Mental Health Thread #7 -- Summer's Coming!

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hrforme said:
Back from Alaska and hitting the ground running with jet lag while processing payroll and catching up...not a fun combination. But I must say to cynthiag that I LOVED Ketchikan. We went on the excursion to the Rainforest Sanctuary so we got to see some of the town too. They had reindeer there also that we got to pet and feed. I spent way too much at the shops and just had to buy a pair of small Northern Lights Topaz earrings along with quilting fabric at the store in Salmon's Landing.

It's a majestic state and I would highly recommend a trip to Alaska for anyone wanting something different! But darn that 4 hour loss in time change is biting me back!
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I'm glad to hear that you had a good experience here! What was the weather like when you were in town? We've had some exceptionally wet weather recently so hopefully it wasn't too bad when you were here.

It's cool that they still have the reindeer at the Rainforest Sanctuary. We always drive by there but I've never actually gone there so I wasn't sure if they still had them or not. Did you do any of the other tours while you were here?

It's easy to spend a lot at the shops; every summer I take my grandkids out to "play tourist" for an afternoon and even for those of us who live here, there's always fun stuff to find (and buy)!
 
Today I am wearing a short black dress with a white flower/vine print and a black short sleeved cardigan.
 
ElleMD said:
Today I am wearing a short black dress with a white flower/vine print and a black short sleeved cardigan.
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I am wearing a short black dress with multi-colored flower/vine print over black leggings and knee-high black boots. It's only about 55 degrees out and raining sideways so I feel comfortable in fairly thick leggings & boots even though it's almost July!
 
What was really so much fun about being the "dress code police" was when I used to get phone calls from employees who would describe what one of their co-workers was wearing and ask if it violated the dress code. I just loved sitting in Boston trying to visualize whether or not someone in Houston was dressed properly. I had one employee do that so many times that I finally told her (1) it's none of your business whether someone else is violating the dress code or not and (2) any issues with the dress code were the problem of the branch manager, not me. I'm a few thousand miles away, there's nothing I can do about it.
 
cbg said:
What was really so much fun about being the "dress code police" was when I used to get phone calls from employees who would describe what one of their co-workers was wearing and ask if it violated the dress code. I just loved sitting in Boston trying to visualize whether or not someone in Houston was dressed properly. I had one employee do that so many times that I finally told her (1) it's none of your business whether someone else is violating the dress code or not and (2) any issues with the dress code were the problem of the branch manager, not me. I'm a few thousand miles away, there's nothing I can do about it.
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Had the same issue when I worked for a nationwide retail chain. I had no idea what the weather was where they are, if they're unloading boxes of new merchandise that day, or re-setting a store. My response was pretty much the same.

At the time our handbook allowed women to wear slacks or capries. The guys started complaining that the girls were wearing capries nearly as short as Bermuda shorts but they couldn't. Then a group of them came to work wearing shorts that came to exactly the same level on their legs as the women's short-capries. When the manager told them to go home and change they filed a grievance for gender discrimination. The next edition of the handbook capries when into the prohibited column.
 
I remember when a relative of mine did that whole gender discrimination thing years ago because his workplace allowed earrings for women but not for men. Not that he had a pierced ear or even particularly wanted one, he and his male co-workers were all about just trying to make their point. They even went out and got their ears pierced. In their case, though, they won. The dress code was changed to include earrings for men.

The thing with capri-length pants is that there can be a fine line between what truly constitutes capris (mid-calf length) and what's called either a Bermuda or "skimmer" short (about knee length). We've had several managers tell their employees they can't wear capris for that very reason, because some employees always seem determined to push the boundaries and if you let them get away with pants several inches shorter than actual capris, pretty soon they'd be coming in wearing short-shorts!
 
At a different employer I made the following speech in a staff meeting:

"We don't have a formal dress code here. I'd rather we left it that way. You are all adults and you know what is appropriate for work. As long as you stick to what common sense tells you is appropriate we can leave it that way. But if you want to push the issue I will write a dress code and enforce it, and I promise you, you will not like it if I do that."

The CEO, who was some years younger than I but wore a suit and tie to work EVERY day because he thought that was appropriate for his position, backed me 100% even though I had essentially blindsided him. We'd never discussed it before - my speech was in response to something that was said in the meeting. But bless his heart, he gave me the support I needed and for the rest of the year before the company went out of business, I never did have to write a dress code.

I know, though, that this approach will not work everywhere. Too bad.
 
We have a dress code, but ours contains language very similar to that, cbg. When I started here, there was a huge list of things that were absolutely prohibited, and a lot of those were based upon the opinions and beliefs of the person who was running the show at that time. We changed it about 20 years ago to this: "During business hours or when representing the bank, you are expected to present a clean, neat, and tasteful appearance. You should dress and groom yourself according to the requirements of your position and accepted social standards. This is particularly true if your job involves dealing with customers or visitors in person." It goes on to say that managers have the latitude to establish a dress code that they consider appropriate for their own branch, and basically it also states, like you said, that we're all grown-ups and should know what's appropriate for work in a professional setting. (Although we did have one woman some years ago, who, judging by the very low-cut and tight clothes she wore, seemed to think that we meant a whole different sort of "professional"!)
 
Sadly, there are always those people who have no clue what is appropriate office attire, so we had to write a more detailed dress code a few years ago. We used to have a svc mgr who told his warranty clerk, "anything goes but a bikini".

I used to wear mostly skirts and dresses with pantyhose when I worked in New Orleans, but now that I'm a small town in West Tx where things are much more laid back, it's pants all the time. I used to wear a lot of skorts, which were dressier looking and very comfortable but you just can't find them in the stores anymore.
 
Renovations have begun in part of our office. Lots of people claiming they must work from home due to the A) dust, B) paint, C) noise, D) vending machine have been removed, E) Hunky construction workers are distracting, F) its to far to the coffee pot now, G) my office is gone. The "front door" and receptionist are now sitting outside my door in my formerly very quiet hallway. I had to designate one of the four women's bathrooms as a temporary men's bathroom since the fixtures out of the men's room are all in a dumpster in the parking lot. Half of the staff have their offices packed up in boxes waiting their turn to move out for paint and carpeting. The rest of us are just waiting our turn. The standard answer I get if asking someone for something is "I'm sorry that's somewhere packed in a box".

(64 workdays until my kinda-sorta retirement)
 
I'll have to try Kohl's online :) Thanks for the tip. We did the whole work in the middle of construction zone last year, and there were no hunky distractions. Although I will say the guy who worked on stilts was interesting to watch.
 
I used to get a kick out of how some of the younger women at work would "flirt" with the window washers.
 
Never flirted with them but I will never forget working on the 8th floor in one of those buildings where the whole wall is a window and having a guy suddenly drop down in front of my window next to my desk.
 
Years ago I lived in an apartment building. Because I was on the 8th floor of the highest building in the area, I often didn't close the drapes on my living room windows at night. One morning I got up, took a shower, and walked into the living room wearing not much more than my glasses and almost had a heart attack when I saw three guys right outside the window. The building management hadn't bothered to mention that they were going to have guys working on the building, and they must have lowered the scaffolding to my floor when I was in the shower and couldn't hear it. This was probably 40 years ago, but to this day, I always automatically shut the living room drapes every night before I go to bed!
 
Good thing you at least had your glasses on or you might not have been able to see them. :) That's funny "in a way".
 
Betty3 said:
Good thing you at least had your glasses on or you might not have been able to see them. :) That's funny "in a way".
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Yeah, that was my thought exactly at the time. I'm so near-sighted that I may have walked all the way across the room next to the window before I noticed them! :)

I actually find it pretty funny, with 40 years between then and now. I didn't think so at the the time, although it was much better that it happened when I was only 19 years old, when I still had a pretty cute figure, than it would be if it happened now!
 
cbg, I see the Boston ballgame got called off Friday due to rain/wind from hurricane. Is/was anyone else in the line of the hurricane? Everyone be safe & careful. I hope no one had any damage of any kind.
 
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