Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!bridge2!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!rutgers!bellcore-2!bellcore!dduck!duncan
From: duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Dress code
Message-ID: <25875@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 31 Jul 90 12:13:44 GMT
References: <847@meaddata.mead.UUCP> <6610003@hpclapd.HP.COM>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Organization: Bellcore, Piscataway, NJ
Lines: 37

In reading things posted on this topic, I do not believe I have read one of the
reasons I have often been given in the past for dress codes which is related to
the customer-image issue.  Wearing non-distinctive dress has been justified to
me -- not where I currently work but a few jobs back -- on the basis of avoid-
ing people becoming a "distraction" to other business goals.

This sounds bizarre, but it seems to come partially from a sales/marketing or-
ganization view that customers, during presentations or other kinds of inter-
actions, will be distracted by distinctiveness in dress and not be as well fo-
cused on the sales/marketing goals for the interaction.  This used to be an ex-
cuse why minorities, women, the physically/mentally distinct, etc. were also
considered "distractions" in business settings.

Before you deny this view, consider for a moment how you may have seen people
(if you don't admit to it yourself) reacting to things "out of the norm" in a
business interaction.  Whatever people are not used to seeing or dealing with
can be a distraction, or even a discomfort, in the process.  Hence, conservative
approaches to business -- which set the pattern many years ago -- wanted to
avoid such problems and mandated appropriate business attire as a means of
homogenizing everyone and building personal predictability into business situa-
tions.

As I said above, bizarre in terms of how many think about personal freedoms and
how people should be treated today.  But I suggest that assumptions about dress
codes and the like are based on manmy of these older ideas while they look for
more modern justifications.

I do not object, in principal, to dress codes, but I question their basis in
many cases.  If they are based on a current standard of company image, that's
one thing, but if they are justified only to reinforce old stereotypes of what
"other people think" or will accept, then I think they're a dangerous sign of
prejudices in action.

Speaking only for myself, of course, I am...
Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan)
                (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane  RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ  08854)
                (908-699-3910 (w)   609-737-2945 (h))