Don’t take a professional job if you can’t dress the part | Caleb Bond

Untucked shirts, sneakers and hiking pants are bad enough but one office attire atrocity stands above the rest, writes Caleb Bond.

Can we not go to the office without being visually assaulted?

It’s bad enough that so many people have continued working from home, expecting us to communicate with them via Zoom calls while we toil away in the action hubs where we solve problems by walking 20m to talk to our workmates.

But now that some of them are returning to the office they seem to have forgotten how to dress properly.

Untucked and unironed shirts. Polo shirts. Jeans. Sneakers.

None of these should ever be seen in a professional workplace except, maybe, on weekends. But the laziness created by working from home has carried into the office. People just don’t want to put in an effort any more.

Caleb Bond. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

The casual approach. Picture: iStock

One Advertiser colleague who shall remain nameless – but has handled this column – used to come into the newsroom on weekends sporting hiking trousers that unzipped halfway to turn into shorts.

Talk about fashion crimes. Was he preparing for an unexpected sprint across the newsroom?

The dress code should be smart casual at a minimum. Tucked shirts and trousers with smart boots or shoes are acceptable for men and women.

Ideally, men would wear suits and ties and women dresses or skirts and blouses.

I understand that, for the sake of comfort, some aren’t prepared to suit up. And I’m willing to be flexible.

I used to wear a shirt, blazer and trousers to work every day – then Covid came along and as some sort of rebellion against working from home in my pyjamas, I switched to suits and ties. Smart casual was reserved for weekends in the newsroom.

The US Senate this week scrapped its dress code, mostly because of a poorly-spoken Democrat by the name of John Fettermann who refuses to wear anything other than a hoodie and shorts.

He often pokes his head in the chamber or votes from doorways to avoid being in breach of the now-defunct dress standards.

Here’s a novel idea: don’t take a professional job if you’re not prepared to dress like a professional.

Like it or not, the way you dress sends a message. It is an indication of how seriously you take your job and how much you respect your colleagues. Rocking up like a slob says you don’t care – and you don’t care about the people around you, who you subject to your trackies.

In the same way school students have a uniform, so should office workers. If you can’t adhere to that, then professional life isn’t for you.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews doesn’t wear a tie unless it’s a parliamentary sitting day. Otherwise, he rocks around in a suit with a white, open neck shirt.

It doesn’t make him look relatable. You’re a premier, for heaven’s sake. Put on a suit and tie.

Peter Malinauskas sometimes opts for the more casual option of chinos with a jacket and tie – but it still shows that he means business.

And the greatest office fashion crime of all is men wearing shorts. Doing so should land you in front of HR with a formal warning.

Put your hairy legs away. You do not need to wear shorts or short-sleeved shirts in an airconditioned office.

Grow up. You’re an adult living in a civil society.

Originally published as Don’t take a professional job if you can’t dress the part | Caleb Bond