Lighter side: City adds underwear to dress code
July 6, 2009 by Sam NarisiPosted in: Firing, Hiring, In This Week's E-Newsletter, Latest News & Views
A Florida city recently made some drastic changes to its employee dress code. Two new items worth noting:
Employees must now wear underwear and deodorant.
The dress code is part of a new, three-page policy the city council of Brooksville hopes will increase professionalism, Tampa Bay Online reports. Revealing clothing and body piercings are now expressly banned, and employees are told to observe “strict personal hygiene,” including the deodorant clause.
Written under the heading of “unacceptable attire”: “the observable lack of undergarments and exposed undergarments.”
The underwear mandate and the other rules were approved by a council vote of 4-1, with the city’s mayor, oddly enough, as the lone dissenter. He said the requirement “takes away freedom of choice.”
Tags: dress code, handbook, policy
July 10th, 2009 at 10:43 am
This is kind of an odd thing, but at the same time it has to do with your hygiene making it a vital part of professional dress code. My question is…how are they really going to know if you’re wearing underwear or not?? People can easily disobey this policy. However if they are caught which I would assume women would be the higher suspects having two areas for undergarmets and wearing tighter clothing.
July 10th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I get the no exposed undergarment requirement. But I’m not sniffing pits or checking to see if anyone is violating the dress code by not wearing underwear…I don’t even want to know! Yikes!
July 10th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Seriously? How do you police and/or address the issue of no underwear? In my opinion – if someone is looking that hard to see if a person is actually wearing underwear then they could be accused of some form of sexual harassment. I understand the exposed undergarment issue but that is a completely separate thing. Also – I think all company handbooks should contain some policy regarding professional appearance and “personal hygiene” where the deodorant issue should be addressed.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I get both the no underwear issue and the exposed undergarment issue – especially in an area like Florida, where because of the heat and humidity, a lack of clothing is a normal thing. With summers gauzy fabrics and lighter weaves, it does not take Superman to see through many articles of clothing. Unfortunately some people need formal education on proper dress in the workplace. Although sometimes it is strictly a cultural thing – remember this great country has many immigrants. I worked at a plant where we hired many refugees and deodorant was not a common practice in their home country. Believe me – you didn’t need to sniff armpits to know they were not wearing deodorant! We revised out orientation to include the topic of proper hygiene, so we could address the topic before it became an issue.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
My assumption on the “observable lack of underwear” notation is that they’ve had issues with obvious lack of coverage. They’re not necessarily saying “you must wear underwear”…they’re saying that no one should be able to tell if you’re not wearing it. Sometimes it’s obvious when women are not wearing a bra and it is distracting and unprofessional in the workplace.
And I agree with Mari – you don’t need to sniff armpits to know that someone isn’t wearing deodorant. We’ve had that issue in our office as well. We even had a few guys who went running at lunch in the heat of summer without deodorant and went right back to work without putting any on. It’s just not appropriate in a professional environment.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:34 am
It’s a shame that this sort of thing has to be stated in a written policy. So many today take no pride at all in their appearance.