The office 'scolding email' thread

[Elpenor]

Dress code comes up occasionally. Main thing for working at home is no hoodies or jeans. Of course they can’t tell if you’re wearing jeans! A bit daft.

A pair of smart trousers and a shirt in the office. I wear black trainers rather than smart shoes though. Not meant to but waiting for someone to notice.

I lighten my hair but it remains a natural colour and again waiting for someone to notice.

 

[Orang Utan]

They can’t tell you what to wear in your own home!

 

[Elpenor]

Video calls etc is the argument, representing the organisation etc. I don’t speak to anyone external but can end up talking to very senior folk who potentially might get shitty. I don’t actually have any hoodies anyway.

I’m happy to not rock the boat on this as my team has an extra day at home unlike the rest of finance and I don’t want to lose that advantage.

 

[mx wcfc]

Video calls etc is the argument, representing the organisation etc. I don’t speak to anyone external but can end up talking to very senior folk who potentially might get shitty. I don’t actually have any hoodies anyway.

I’m happy to not rock the boat on this as my team has an extra day at home unlike the rest of finance and I don’t want to lose that advantage.

The thing I find now, is that on all calls, the clients are just as sloppily dressed as I am.

 

[Orang Utan]

I always turned the camera off anyway as I didn’t want them to see me reading the news online during meetings

 

[Orang Utan]

Why would you wear an hoodie indoors anyway?

 

[Elpenor]

Why would you wear an hoodie indoors anyway?

It’s the winter and it’s cold in your house based on what my colleagues say.

Camera on is meant to be compulsory at my shop.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Main thing for working at home is no hoodies

get a bobble hat instead?

 

[mx wcfc]

Why would you wear an hoodie indoors anyway?

I wear hoodies a lot.

Not often at work, but while energy prices have been high, it's not such a bad idea, when wfh,

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I wear hoodies a lot.

Not often at work, but while energy prices have been high, it's not such a bad idea, when wfh,

someone i once worked with would wear his trilby in the office if it was cold.

if it was really cold, he'd wear a balaclava and put his trilby on over that.

this was some time before video calls were thought of, and he was kept away from the public. he was a bit strange, even by the standards of people who work for bus companies...

 

[Orang Utan]

someone i once worked with would wear his trilby in the office if it was cold.

if it was really cold, he'd wear a balaclava and put his trilby on over that.

this was some time before video calls were thought of, and he was kept away from the public. he was a bit strange, even by the standards of people who work for bus companies...

Like this?

 

[equationgirl]

They can’t tell you what to wear in your own home!

Well, they can try, but I have no idea how they would enforce it.

 

[kabbes]

Dress code comes up occasionally. Main thing for working at home is no hoodies or jeans. Of course they can’t tell if you’re wearing jeans! A bit daft.

Do they specify that you have to wear any trousers at all?

 

[ElizabethofYork]

Dress code comes up occasionally. Main thing for working at home is no hoodies or jeans. Of course they can’t tell if you’re wearing jeans! A bit daft.

That's mad. I've never heard of a dress code for working from home before!

 

[May Kasahara]

I always turned the camera off anyway as I didn’t want them to see me reading the news online during meetings

I sometimes turn mine off because my face tends to say what I'm thinking

 

[May Kasahara]

We do have a loose dress code at work but it's more about safety e.g. don't wear open toed slippy sandals if you're taking students out in the community and might have to run after them.

 

[Elpenor]

Do they specify that you have to wear any trousers at all?

Well I almost always wear shorts in the summer

I suppose I compare to before covid when I worked in an office and it was smart trousers and a long sleeved shirt every day even in the summer, so basically the same outfit as the winter, dress down on a Friday which basically meant jeans and a similar shirt so just as horrid in the summer. So I don’t mind a practically unenforceable dress code for wfh as I have the freedom to wear what I want most of the time.

 

[quiet guy]

I never have my camera on unless I am instructed to as part of a meeting to have it on. I also have a slider cover over it as a just in case to stop being spied on.

 

[Orang Utan]

I sometimes turn mine off because my face tends to say what I'm thinking

I once had an appraisal in which I was told I could try not to look so bored or fed up in (face to face) meetings. This remains a challenge for me. How is that my fault?
Most of our meetings is just the boss reading out information that’s already been sent in emails.

 

[Orang Utan]

Do they specify that you have to wear any trousers at all?

I would have though that the Winnie-the-Pooh look was de rigeur for WFHers

 

[kabbes]

I would have though that the Winnie-the-Pooh look was de rigeur for WFMers
View attachment 374213

Works for me, but without the smile

 

[MickiQ]

That's mad. I've never heard of a dress code for working from home before!

I was in a Teams video conference with a client during the lockdown and they didn't say anything during the meeting but it later transpired that one of the client's managers had complained about the fact that my female colleague wasn't wearing any makeup.

 

[Orang Utan]

(I wear shirts and trousers at home even on my days off, though I swap shoes for slippers)

 

[Orang Utan]

I was in a Teams video conference with a client during the lockdown and they didn't say anything during the meeting but it later transpired that one of the client's managers had complained about the fact that my female colleague wasn't wearing any makeup.

That’s surely illegal

 

[Elpenor]

I would have though that the Winnie-the-Pooh look was de rigeur for WFHers
View attachment 374213

My clothes fit about as well as Pooh’s do

 

[ElizabethofYork]

I was in a Teams video conference with a client during the lockdown and they didn't say anything during the meeting but it later transpired that one of the client's managers had complained about the fact that my female colleague wasn't wearing any makeup.

What a knob.

 

[MickiQ]

That’s surely illegal

What? EAM asking her to wear makeup (which as far as I know they didn't) or him complaining about it? I can't imagine any possible scenario under which the latter would be illegal what could he be accused of?
As for the first well some Googling suggests that employers can indeed insist on female employees wearing makeup if it is 'appropriate' The Devil in the Detail is figuring out what's appropriate.
Dress codes are allowed to take account of gender and don't have to be identical providing they are of 'equal' weight (another subjective word there)
EAM's dress code is/was smart casual at the office and business attire if meeting customers. There are some guidelines, male employees were required to wear a suit and tie. Female employees were banned from too short skirts and too high heels. I'm freelance contractor scum rather than staff so I don't have my copy of the handbook anymore but it really wouldn't surprise me if makeup for female employees was mandatory for meeting customers and optional for the office. This happened during lockdown so she (like me) was working from home.
One amusing thing I do remember from the handbook was that it did actually say skirts were optional for women but banned for men so I've always wondered if someone had ever tried to push the limits.

What a knob.

I don't know what if anything her manager said to her but she was re-assigned to another project within a week (which is how I found out when I emailed her to ask something) and replaced with a man.
This must have added a couple of weeks to the project which was costing £tens of thousands per day whilst he caught up with where she was.
There were four client managers on the project (though to be honest you could have replaced all but one with cardboard cutouts for the value they added) and all four of them stayed involved with the project.
I don't know which particular one complained but there was one that was a particularly stupid and annoying twat so I mentally accused him but I don't know for sure.

 

[Orang Utan]

I doubt you can force women to wear make up at home, or at work. If that’s not illegal, then it should be.
Dress codes are inherently sexist. Why can women wear skirts while men cannot wear shorts? Why can’t men wear skirts if women can wear trousers? And that’s before we even mention trans folk.
People need to be awkward about this. I don’t many would be disciplined for disobeying such nonsense orders, especially if it’s done en masse. I’ve always ignored, or at least twisted, such rules and got away with it. IIRC some male bus drivers in a European city managed to get a ‘no shorts’ directive overturned by turning up in force wearing skirts

 

[A380]

I was in a Teams video conference with a client during the lockdown and they didn't say anything during the meeting but it later transpired that one of the client's managers had complained about the fact that my female colleague wasn't wearing any makeup.

Should say ok and turn up to the next meeting like this.

 

[Voley]

The leaving your camera on/off thing has been a topic of amusement round ours lately. An immediate member of my family who shall remain nameless got popped for speeding recently and had to do the speed awareness course.

You can do these online now (on Zoom, ironically ). They're very hot on confidentiality so you have to keep your camera on at all times so they can see that there's no-one else in the room having a nose at who else has broken the speed limit lately etc.

So the guy doing the course notices one guy keeps turning his camera off and tells him to put it back on. This happens a few times until eventually he tells him to put it back on permanently or he'll get booted off the course and have points on his licence. He does this only to reveal that he's in a car and fucking driving. Could only have been bettered if he'd been speeding too really.