're the impersonation of the madonna yourself, prospective managers dont want a person that invites confrontation. there's nothing you can say to wipe out the impression that you've had x number of jobs in x number of months or years. RML's advice is garbage.

second off, every job has its challenges. that's the work world. how well you master those challenges is what your personal reputation will be made of. the best resume is, have encountered numbers of bored britches and turned them into supportive friends. that is what every manager wants working for him/her, catalysts for positive change that makes managers look good, not runners from evil.

third off. you're fully into adulthood. that means a world of crap, unfairness, nonsense, pettiness, and other bullshit that doesn't make sense, much unlike the sheltered home of doting parents where there is justice, appeal, rules and regulations and love (if you're so lucky to have had that). get used to the adult world, there is no way around it. and hopefully you learned something, be careful what you wish for. kids can't wait to grow up and be independent. well, voila, enjoy.

Thank you for the note of sanity.

It's a nice fantasy that we'll be judged on our merits and people will look past superficial things. It's a fantasy though. You don't get to take some sort of political statement about merit by dressing like an adolescent boy, wearing a pony tail every day and not owning lipstick, not if you want to eat.

In the real world, the way you look, dress, put on makeup, etc. matters a lot. If there are two people job hunting with the same credentials, the one that presents themselves the best will get the job.

The Boy hires people all the time. These are all high achieving professionals. He and his colleagues pay close attention to dress and comportment because, like he says;

"Anyone who wants to work here had better make an effort in an interview. If they aren't looking their best, we assume they don't care about getting the job, so we don't call them back."

Damn right.

And note that she references The Boy. For those who have suggested that this is somehow a "women's issue," take note. Yeah, a lot of guys don't care about or pay attention to clothes. But, for better or worse, those of us who do are absolutely brutal. I hear and (ashamedly) sometimes make comments that put the What not to Wear pair to shame.

I dont worry about job hopping unless you have a history of it. Even then, companies are always laying people off and have no loyalty to employees, so why should an employee give anything back that isnt deserved-loyalty begets loyalty. If these women are going to make her life miserable and if they are that petty, she can find a new job and resign rather than being "confrontational"-this is both smart and professional-she has the right to be happy where she works and she certainly deserves to work where she will be a respected member of the team and not be treated like a lowlife.

Again, unless you cant hold a job for more than a year, you are not a job hopper if you do what is best for you and give every job you do accept your best. You are less of a professional if you stay in a bad environment-it makes you less efficient and more importantly less happy-and science is on MY side here.

"not owning lipstick" means you don't get to eat?

That's just ridiculous. I have never used makeup and don't own any cosmetics, yet I have managed to hold down a job in a NYC professional environment for 23 years. I'm the mom of a 29 year old son and I'm not trying to make any statements. But if my clothes were to send a message I hope they tell the world that I am a serious person who has more important things to do than conform to the petty stupid dictates of shallow sexist morons like 'the Boy' and those of his ilk.

There are other people in the work world who are more concerned with job performance and track record, than they are with how well you paint your face and conform to the latest twit fashions in handbags, expensive hair styles, painful female footwear, godawful pantyhose, and other uncomfortable and/or tacky abominations.

Since when does getting out of a bad job situation constitute job hopping? I'll tell you, I've been hearing this "stay a year" for a while now, and that's BULL! I'm 34, and in my first job out of college, it was headed up by a mean, vicious, verbally abusive woman who would head down the hall and stop randomly in people's cubicles/offices to go off on personally abusive tirades. And considering all of the other higher ups, including my own boss, were her own children, there was no recourse. I'm not kidding when I talk about the hostility this woman created. We're talking MAJOR lawsuit worthy...problem was, she had other family members who were major players in the local, fairly small-town legal community. Bringing out a lawsuit would have been far more damaging to my employment prospects than just quitting as quickly as possible. Breaking down in tears at home every night was not the healthiest way to enter my professional life (I'm still bitter.)

Fortunately, I had an in with another job, where they also happened to know quite well this woman's reputation. So I quit that first job, five months in (and endured two weeks of even worse harrassment while fulfulling my very professional two-weeks notice), and took the other job, where I stayed for over a year.

It's not worth demeaning yourself in a sickeningly bad job situation for at least a year to appease some bizarre, unwritten "rule."

I've never been sorry about that "job hop." And from what I've heard over the years, things did not improve at that company (other "high level" professionals were leaving in as little as SIX WEEKS.) But you know what, it's not even on my resume anymore! It never once created a problem in future job prospects, even when it was still on. One thing I've learned is if you make a personable "connection" with your potential employers as people, rather than cardboard corporate cutouts, you can communicate past disappointments effectively. Kind of indirectly saying, "I'm a human being, I quit a job pretty quickly because it was an unhealthy environment" and before you know it they're chatting about their own bumps early on.

My guess is that they are jealous: she's younger and in all probability in better shape, and if she is smarter and better looking, they have nothing left to belittle her for other than wardrobe. She says they've taken her under their wing, so they must appreciate her inteligence and motivation. This all sounds like what some career women that are getting a little older do when they see someone younger, smarter, and better looking, that is having all the successes they had, only a couple years sooner. They will, due to a good business sense, utilize that person's abilities though. . . Just a thought. .

Hear hear, bzl.

I have had the same experiences with "job-hopping." At least, in my industry, where skills are more valued over personality and politics, it's been perfectly acceptable to job-hop, so long as you have the right reasons.

The first time I was at a job for less than a year, it was a dead end and it was not developing my skills anymore. So good-bye to that. The second time, it was for a family emergency, and everyone could understand that.

I do want to add a caveat though. The level of acceptance for job-hopping is industry-specific. If I were the LW, I would scope out what that level is in her line of work.

But before resorting to quitting, she should consider modifying her wardrobe a bit and gauge the higher-ups' reaction. If they react warmly to her, then it would indicate that the wardrobe was the only problem she had afterall. If they start picking on other aspects of her personality, then they're just being mean, catty bitches, and she should get out of there, pronto.

I'm sorry to say, but my money is on the latter scenario. Who the hell ridicules someone for having a "10-day rotation"? I went into the workplace with less than that, and my first job was at a top New York law firm, for goodness sakes. If those bosses never made catty remarks about my clothing, which was just reasonable, office-appropriate items from the Gap, Express and H&M, then I can't imagine why her bosses would do such a thing. So I'm guessing it's very likely that they're just bitches. Sorry, LW.

Now people are ascribing attributes to the bosses that the LW never indicated. These aren't two women who have set out to make the LW's life miserable. Nothing indicates that they're anything but nice and professional to her while working with her, or that they've said mean things about her to anyone else. Until the LW overheard the unfortunate conversation, she thought that her bosses considered her their protegee. Also, she seems to like her job and enjoy working with these women, except for the comment she overheard. This isn't some terrible job situation that she's been longing to get out of.

Gossip is never good, but as I said before, I'm sure that many good decent people have made a comment to a friend about someone else's odd clothing or behavior. I agree with intersurfa insofar as the LW is going to have to deal with difficult people and situations for the rest of her life. If this is the biggest issue that she's had to deal with at work, it's far from a toxic atmosphere and she should chalk it up to a learning experience and continue to do her job well while evaluating herself to see if there's something in her appearance causing her to look unprofessional.

I agree with you. They may have even intentionally been overheard, just to hurt the girl's feelings.

Sorry but these women were in agreement. When one woman says something to the other and she just smiles or nods or says, yeah that is far from two women sharing a major joke at your expense. Furthermore, the LW doesnt mention them talking to her about it, so the weight is on they dont respect her-not even enough to share something as simple as maybe she isnt dressing appropriately (maybe a high fashion store sales person should have a wardrobe the size of a small country, but whats wrong with a 10 day rotation for an office?

It is indeed true that you need to deal with difficult people no matter where you go or what you do, but these people were showing a serious lack of respect.

In my experience, if they dont respect you things are not going to change without some major incident changing their mind-and since they are clearly bonded at the shallow level, she is not going to see things improve.