Pants

[HawaiianShirts]

I'd just like to whine for a minute.

It's hot. Where I live, the temperatures are usually rather mild, even tending toward the "cool" side of the thermometer. We have a few weeks of really cold whether when it might snow, and there's usually one or two weeks each summer of scorching heat (90-100 degrees Fahrenheit, which I know is not as hot as some other CS members have to live through). Most people don't bother to put air conditioners in their homes because they'd only use them for about a week every year.

Anyway, it's the hot season. We've hit the low 90s once or twice now, and it's expected to do the same through this week. I'll get by. What bothers me, though, is my workplace dress code.

In hot weather like this, the women wear loose dresses, or short pants, or even short skirts.
The men are still required to wear full-length pants.

It's a closed office. We don't have uniforms. Most of us don't have any visual contact with our clients, and those that do have direct contact go to the clients instead of bringing them to us. It's not as though I have to maintain a public image here. I stay in my cube most of the day and do my work.

So why can't I wear shorts?

[iradney]

What about using a hole punch to "air condition" your pants from the knee down? It's still a full length pant leg that way...

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At the swamp, the gals in pharmacy and optical get to wear capri pants and sandals. Not flip flops, mind you, but they don't have to have a strap across the back.

Obviously sandals are out for me because I enjoy limitless opportunities to drop heavy things on my toes, but there's no reason at all why we can't wear shorts. Nice ones, not baggy or overly long, and if cargo pockets are a bit too casual that's okay.

Or even jeans. Khakis get really messed up and ripped when you spend your days picking things up and putting them down again. The garden center people get to wear jeans and shorts, but not me.

Frankly, this whole "professional attire" thing for employees at big box stores is ridiculous. We sell laundry detergent, toilet paper, toasters, motor oil, Fisher-Price toys and unfashionable clothes. Not BMWs or Armani suits.

[sms001]

Ours is rather arbitrary too Hawaiian. We ARE allowed to wear shorts as kitchen workers, but the owner decides (and puts an email on the time clock) when we can start and when we have to stop wearing them! WTF? So those of us who could probably wear them for nine months of the year get restricted to three. And if there's an Indian Summer, we're screwed.

Referencing your situation, a St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist (McClellan?) many years ago made a VERY good case for shorts - professional looking dress pants, only... shorter - as sensible business attire. He stretched it out to column length, but the gist was that it's hot and muggy in St. L. in the summer, it makes sense just as it does in the tropics.

Maybe you could approach the decision makers with a few googled guidelines from white collar organizations that do allow it?

[Seshat]

Or even jeans. Khakis get really messed up and ripped when you spend your days picking things up and putting them down again. The garden center people get to wear jeans and shorts, but not me.

Have you tried the sort of work pants they sell for blue collar workers? Some of them are manufactured to look superficially similar to 'dress' pants, but they're of very tough material.

Your big box store may even sell them.

[HawaiianShirts]

At the swamp, the gals in pharmacy and optical get to wear capri pants and sandals. Not flip flops, mind you, but they don't have to have a strap across the back.

Khakis get really messed up and ripped when you spend your days picking things up and putting them down again.

Yeah, I was just thinking about the sandal thing too. Nearly all of my female co-workers were wearing some kind of open shoe today. Me? Socks and regular shoes.

And I'm with you on the khaki thing. I went through several pairs of those when I worked for Major Electronics Retailer. Eventually, I just started buying them at the local second-hand shops. Quality didn't matter; those pants were going to be destroyed.

Referencing your situation, a St. Louis Post Dispatch columnist (McClellan?) many years ago made a VERY good case for shorts - professional looking dress pants, only... shorter - as sensible business attire. He stretched it out to column length, but the gist was that it's hot and muggy in St. L. in the summer, it makes sense just as it does in the tropics.

Maybe you could approach the decision makers with a few googled guidelines from white collar organizations that do allow it?

I just may give that a try... Or maybe I'll just wear shorts and sandals tomorrow and claim ignorance if anybody asks. And if that doesn't work, perhaps iradney's suggestion is the next step...

[Food Lady]

I could wear a long khaki skirt if I wanted to, which would be cooler, but they are so hard to find, and I don't feel like sewing. We can wear capris, but they have to come down to just above the ankle, and then we have to cover the ankle with socks in case a cart runs into us or something. So there's no point. I just wear long pants and closed shoes--the same fleece-lined ones I wore all winter--and shower when I get home, if need be. I could do canvas tennies, but they are usually too narrow for me feet, so whatever. The only people in our store who can wear shorts are cart attendants, since they work outside. But that seems an opportunity for a leg injury. I don't know. Maybe I will make some of my pants into a skirt.

[reimero]

The solution is simple: kilts.

[icmedia]

Sounds like it's time for you to take a close look at your company's dress code, and pull one of these:

Train driver Martin Akersten says he and more than a dozen others at the Roslagsbanan line have started wearing skirts in the summer as a protest against the train company’s uniform policy, which doesn’t allow shorts.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/09/...kirts-to-work/

[laborcat]

The solution is simple: kilts.

Sounds like it's time for you to take a close look at your company's dress code, and pull one of these: <quote about folk wearing skirts to get around dress code>

When my workplace changed the dress code to only allow shorts for truck unloaders, garden center, and cart pushers, one of the guys in Michigan wore a skirt all summer long in protest. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I find it highly amusing still. It gets damned hot in those stores when it's muggy out, I know I've come home drenched in sweat from wearing black jeans and those ridiculous polos. Though I did finally get some newer, smaller polos that are more cotton and don't seem to be as hot.

[MoonCat]

Well, you could always learn to sew and make pants out of gauze. You'd still be wearing pants, right...?

Seriously, I sympathize. I think dress codes are stupid when they interfere with comfort to that degree.

[fireheart]

I remember the rules at my old job (which were insanely stupid). The rule was that shorts could only be worn in designated stores when it was 38C and over. Those stores? Not in my state.

On top of that, only men could wear shorts. Not women. For women it was either pants or skirts. Grrr...

Now at my current job, the rules allow shorts and pants for both sexes. No skirts >.<
(which sucks)

[HawaiianShirts]

We were all assigned an online training today about equality in the workplace. After I completed it, I emailed the manager to ask why I can't wear shorts when some of my female co-workers are wearing sleeveless tops and miniskirts in this (relative) heat wave. No response yet...

[Trixie]

Back before my company changed our dress code 10 times in the last 4 years, all the guys had to wear ties but women could wear any kind of shirt or pants and closed toe shoes. I mainly kept comfortable business casual but there were a few people that would wear capris and t-shirt printed with stuff. I don't know I guess that was just my own personal pet peeve.

[fireheart]

Back before my company changed our dress code 10 times in the last 4 years, all the guys had to wear ties but women could wear any kind of shirt or pants and closed toe shoes. I mainly kept comfortable business casual but there were a few people that would wear capris and t-shirt printed with stuff. I don't know I guess that was just my own personal pet peeve.

Oh I can go one better.

My work is fairly lax on the rule about pants and shorts (basically as long as they're black, go down to mid-thigh length and don't have huge logos or are ripped/torn/whatever it's fine), which also means that a few girls think it's a lovely idea to wear SHORT-SHORTS to work.

Me? I went the best of both worlds and I wear 3/4 length pants.