For many Americans, Memorial Day weekend signals the beginning of summer. In my office, Memorial Day signals the beginning of summer attire. For reasons I do not understand, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, we are allowed to wear casual attire rather than business attire.
Of course, my office’s view of casual attire is not what I would consider casual.
Business attire is typically anything from a full suit to khaki pants and a button down shirt. I usually dress somewhere between the two. Casual attire is anything from khaki pants and a button down shirt to jeans and a nice shirt. Of course, people take it much more casual than that. I fully expect to see someone in a velour track suit at some point. And there will definitely be people in t-shirts. And I don’t mean nice solid colored t-shirts. I mean Michael Jackson tribute t-shirts and the like. I like Michael Jackson a whole lot, but don’t think a t-shirt with his face is appropriate for the office.
When I first started here, I said that I wouldn’t wear jeans during summer attire. I wanted to dress nicer than that. That plan quickly fell by the wayside. The dress code says we can wear nice jeans during the summer, so that’s what I do. I also wear cute summery skirts on occasion, but for the most part, it’s jeans and a nice top (and usually a cardigan, because it is freezing in the building). I still look well put together, I think, but not overly so. The people who do refuse to participate in summer attire tend to look like they’re trying too hard. I figure if my boss wears jeans, I can wear jeans.
But it brings up an interesting point. What is appropriate office attire? If everyone else is doing it, does that mean I should too? I know that some will say that I shouldn’t wear jeans at all – that I should stay professional all summer. I agree in theory. But I like my jeans, and I like not having to iron every weekend. From a frugal standpoint, I’m saving a lot of wear and tear on dress clothes. Jeans are much more durable.
I think that deciding what to wear in the office is a bit of a balancing act. You don’t want to go too far to the professional side (especially in this office, where if you wear a suit during the summer, people think you have a job interview elsewhere), but you don’t want to fall into the habit of dressing borderline inappropriately either. It’s easy to fall into that habit, though I don’t think I will be wearing a velour track suit anytime soon. (Or ever.)
What is attire like in your office? Do you have people who take it too far on either end of the spectrum?
Megan is a 40-something government employee in the Washington, DC area. She got interested in Personal Finance when she got out of college and realized that her paycheck wasn’t going to go as far as she had hoped. Since starting this blog, she has managed to buy a house and make a solid start on her retirement goals, and hopes to help others do the same. Here is her story:
In 2007, I was a gainfully employed 20-something with no debt but not a lot of knowledge about personal finance. It was a co-worker’s comment about Roth IRAs that sent me to the internet, searching for information. It was then that I realized that I really didn’t know a whole lot about personal finance and that my current financial situation was due a lot to inherent frugal tendencies, generous family members, a fear of debt, and good luck. While that was working for me, clearly I needed a better plan.
While I had no debt, I was also pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and not worrying about going over budget (I say this as if I had a real budget) because I had an emergency fund set aside to cover any overages.
Except that’s not what an emergency fund is for.
So I did a lot of research, read a lot of blogs, and decided that I needed a plan. I needed to budget. I needed to know what I was spending my money on. I needed to prepare for the future.
I decided to create a blog not only to make myself accountable to others but also to share the knowledge that I gained along the way. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers, and I hope that my readers can find something useful in what I have to share as well.
During our annual United Way drive, we’re allowed to “buy” jeans days with a donation. During the 35 days or so, I rotate between several pairs of dark wash trouser jeans and my usual professional attire with something nice (and a cardigan!) on top. Sometimes people don’t even realize my trouser jeans aren’t dress pants, which is the way casual should be in my mind. Dressy enough for no one to question it, yet comfortable and low maintenance. It’s a great way to save on dry cleaning.
I work in a satellite office, and the main office’s ‘official’ policy for our division is business casual (slacks or better) and jeans on friday. In the satellite office, we have a lot of other divisions whose policy is jeans any day… so our ‘unofficial’ policy for the satellite office is jeans any day but definitely not if you’re going to the main office on a monday-thursday. I try to keep my top choices to nice solid color tee or blouse that looks nice untucked all the time, but I also see lots of more casual tees. I find it funny, because our division doesn’t deal with the public at all and the other divisions do, so you would think it would be reversed.
I work in a call centre we wear flip flops, board shorts and tshirts, occasionally a jumper when it gets cold. Flip flops are way cheaper than shoes. Performance is measure by how much we achieve not how we look. I don’t think you need a suit to be serious.
My office has, of all the things, an explicit no formal wear policy. Other than that, just about anything other than lingerie goes–people show up in velour track suits, plaid pyjama pants, khakis and nice shirts…it really runs the gamut. I usually stick to jeans and either a teeshirt or a polo.
To be fair, though, my office is pretty self-contained–there’s no interaction with the public at all, unless you count the one person back in the warehouse who sees the postman.
Meghan, does that mean no ballgowns? That’s kind of a funny policy.
I work in the office of a factory. The dress code for office personal is business casual all year long. To me, that means slacks or skirt and a blouse or a dress. A suit is overkill. To some of my office mates, business casual means a gray sweat shirt and raggedy jeans. A velour track suit would be an improvement! I have gone so far as to mentioned how inappropriate this looks to the people. However, they just laugh and continue to wear their sweats.