Later this week, FalStaff will be having some very important people in the building. For this reason they’ve announced that they’re going to suspend our new casual dress code for Wednesday and Thursday of this week.

This dress code has been every bit the disaster I had predicted it would be. Unless enforced, it is inevitable that certain people will try to push whatever limits are imposed. In that vein, a company that refuses for enforce its dress code is actually better off having a more stringent dress code.

In short, you don’t ban jeans to keep people from wearing jeans. You ban jeans cause it keeps people from wearing spaghetti and doll tees. So even if you’re not revved up about enforcing a dress code, you can focus on that one aspect of it and the rest will, more or less, follow. Once you allow jeans, though, it provides camoflauge for everything that a company doesn’t want its employees wearing.

Kirk has been sent home today for wearing an NFL jersey, for instance. Some young ladies are wearing open-midriff look-at-my-boobs shirts (though they’re not getting sent home, more on this later). Many are wearing sandals, some are wearing beach-style flip-flops. None of this is even remotely allowed in the dress code. No one was wearing any of this prior to the relaxation of the dress code. They enforce said code no more of less than they used to. The only real difference is that the line of scrimmage has been moved, and people have adjusted their dress accordingly.

When I was first driving out here, I was struck by Colorado’s 80mph speed limit, a full 10mph faster than the previous state’s limit. When entering Colorado I was already going 80, so I started going 90.

Our department complains that we are the only ones getting targetted for dress code violations. The guys and gals in sales, marketing, and account management are wearing considerably more questionable attire. I was flagged a week or so ago for wearing Southern Tech t-shirt, meanwhile nothing was said to the accman wearing a camo t-shirt with the words “Hot stuff” across the front.

Enforcing dress codes on women is tricky stuff. This is especially true when approximatly 100% of the executive leadership is male and approximately 100% of the department heads are, amazingly, male. Men are not supposed to notice that she’s got the words “Hot stuff” written across her chest unless we’re looking at it. One can’t say anything about dressing provocatively or distractingly without admitting that they’re provoked or distracted.

Point of all this being that enforcing a dress code is hard. Ideally, it wouldn’t be necessary. But when over half the company is below 30 and all but a handful of employees are under 40, it’s somewhat inevitable. But they’ve decided not to do that. in fact, I think the relaxing of the code is a capitulation - a mistake which I believe will become evident Wednesday when half the company shows up to greet the governor’s folks in casual dress.

Then they will do what they always threaten to do - take away our “privileges,” then do nothing, then no doubt wonder why no one does what they say.