13 November 2009

Random stuff

I wish the teabagger movement had chosen something other "tea party" to denote itself. I like tea.

Normal beards are OK, but I hate those thin-layer-of-scraggle ones which have become common in the last few years, that look like the person just forgot to shave for three days or so. It's a slob look, no matter what the clothing.

One of the weirdest and saddest things that I've discovered via the internet is that there actually exist people who are offended by the sight of a woman breast-feeding a baby in public. Some of the same people think it's perfectly OK to smoke a cigarette in public.

When I visited Kiev I noticed that in general people dress better there than here. In particular, nobody was wearing white shoes with dark clothing. In fact, nobody was wearing white shoes.*

Libertarianism and Marxism paradoxically share the same flaw -- they reduce everything important to a matter of economics.

Some teabaggers once tried to test us. We ate their Hoffman with Scozzafava beans and a nice Chianti.

*Note: I am not a scold about clothes. Recently the office where I work introduced a dress code. All the employees hate it, but I was the only one to write a formal letter of protest to the division head against the idea.

6 Comments:

Blogger Ranch Chimp said...

I'm just curious if you had any success out of the dress code deal you responded to? At least some moderation or anything.

13 November, 2009 12:52  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

I didn't get any response, nor was I expecting one. I do hope that if they get some negative feedback about the policy, it will deter them from making it stricter later (and I've been told by someone who should know that that may well be true).

The management there isn't unreasonable, they're just out of touch. The dress code would have been pretty typical of how things were done back in the nineties.

13 November, 2009 13:09  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What exactly is their dress code?

13 November, 2009 15:21  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

The dumbest part is that anything made of blue denim (like jeans) is prohibited, but denim of any other color is OK. No longer will our vendors suffer the indignity of having their bills paid by clerks whose pants are the wrong color.

It also bans baggy clothing, miniskirts, and "excessive" jewelery (nobody there was wearing those things anyway), and T-shirts and flip-flops (like the blue jeans, these are common among people in that kind of job in the general run of companies I've seen).

The week before it went into effect I was talking about this with a couple of people in the department across the hall from us (who are not affected by the dress code) and they were pretty blown away by it. One of them, a man, said he would start wearing blue denim miniskirts in solidarity with the oppressed people of our department:-)

I've been specifically told that the way I personally dress isn't a problem, but I wrote the letter anyway because to me it's a matter of principle. People spend 40-45 hours a week at the office and the management should not be doing pointless things to make them less comfortable. Everybody in our group thinks this new policy is stupid. It's an anachronism -- something out of the twentieth century.

13 November, 2009 16:17  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's an anachronism -- something out of the twentieth century.

Yeah, those old geezers surely didn't know how to dress. ;)

I hate to say it (no, really), but that dress policy makes sense to me. (I know, I can be such a stick-in-the-mud.) Though the "makes sense" part depends on the nature of work we do.

If you deal with the public, such dress rules are common sense, in my judgment, as the principle (I assume) is to project the image of professionalism -- thus no casual denim, nothing too revealing or flashy, etc.

In more creative work environments, the rules can be more lax (again, IMO), but in the conservative companies and/or those dealing directly with the public, reasonable dress codes should be observed.

I realize we may differ in our interpretations of what "reasonable" means, of course. :)

I just had a conversation on the subject with my hair stylist, who is the owner of the hair salon I visit. We started talking about appearances and how they matter (or not), and she recalled a situation where she was reprimanded by a (male) customer, because one of her employees did not look polished enough (no make-up, plain clothes, etc.)

In her line of work (and in her salon specifically), there is a dress and appearance code that requires employees to project the image of glamorous confidence.

In a way, her stylists are required to personify the ideal (look), to which her customers are to aspire. Plain-looking and/or dressing candidates need not apply (of course she did not say that -- this is just my interpretation of what goes on in there).

13 November, 2009 16:59  
Blogger Infidel753 said...

Wrong. It is not reasonable at all. As my comment clearly states, this is an accounting (bill-paying) department (nothing like a salon, for obvious reasons). We don't deal with the public at all. In the very unlikely event that someone from another company were ever to go back there, presumably they too, being business people, know that stuff like blue jeans and T-shirts are typical in such environments nowadays (as I, again, specifically stated above is the case -- from all the temp work I used to do I've seen a lot of accounting departments and I know that this is true).

We occupy only part of the office building we're in. Every day on the elevators we see people who work in the normal companies elsewhere in the building who still get to wear blue jeans and otherwise dress how they like.

This dress code is an offensive anachronism. It is radically different from what is typical for this type of work environment at most companies, at least in this part of the country. Everybody who works in the department feels that way. Everybody. Even the one manager I know well enough to talk with frankly about it. It's the product of just a couple of out-of-touch people near the top in the department.

14 November, 2009 00:49  

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