Just Make it to the Kitchen...

While on the metro yesterday, Alyssa asked me if heels were too formal to wear to work in an office setting (lets say, for example, in a government office). My answer was a resounding “NO,” since even as I’ve only typed less than a paragraph, my view of the hallway from my desk has allowed me to see at least five sets of heels go by, all of varying height and style.

Apparently Alyssa’s mom is under the impression heels are inappropriate in an office setting. I’ve been in this and other offices enough to know that is definitely not the case. There are a plethora of reasons that women wear heels at work: It makes them taller/more powerful looking, they just like looking nice, or they enjoy the sound they make while walking. All perfectly valid reasons to not listen to Alyssa’s mother.

This got me started on a tangent about men’s workplace attire. Monday through Thursday I come in with a fairly set wardrobe. I have about five light (usually some kind of a subtle stripe involved) dress shirts, dress pants (khaki, grey, and dark blue), about six ties (with clean, modern designs and colors that compliment my shirts), two pairs of brown shoes, and a belt. These get mixed and matched in a way where I make sure to never wear the same combo of shirt/pants/tie two weeks in a row, and I try for no repeats in three weeks. Friday I’m “casual” and allow myself to wear a nice, dark polo shirt.

I’m well dressed for my office. Some people wear suits, but most of them are higher level supervisors or having to do a presentation that day. I know that I’m highly visible, not just because of where I sit (up front) or what I do (public affairs and secretarial things), but because I’m 21 and have to dress to impress. And since no one can keep their mouths shut around here, I know that people take notice of “the young man up front with the nice tie on.”

I’ve actually succeeded in raising the standard around here. When I first arrived, people were wearing untucked polo shirts and sometimes jeans around all week. Last year, most of the guys switched to button down shirts and slacks most of the time. This year, they went from passing around one tie between them when they forgot they had a meeting that day (I wish I was joking), to actually having wearing ties of their own more days than not.

Why does this matter? Well, to me, I know that I end up judging a person almost immediately when I see them. The guy I had to work with over winter that showed up to a meeting with Important People wearing a dirty, oversized white tee shirt and jeans? I thought that he was a new seasonal hire, not an actual professional that’s been there for three years.

That’s a bit of an extreme case, but even when people meet with me in just a polo shirt, I’ll automatically be less formal with them than if they were in a suit. It’s just a natural reaction. It’s one of the reasons why I found it so much easier to work with my supervisor two levels up on casual Friday, so he would be less intimidating without the suit. And it works both ways, too. I get a lot more respect (and probably more credit than I’m due) on a regular basis than other people in my position that choose to dress in jeans.

And I just like to think that the days of the tie aren’t over quite yet. I like the look of the young professional (which is one of the reasons that I found London so interesting around the time everyone was breaking for lunch or going home for the day) and feel like it’s a dying art here in the US. Or at the very least, here in the US government.

A short sleeved button down shirt does not equal a long sleeved button down shirt. Some styles should be left to the younger generations. Casual Friday doesn’t mean that you can walk around in PJ bottoms. Backpacks look silly when used by someone in a suit. And the tie is not dead.