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As Girly As It Gets - The Dress Code - Preview

Added 2022-11-03 14:10:37 +0000 UTC

Women talking at lunch “These new rules are ridiculous. How can such a thing be allowed in 2015? It is obvious that the rules are to require the women to wear more expensive outfits, makeup, and jewelry and spend money to show off their bodies while the men get by with nothing but suits. In fact, the linchpin of their entire dress code is basically, if you have breasts, then we have a different set of rules for you. It’s insane.” She said it like it was a clearly known fact. And, it was. But somehow hearing it out loud caused everyone to suddenly think about it.

That was when Moira said, “Well if one of the guys grows breasts, he’ll be in for a rude awakening.” Two drinks spilled on the table. Every eye was wide open and staring at Moira. In unison, two women said, “Oh my god!” “What? What did I say?” Moira searched for understanding. One of the women started snickering, then two. Suddenly Moira got it, and soon everyone was in tears laughing. A few months later Everyone abhorred using the job title ‘secretary’ these days.

True, Moira Charles did more than secretaries did years ago. But that was because of advances in technology and the capability of the people holding the positions. Moira was assigned to do the menial tasks that would make her boss more productive. Terry Moran was at the lowest level where employees were given assistants. But in this day and age, only serious executives were given an assistant. With the emergence of tools like Microsoft Word and spreadsheets, it was as fast or faster for most people to do their own letters and communications.

Terry was a dashing young executive who had been promoted to his current position a little under a year ago. He was younger than anyone else at his level in the company. Terry’s success was due to both his intelligence and his willingness to devote virtually all his waking time to the company. Terry had little in the way of outside distractions. He spent his first years at the firm on the phone negotiating deals and working on collections. Since he was willing to work odd hours and overtime, he put himself in a position to catch people at their desks when his co-workers were at home with families or even in bed. His numbers outpaced everyone and he was given more responsibility.

When given a team to manage he pushed them to spread their hours out to cover a longer work day and pressured them to perform. While his underlings did not appreciate his methods, the higher-ups saw the performance and rewarded Terry. Terry’s interpersonal skills with employees and coworkers were never as good as his skills on the phone. Since most of his work was done on the phone, he excelled. However, he did not have many friends among his coworkers.

The fact that he got promoted quickly alienated the people that he was working with and threatened the people with whom he was placed in the competition. When Terry was named one of the Managers of Finance, he was giddy and full of himself. Terry was now getting face time with the real leaders of the company. They were all men. Terry observed their behavior. While he was still a few steps from dealing with the President of the company on a regular basis, there were certain things that were clear about the leader and his top managers. It was an old boys club.

Women were the secretaries. Their secretaries did everything for them. In the breakroom, some of the secretaries wondered if they shouldn’t have the titles their bosses held so dear since they did all the real work. There were two exceptions to the male-dominated management team. First, the Director of Human Resources was a woman. But her position did not have a secretary/assistant. The other female was Chris Martin who was also a Manager of Finance and reported to Terry’s boss. Chris’s position was perceived as being less important than Terry’s, but they held the same title. Chris shared their boss’s assistant and therefore got little help from her. Terry had never had a secretary or an assistant. It was different from having to direct a person in a general task.

You basically had to lay out all the work for the secretary. A friend of his had told him that a relationship with a good secretary is like a marriage. You have to build an understanding and as a team, you will evolve to the point where you each know what the other one wants or needs you to do. At that point, the team will become super-powered and your secretary will help you increase productivity and achieve more success in the company. At first, Terry had totally underutilized Moira. He had her answer his phone and keep his calendar.

She told him she was not a gofer and turned up her nose when he first asked her to get him some coffee. Since he did not want to cause controversy, he just got his own coffee. Moira for her part was bored and spent a lot of time on the web or talking to other co-workers. She made his copies and handled his faxes. Her nails were perfect; as was her make-up. She had time to visit the ladies' room and make sure there was never a hair out of place. She reorganized her desk every other day. Soon after his promotion, Terry’s boss and the director of human resources were asked to overhaul the dress code for the company. Terry was sucked in by his boss to do the majority of the grunt work and Terry impressed his boss with his creative solutions to several issues that came up along the way. In the closed sessions, Terry was apprised of management’s desire to dictate a formal dress code. The president was an old line.

He wanted men in dress suits wearing nothing overly creative. He wanted women to dress femininely. But the problem was the lawyers said none of the rules could be based on gender. The team spent long hours on this issue until one night Terry had a breakthrough. The next day he told his boss his idea. He was ecstatic and told him to get something worked up. Terry’s big idea was to identify something unique about women that was not gender-specific all the time and then craft the regulations by building off of that. Terry’s idea centered on breasts. Build a definition of breasts and then require a bra. Then use the bra to require other things. Then like a pyramid, make further requirements based on the next level. In other words, people with breasts had to dress one way. People without breasts had to dress another way. Since anyone could have breasts, it was not gender-specific, but pretty close. The lawyers loved it and soon the new dress code was born. Terry’s boss got lots of credit for the creative dress code and he let it be known that one of his managers named Terry was the wunderkind who solved their problems.

The director of HR, a woman was stunned when she read the draft rules and tried to fight their implementation. But the lawyers and the upper management fought back. The director of HR pointed out that if the company required things, then they needed to either compensate or facilitate allowing or forcing the people with breasts to meet the new requirements. The lawyers saw the potential for liability and forced upper management to accept that they would need to make it easier for the “employees with breasts” to meet the newly dictated requirements. The cost was seen by upper management as a small price to pay to get what they wanted. The director of HR made sure that any activity needed to meet the new dress code would come out of work time and would not infringe on the employee’s personal time.

The New Dress Code is implemented When the new dress code was implemented, there were sessions led by Human Resources for all the employees to ensure everyone understood the new rules and to clarify any concerns or issues, employees had. The new dress code required “Employees with Breasts” to wear a bra and many other things. The women were expected to have their nails manicured and wear professional jewelry. Their hair was expected to be maintained in a professional manner. Skirts had to be of a certain length and casual or unprofessional clothing was not acceptable. Terry spent the first few weeks watching all of the girls in his department for violations of the dress code.

Many of the women wore extravagant earrings or gaudy jewelry. Terry reported several women for not wearing stockings when they wore skirts to the office. When Terry was mad about some lost deals, he wandered the halls looking for people he could report for breaking the rules. He reported women for wearing sneakers in the building even when they were on their way before or after work. He even cited a few women for mismatched skirts with loud print jackets.

Terry had never had a great relationship with the people working for him. But, his apparent joy at playing the enforcer for the dress code alienated him from virtually all the women in his area of the company. All of the women in his department would cringe and hide when they saw him patrolling the halls. Human Resources worked with the women to help everyone meet the new requirements and the Director of HR let Terry know she was taking his concerns seriously. After a few months, Terry seldom found violations and his focus returned to his managerial job and trying to do whatever was necessary to advance in the company. Moira’s New Attitude Moira heard all the complaints regarding Terry. Several of the employees suggested that Terry was probably a hall monitor when he was in high school.

Moira assured everyone that she would help to get Terry less interested in the dress code and more focused on his job. Shortly after the new dress code was implemented, Moira’s attitude changed. Terry did not relate these two things. One Monday morning, she brought in his coffee first thing. At first, Terry was stunned. She said she was getting some coffee for herself and felt that she should probably get him some while she was there. Terry thanked her. After that, she seemed to volunteer to do more of his menial tasks. Moira mentioned that she knew he took his dry cleaning in on Wednesday morning and she had some things she was taking. She asked him if he wanted her to drop his things off. Terry thought that was great. When he picked his things up on Friday, he grabbed her things and brought them back to the office. She was very thankful and they got into a routine of switching off who took and or picked up the dry cleaning.

Eventually, since he was busy, Moira handled about ¾ of the trips to the cleaners. Terry kept a spare suit along with a shirt and shoes in his closet for emergencies, in case anything happened to what he was wearing. Periodically, he swapped out the closet suit so that it was fresh. Moira told him she would put a reminder in her system and simply take it to the cleaners every 5 weeks unless he wore the suit in which case it would go immediately. It was winter and the new dress code had been implemented about 3 months ago. Terry had not been able to get out and exercise as much lately and he noticed he was putting on some weight. His upper body had developed some fleshiness and his upper legs and hips seemed to be holding more weight than in the past.

His pants were tighter and his arms and chest seemed to be less defined and almost getting flabby. On his historically thinner frame, it looked quite odd. Terry had ignored these changes due to pressure at work and his constantly on-the-go attitude. In addition, about 6-8 weeks ago he felt really under the weather and it seemed to last for almost four weeks or more. He was finally getting ready to go see a doctor when he started to feel a little better. Being under the weather, he had not even felt like going for a swim. When Terry mentioned feeling under the weather, Moira suggested some herbal pills from one of the health food stores.

She told Terry that she sometimes felt drained at different times in the month and that since she started taking these pills, she felt better and avoided the days where she felt drained. She had them in her drawer and took them daily. Terry asked if he could try some of her pills. Moira assured him it was fine with her. After a few days of taking Moira’s herbal pills, Terry started to feel better. Moira kept them in a bottle on her desk and Terry made them part of his daily routine. He gave Moira some money to offset her expense so he did not need to get his own stock of the pills. Eventually, Moira gave him a bottle to keep on his own desk and she replenished both of their supplies each month.

Terry was beginning to get some strength back and was hoping the weather might cooperate so he could get out and walk or bike over the weekend. Moira wished him luck and said she was glad he was getting back to his old self.