Women's Dress Code

At work, we have a basic dress code on Monday thru Thursday which is known as "business casual." This is actually a fairly common dress code across the business world which means, in a nutshell, "don't wear jeans." Why? I really haven't figured that out, to be honest. I think, to an extent, the idea is that if you dress nice, you feel better, and you work harder. I believe this is somewhat akin to the reason the Spirit Committee exists.

That being beside the point, when you look at what people actually wear for this dress code, you might notice a bit of a gulf between the sexes. If you look at the male side of the coin, you see shirts and trousers. That's it. Sure, there is some variation on the types of shirts, but they all have collars (it's in the rules: shirts with collars) and sleeves (whether they be short or long), and the trousers are all about the same except for color. Shoes are pretty similar as well, though some of us toe the line and wear sneakers instead of dress shoes (yeah, way to stick it to the man!), but the shoes cover the entire foot front to back. With men's clothing, you see the head, the arms (sometimes), and hands. Nothing else.

Women on the other represent exactly how much you can get away with in a dress code. Everything is optional. Sleeves? Optional. Collar? Optional. Toed shoes? Optional. Trousers? Optional. Few, if any, dress with the level of coverage that men do. Don't hit with with "proper" dress, because what I'm speaking of is real life, not concept. These are things I've seen.

What inspired this writing was when I went to the break room and saw a woman in there wearing capri pants (but not made of denim) and a sleeveless (but not strappy) shirt with the converse style shoe and no socks. She might as well have been going to the beach. Most of the shoes I see women wear are slip on, so bare feet are a common sight around desks, and when they wear skirts, they rarely wear stockings, so you get an eyeful of leg as well.

Exactly what is the difference between skirts and shorts? Someone enlighten me. I mean from a purely scientific, fundamental perspective. They both involve coverage only down to about mid thigh, but it seems that skirts are fine for dressy stuff where shorts, despite the fact that they provide more coverage and come in formal styles and fabrics, seem to be inappropriate. It's my opinion that if skirts are allowable, shorts should be allowed as well. Yet, social stigmas prevent it. Anyway.

Moving to the upper half, the shirt (oh, I'm sorry; blouse) side of things is just as varied. Most women's shirts are cut fairly low so you get at least the upper portion of their chest if not a little cleavage. If I wore a shirt like that, I'd be sent home (and probably asked to shave). In men's shirts, you don't button the top button without a tie, and the only time you leave three buttons undone is on disco night, but that's about where most women's shirts seem to end is about three buttons down.

I know this comes off as a rant, but it seems that even though women have pushed for equal rights in all things, the clothing is a wide gulf of inequality. I want to wear the male equivalents of what women are wearing. That would mean shorts and a range of shirts without collars (I have some that are not t-shirts and don't have collars). I just think if we want true equality in the workplace, we need this change, or women have to wear trousers and collared shirts every day like we do.

That's not unfair. That's what they asked for a hundred years ago.

Conference Calls

The business world today is a wonderful flurry of communication. We have so many ways to stay in touch that some people of lesser minds are terribly and easily confused by how many ways we have available. But what is the best way? How can we get things done? How can we bring everyone together? Let me tell you the most pointless, and yet the most popular, in my own humble opinion.

Conference calls.

I hate conference calls. Most of the time when I am invited to a conference calls, it is because of my specialized knowledge. Someone has questions they want answered, and they want everyone on the line to both hear the answers and ask any follow-up questions they may have. To you, this may seem like a good idea, and writing it out, it even rings of sound reasoning. Here's where it goes wrong.

First, when I'm invited to "discuss" this, they never tell me anything about it ahead of time. I'm always invited via email with the title of "Discuss the Meaning of Life" or whatever the topic is. You can't just ship back 42, and be done with it though because they have to "discuss it." What I always wish they'd at least do is send me the questions they have, so I could be prepared, but I'll tell you why they don't do this (anymore). Someone sent me a list of questions they wished to "discuss" on a conference call once. I immediately shot back detailed answers to every one of their questions, and suddenly, we didn't need the conference call. The answers I gave were well worded, and well-researched which is how you respond to an email.

Have you guessed my preferred method? It's email. Here is how email is superior to a conference call. It goes to everyone on the call to read and reply at their convenience. The answers can be detailed and supported with information. They are immediately referenceable, if needed. Anyone can reply with follow-up questions that can also be read and replied to at the convenience of those involved. No one has to make sure they are sitting on the phone at a specific time. No one has to be there "just in case" and end up not participating (as is often the case when I am on one). There have been several calls where I've been called up only to not be needed after all when the issue is nailed down. They just never talked about it in enough detail before the call. Seriously.

A conference call is always chaos. They save up their best questions without revealing any of them ahead of time to watch me squirm. I don't like squirming. They also love blind-siding me with questions about stuff I never expected, and it always takes me some time to look up whatever it is they need to know. It wastes a ton of time for everyone waiting for the answer. They sometimes pepper multiple questions all at once, and I have to ask them to back it up and only shoot one at a time, and sometimes one question leads to another, so they start talking out of turn. One person is inevitably the moderator, and for some reason talks loudly, or yells, the entire time to try to establish that they are in charge of the call. I don't get that.

And email full of questions can take me sometimes up to thirty minutes to wade through, write everything out in a reasonable and easy to understand fashion. A conference call of the same questions will take an hour or more and no one will remember anything from it. Get that? They'll get the gist of it, but most of the time, the takeaway for everyone is that it is begin taken care of. They just needed that reassurance. Now that it is begin taken care of, I have to remember what the heck they asked that I was supposed to take care of.

Emails should be our first line of questioning, especially if there are detailed or in depth questions. They should never be saved for the conference call to be machine gunned all at once. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens. Every time. Which is why I hate conference calls.

Spirit Committee

So at my workplace, we have a group of people called the Spirit Committee. They take time out of their normal jobs (showing management how disposable they are) to come up with and execute ideas to make the workplace more enjoyable and a "better and more fun place to work" for those that apparently need more than a paycheck to keep them coming back every day. I'd rather they just give me the money they spend on their programs, and I'll find something one my own, but I digress.

So periodically, I get a quarter sheet of card stock with a notice printed in brilliant color as to what the spirit committee sponsored activity it in any given month. They are the folks behind the massive failure of the costume contest I spoke of previously. As you can imagine, I don't have the greatest confidence in them, and I honestly find the whole thing to be a grand waste of money. Over the summer, they threw a "company picnic" where we all took a long lunch break to go to somewhere else in town to have some hot dogs and throw balls at managers in a dunk tank (as long as you paid for the privilege of doing so as it was also a fundraiser for something else). That was it. There were some arcade games there, but not much worth playing. The only thing to do was socialize, and the problems with that are a) I can talk to people anywhere and b) I am not much of a talker so socializing is not something I find particularly enjoyable. So I was mostly bored and trapped since they bussed us over. They took a picture of everyone "having fun" at this rather boring building, and I decided to give the camera my exact opinion of my time there. Nothing obscene. I just didn't smile... It was kind of a scowl. I don't play the corporate game well.

Oh, and get this. This activity was called the company picnic. I'd been to company picnics before, and they generally involved the families of the employees. Our last few years have not. They have been internal only, overlong lunch breaks. Now, last year was admittedly better where they took everyone to Incredible Pizza and gave us all a one hour play card to do whatever, but even then, it seemed a bit silly when you think about it. I'm the first to admit I'm a big kid at heart, but whose idea was it to take a bunch of adults to a kids' place?

Their current deal is a mini "golfathon" where they've encouraged departments across the building to build mini golf holes in their area so people can play through in this sort of tournament. How's this working out? I really can't say for sure, but apparently, one of the committee members is being "pressured" into having our area make a hole. Yeah, he used the term "pressured." I read two things into this. First, he doesn't want to do it, so it wasn't his idea, and he had originally decided to just play along quietly. Now, they aren't getting the participation they want, and the fat's on the fire, so they want all the committee members to "step up" and show the organization that they had a cool idea.

There have been several "cool ideas" that have fizzled due to low participation. The last potluck they had was canceled due to next to no one volunteering to bring anything. Apparently, I'm not the only one protesting against the nonsense.

I honestly don't care. I am there for my time to goof off on the Interne-... um, work my butt off and go home where I actually enjoy my time. I don't need some silly committee to waste my time in mandatory fun. I do have actual work to do, and I was given the time I have to do it. Even if I have some down time, I have other things I can be doing. I only have a few precious hours per day, and to have those taken more than they've already been taken is annoying.

I think when I was younger, I somewhat got into the company events finding them somewhat fun, but having been in the "workforce" for some time now, I find that I don't care anymore. There are other things I'd rather be doing to earn my keep in this world, and I'd rather spend my downtime working towards those ends. Do I enjoy programming? Sometimes. There are other aspects that aren't as enjoyable.

Still, in the end, I'm only at this job for the paycheck. They can leave me out of the "fun." I'll have it later.