Posted on 06/29/2016 4:18:33 AM PDT by C19fan
I tried to abide by the saying, “Don’t dress for the job you have; dress for the job you want.” It made sense and I was promoted often. Also, while working in H.R. for many years (God help me!) I read articles in professional journals showing that it’s been proven that the better people dress, the better their performance — across the board, no matter what the job.
Good answer at the site...
Y’all were pretty out of line. You were interns there — basically guests for the summer. Their rules are their rules. This is like being a houseguest and presenting your host with a signed petition (!) to change their rules about cleaning up after yourself. You just don’t have the standing to do that.To be clear, that doesn’t mean that you need to suck up any and every condition of an internship. You don’t. But this wasn’t something like asking you to do unsafe work or work unreasonable hours; this was asking you to abide by what sounds like a very common and reasonable professional dress code.
They presumably have that dress code because, rightly or wrongly, they’ve determined that it’s in their best interest. Sometimes these sorts of dress codes make sense (like when you’re dealing with clients who expect a certain image). Other times they don’t. But you really, really don’t have standing as interns to push back on it in such an aggressive way. And beyond standing, you don’t have enough knowledge as interns to push back so aggressively — knowledge of their context, their clients, and their culture.
Unless you are tough enough to handle engineering. It DOES prepare you for the real world and then some.
Not surprised at all. Another simple rule of thumb is to dress to the level of your immediate supervisor.
I’ve got a couple interns working for me this summer, and they are good kids. They dress properly, they come in on time, even early, they get their tasks done, and they are trying to learn as much as possible. In addition, they are teaching us old dogs some new tricks, and showing up a couple of the guys, on one occasion, even myself. I’m glad they are here.
If they demanded stuff like the little snowflake princesses in the OP, they’d be gone in a freakin heartbeat, i wouldn’t even have to tell HR first. Just go. Get your stuff and GET OUT, now.
Management did these idiots a huge favor. Better they learn now that high school and college tactics for getting their own way don't work in the work place.
Things they don’t tech anymore.
1: When applying for a job the FIRST IMPRESSION you will make on the personnel manager is the most important.
Dress and act like a bum and they will take you for a bum.
Maybe, but an actual ADA disability carries a lot more weight than wanting to feel more relaxed. The law requires that “reasonable accommodations” be made for disabilities, and running shoes are more than reasonable accommodations for a veteran missing a leg. Management probably would have offered to amputate the leg from any intern who wanted to be allowed to wear casual shoes. Then they would have pointed out the clause in the interns’ applications where they acknowledged that they did not have a disability requiring that kind of accommodation, and shown them all the door anyway.
She should be careful. I don’t think that grocery carts are designed to carry that much weight.
That's true in the real world, where there are laws and stuff, but in the bubble of school, there is no acknowledgement of reality, only "feelings."
At their schools, these students are treated as equals (at least!) to the faculty/staff, both because of ideology and because the systems need them and their parents as customers. At a school, they could expect a sympathetic response to the "merits" of their dress-code complaint, as well as praise for their tiny cleverness in presenting it neatly in writing and their tiny communism in acting as a group to exert pressure.
However, they've never actually had to mature. Their dress-code issues are simply, "Mommy won't let me wear what I want all the time. WAAAAAAH!" dressed up. If it hadn't been dress code, they'd probably have found some other issue that "required" them to challenge what they perceived as illegitimate patriarchal authority structures.
The work world (outside government) was obviously a rude awakening for them. I wonder what percentage of the group will ultimate choose to get real and participate in life as responsible adults, and how many will try to organize their lives so that they never again have to leave their "safe space."
My son intuited the value of being a sharp dresser on his own. (And I encourage it, as well as his cleanliness ;-). However, it was also emphasized in his college business course. If nothing else, the university wants a good placement rate for its graduates, and the administration knows what will “sell” in the marketplace.
I’m with you. I would love to see society dress nicer in every venue. I really think it affects behavior in a positive way. Of course, we’re far gone in the other direction.
I agree. One of my pet peeves, which some will disagree with, is that people don’t dress up for church anymore.
Yes, I’m happy to see people go to church. But we’re talking tennis shorts, baggy pants which are so low cut you can see the great divide when they bend over, torn t shirts.
Schools have no real dress codes anymore either. Perhaps it’s just generational, but this has bugged me a lot, that church is no longer a dressy place.
I’ve seen just as bad at funerals. Totally disrespectful.
***One of my pet peeves,... is that people don’t dress up for church anymore.***
I agree, but in the past how well you dressed for Church was an indication of the difference between the “Haves” and the “Have nots”.
Dressing became such an ego trip in the olden days that every Easter week, people would buy new duds to wear to church, then parade up and down the tony areas of town showing off their new clothes. It was called....THE EASTER PARADE.
2 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism.
2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in.
3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,”
4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
BUT I AGREE, it is possible to go too far in the opposite direction. People need to show more discretion in how they dress.
Why do I think that wasn’t the only reason?
I agree with both your points. On the one hand, lazy slovenliness is tacky and disrespectful. On the other hand, status competition in dress is unchristian.
On the other, other hand, with teenagers, the tackiest things have the highest status!
like examples I have learned about in school” Rule #1, kid...college doesn’t prepare you for the real world.
As I recall,with IBM,NCR a business degree may allow you to enter their 8-12 month program to 'learn' the IBM, NCR ""way"" of business
Summer interns hired. Rather than considering themselves lucky to have a J-O-B, they set about crafting a petition to change the company, a company they don’t have a friggin’ CLUE about. Further, they choose a completely trivial matter to rail about, the dress code. I’d fire ‘em in a heartbeat—it shows they are concerned about themselves, feel a sense of entitlement. Their opinions are worth squat. Hit the bricks, learn from this error, and don’t repeat it. NO one cares about the opinions of temp workers hired to get their feet wet.
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