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Swiss Bank Has 43-Page Dress Code
Tasha26 writes "The HR of Swiss bank UBS AG came up with an innovative 43-page document (French) to establish fashion 'dos' and 'don'ts' in their retail branches. Among the rules are such things as: 'neither sex should allow their underwear to appear,' perhaps Dilbert was a bit ahead of them on that. The document also mentions smells and 'avoid garlic and onion-based dishes.'"
Should avoid working for this bank!
Only dress code that should be required: 1) Do not show up to work naked. 2) If you're in a position where you need to be taken seriously, dress so that the other guy will take you seriously. 3) Seriously, noone wants to see you naked.
I can't wait for companies to start using these to enforce dress codes. "I'm sorry, Jim, but we can't allow you to wear your pretty, pretty princess underwear to work."
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
So uh a business whose employees deal with customers on a daily basis in an industry where projecting an image of professionalism is very important has developed a guide to aid their employees? This just sounds like common sense to me.
43 pages sounds a bit insane, until you actually look at it. Large print, lots of diagrams, lots of whitespace/formatting not 43 walls of text. It actually looks pretty clean and readable.
Financial institutions are still one of the last places where we expect people to put some effort into their appearance. Even geeks like myself who cringe when they have to put on a tie tend to expect the people dealing with our savings to look the part. If the guy I’m greeted by has a nose ring, I’m out of there. Yay for double standards I guess.
And when opening new accounts for African dictators, "intelligence" groups, mercenaries, drug-lords, and the odd nazi, one should be sure that one's hands are kept lily white.
44 pages considering the cover page.
We should all aspire to such clean and complete documentation. This is a 5-star effort.
At least they let the French write the dress code instead of the Germans. I'd rather see co-workers wearing black socks with tennis shoes than socks and sandals.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
John Lennon has made an interesting song about this behaviour: "You can wear a collar and a tie, one thing you can't hide, is when you're crippled inside".
In true /. spirit I chose to not actually read the article, but just from Tasha26's synopsis I would tend to agree that one should avoid wearing garlic- or onion-based dishes to work.
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The following highlights of the booklet are provided courtesy of The Vancouver Sun:
The list.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"A professional in a gorilla mask is still a professional."
I've seen too many written dress codes where 99% of the don'ts apply only to women. This one is about 50/50 on what's right for both men and women. I like that it shows what's right, it's not just a shopping list of what's wrong. They want a plain but classy look. I could live with it if I worked there.
Me? I'm showing a bit of cleavage today, and, yes, my bra is showing. If it's going to show anyway, wear a nice one.
...laura
The U.S. Army's guide to dressing up right is 362 pages.
And they have total control of the manufacture and issue of the clothes. They're not suffering all the randomness that the fashion and retail industries insert into civilian clothing choices.
I could care less about the dress code, I want to see the money laundering policy, and the code to detect it.
But I have a feeling it says something like "Monkey no see, monkey no hear, monkey no say", in elaborate legalese, in 38 separate policies, procedure manuals, and legal/sales dept coordinated recommendations, totaling 4392 pages of policy. They surely have huge conflicts in whose dirty money they see or inform on, and whose they don't.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Chances are they will enforce it strictly on everyone except Muslims who insist or wearing a kamize and hajib who will be told "of course wear what you want, our culture is subservient to yours"
This is not a troll. It is a commentary on the double standards which exist in the UK and other parts of Europe. They have a double standard for driver's license photos and for airport security for muslim women.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Chances are they will enforce it strictly on everyone except Muslims who insist or wearing a kamize and hajib who will be told "of course wear what you want, our culture is subservient to yours"
This is not a troll. It is a commentary on the double standards which exist in the UK and other parts of Europe. They have a double standard for driver's license photos and for airport security for muslim women.
If the muslim woman can't take her mask off to have her picture taken, if it covers your face its a mask by any other name, she shouldn't be driving either.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Chances are they will enforce it strictly on everyone except Muslims who insist or wearing a kamize and hajib who will be told "of course wear what you want, our culture is subservient to yours"
This is not a troll. It is a commentary on the double standards which exist in the UK and other parts of Europe. They have a double standard for driver's license photos and for airport security for muslim women.
If the muslim woman can't take her mask off to have her picture taken, if it covers your face its a mask by any other name, she shouldn't be driving either.
Just holding them to their own standards, can't claim one without the other.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Chances are they will enforce it strictly on everyone except Muslims who insist or wearing a kamize and hajib who will be told "of course wear what you want, our culture is subservient to yours"
This is not a troll. It is a commentary on the double standards which exist in the UK and other parts of Europe. They have a double standard for driver's license photos and for airport security for muslim women.
Correct. Some people are so used to giving way to Islam that they see any suggestion that we should hold Muslims to the same standards as anyone else as "islamaphobic". We ban Santa because more than one Muslim might be offended, but if two non-muslims said they were offended by an "Eid Murnbarak" poster how far do you think that would get. When Muslims set off bombs in our cities the call is not to stop Muslims setting off bombs but not to allow the incident to undermine multiculturalism! Muslims frequently burn bibles but go on the rampage when someone says they will burn the Qur'an - but doesn't!
you want a high class bank to have monkey suit uniforms? if you want that go to white castle.
avoid garlic and onion-based dishes
Aaaah now I understand
Four. Rumantsch Grischun must be included. You know, James Caviezel speaks it and that's why Aramaic was no problem for him in The Passion.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I'm a nerd, and this does not matter to me. Nor is it news. Nor is it that outlandish. I've seen phone bills longer than that, and with far less whitespace and fancy, full-paged graphics introducing each one-page section.
I don't care that this is idle. I just don't care.
Seriously, what the hell
dress codes are bullshit. Total bullshit. Go to a bank in Italy on a summer's day, for instance. You'll find the clerks are dressed way down from what you'd see in the US. No tie, open shirt collar. And you know what? You won't have any sense that they're "unprofessional". Whatever that means. Ride the train through Switzerland. A conductor with an earring may well greet you. He did me. And he did his work efficiently.
What I'm saying is that the whole "dress code" is largely US-centric. That's not to say there are no rules of dress -- I've had the pleasure of getting thrown out of a store right off the beach in the South of France for not wearing a shirt. But just as hard-working Europeans still feel justified in demanding 5 weeks of holiday and are less inclined to put in 60-hour weeks, they show up for work dressed neatly but not in the uniform that's demanded of their American counterparts. The thing that's amazing to me is that most people posting here clearly feel the uniform is justified. What do you care if the guy in the bank has a tie on or not? Why should any employer have that kind of power over you?
What an apostrophical disaster. It's the apostrocalypse!
It is French? Go figure. I could not find a page titled "Do" neither.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I say chaps. Very good of you to offer instructions for Four-in-Hand, Windsor and Double Windsor for new johnnies who haven't a clue how to tie a tie but really, I am not sure I could work for a company that won't let me choose the far more elegant Prince Albert.
(to be fair the guide doesn't say other ways of tying a tie are prohibited)
In fact, every time i see those overdressed goons in their ties and stuff i keep asking myself what they DON'T have and try to cover up with this clownesque outfit.. competence ?
The swiss love rules. everyplace i went in the interlocken area was loaded with signs telling you what you can't do. They ranged from fairly benign (and obvious) like, "No Euros Accepted", to the mildly inconvenient, "Men, do not urinate standing up."
Sure, it's a stereotype, but every time i hear about the swiss and their rules i chuckle a little bit. I also think about how incredibly gorgeous Switzerland was and i'd like to go back.
we traditionally wear onion belts, you insensitive clod!
(I think I got two or three points there.)
I just knew that if I maintained prefect encyclopedic knowledge of every Dilbert strip ever penned, it would pay off one day.
Dunno about that. However there is this, which I think is good guidance, as some people (women especially) find it necessary to marinate themselves in fragrance:
"A scent should at first be perceptible at a distance - an arm's length - but should be discreet.""If you like wearing perfume or after-shave, remember, the scent of a perfume is more pleasant than being invaded by a fragrant cloud."
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Typically it's people that dont bathe... they got told they stink and now they cover up their lazyness of bathing by covering it up. IT's a very old tradition.... Kings,Queens and noblemen stunk to high hell as the dirty bastards rarely took baths.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm surprised no one has even mentioned the very attractive woman who's suing Citi because she was terminated for "being too much of a distraction for the male employees." And she was wearing normal business formalwear... http://abovethelaw.com/2010/06/woman-claims-she-was-fired-for-being-too-attractive/
Not bad compared to:
http://www.af.mil/shared/media/epubs/afi36-2903.pdf
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
1. Invite the authors of that dress code to visit where I work.
2. Their heads asplode.
3. Profit!!
They have some very nice diagrams for explaining how to tie a helf / full windsor knot in your tie.
I actually wouldn't mind an English translation. Seems like a good style guide.
Sort of. The dress code states you must smell agreeable throughout the day. They mention using extra deodorant throughout the day if you perspire excessively, that you cannot smell of cigarette smoke, and can't smell of strong foods. They recommend using perfume but just a little so as not to offend anyone who doesn't share your tastes.
that a woman can wear a shirt in which you can see everything down to her waiste when she bends over but I get special training to avoid looking and could get a violation and coaching I did.
I don't mind if they do this. I mind that I would get in trouble for "elevator eyes".
They would do the same thing if I had a v neck shirt open to 3" above my belly button.
Hell, I can see the bottom of their bra sometimes when they don't bend over and sometimes don't see the bottom of a bra.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
If you dress like the guy in Assassin's Creed, people tend to assume you're important.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I recently opened an account in UBS and I must say, the female staff were all dressed in rather stylish form-fitting pantsuits. In comparison their male counterparts looked decidedly more homely. I wonder if this policy has not been introduced to bring some equality between the sexes.
This is not a troll. It is a commentary on the double standards which exist in the UK and other parts of Europe. They have a double standard for driver's license photos and for airport security for muslim women.
You're wrong for the UK. See here. In the PDF of examples there's a woman wearing a veil that covers her face, and it's marked "unaccepteble".
To be fair, there are also plenty of people in suits that don't understand why the ripped jeans and t-shirt crowd doesn't think they're cool.
Doubtful. Today's suits were yesterday 60-70s hippies with long hair and ripped jeans and t-shirts or 70-80s punk rockers with a purple mohawk and ripped jeans and t-shirts. ;-)
If you think about it for a moment, you will see that it is kind of silly that you're only taken seriously if you tie a strip of cloth around your neck tight enough to slightly restrict blood flow to your brain. Beyond avoiding holes where they shouldn't be and not being offensive, it is all rather arbitrary and even childishly silly.
Not at all, there is actually science behind the concept of dress codes. Basically the idea is to dress to meet the expectations of the customer, client, potential employer, etc - basically the person you are trying to influence. Non-verbal communication is an important part of building credibility and appearance is part of that communication. Dressing to expectations is just leveraging the workings of the human mind.
A friend of mine worked for a Salvation Army store in Compton, California, and regularly encountered "street people." He referred to this practice as a "ghetto shower."
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
E&Y, PWC, Arse-enter and many more global companies also have such lengthy and strict documents describing with precision styles and shades of suites, shirts, skirts, stockings, shoes....
... If you have exceedingly long dress code standard (and because it is so long it allows for quite a lot of leeway in terms of what you actually can wear) then what you wear to work effectively becomes a uniform.
Uniforms purchased for work are tax deductible.
Just sayin'
Corollary to Hanlon's razor: Any significantly advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
so you're exposing your Prince Albert at work?
What do you do for life? Test porn?
The first company I worked for was a small software company and the dress code only listed what the men could and couldn't wear (shirts & ties every day, no jeans, the only loophole I could find was no mention of shoes, so I wore my Converse high tops with my suit...). I asked the boss how come it was only for men and since there was only one woman working there he said "Angie already knows how to dress."
Our boss, who enforced the dress code in the office spent two to three weeks a month at our biggest client's office out of state. The client had casual Fridays and the boss would tell us on the phone how nice it was not to dress up every day while he was there, but still wouldn't relent and let us dress casual on Fridays in our own office.
The dress code was based on the philosophy "you have to dress like an accounting to write accounting software." The next company where I worked the accounting department mostly came to work in tie dye and Birkenstock sandals, and according to someone, were out smoking dope in the parking lot during their lunch breaks...
I learned something today because of your post. Thanks.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
The bank in question has several different dress codes for different staff in different locations. I don't think there is a single global dress code. Certainly the "leaked" dress code applies to many fewer people than the various news reports might lead you to believe.
The code in question is for reception and event staff and chaffeurs/chaffeuses, not for your average trader, back office guy or IT support tech. It was drawn up specially in conjunction with a bank branch renovation programme and refers, in part, to company-provided business wear.
Notwithstanding the above, the document is very detailed and has some excellent advice for the aspiring corporate clone, especially the slightly smellier just-out-of-college kind. The pictures and presentation style are a hoot as well.
Hmm, you have some interesting points, some of which I agree with, and some of which I don't (or, rather, I just see the situation very differently). So, to go number-by-number with my thoughts--- ;) Shoes that are broken-in are far more comfortable than when they are freshly bought, but broken-in shoes are clearly modified to a noticeable (at least to the wearer) degree, by definition. ... I'm going to come back to this, I have thoughts on the rest of your points and would like to finish my reponse to #3 =)
1) Working with customers, I can see why you'd want to avoid making certain kinds of "dislike" statements. Making some kinds of "like" statements that don't immediately imply any "dislike" statement, while a slippery slope, still seems a justifiable privelege to me. If you don't work with customers, your clothing should be expected to meet a bare minimum of occupational requirements (and, by that, I don't mean running to join any new safety or professionalism standards, formal or not). If you work with any mildly unsafe reagents in a lab, for example, requiring shoes to not be open-toed seems reasonable to me.
2) I hate to hop onto semantics here, but if something is intentionally kept in a state that would qualify as "damaged" to an individual not wise to that intention, it isn't actually being "kept damaged."
Clothing being intentionally kept dirty can be argued similarly but not to as much of an extent. Consider the case of over-washing clothes (bringing eight outfits to work every day and changing each hour, then washing them all every night): their utility is diminished (shorter life before becoming unwearable). I know, it's an extreme example, but some people who make over $200k a year keep extra (super-expensive) business suits in their office to change into during the work-day if they feel any need to change out of slightly-soiled clothing that most people would consider still fit in which to dress themselves in the morning and go to work.
Which clothes match is a matter of ever-changing fashion. I'd also argue that wearing clothes that don't significantly stand out when contrasted against the clothing of your peers/co-workers is more of a cultural norm than a logical choice; I could argue that, as a customer, being able to distinguish one employee over another is very valuable in a customer-business relationship wherein individual employees of the business are expected to take responsibility for their individual interactions with customers.
Making a statement on the job when working with customers is generally unhelpful to a business as a whole, though, fairly universally, so I'm agreeing on that.
3) Sadly, people will always judge one another based on appearance. To some extent, it's hard-wired genetically; beyond that, it's cultural. (If you haven't noticed, I like to attempt to transcend human cultures in my reasoning.)
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Continuing my above response---
3) I think I would have to argue that people will still be judged on their suit; it's not a huge improvement over everyone just wearing clothing that has no printed words nor symbols, so it's not a particularly good reason to prefer suits over "business casual."
4) I'm uncomfortable with the idea of giving others the impression that I earn a lot of money. How much I earn is my business, not my co-workers', and if I'm buying clothes with my income, I'd prefer ones that I like and have high utility. Suits are not good things to wear when cooking, cleaning, nor gardening, but I can still sit at a computer and work wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Making a lot of money doesn't necessarily signal that you're good at your job; most people would describe it as being lucky enough to get paid well for the work you do, something that is more likely but not definite if you're competent in your field. Seeing someone in a suit to me generally signals that someone wants to appear authoritative or is trying to impress someone else; a poor person can always save up for a long time to buy a suit in order to impress people.
5) I don't feel suits are fairly neutral. In fact, by your point #4, you are saying they give someone an appearance of competence and wealth. I think you meant that suits are, at the present time in most circles in Europe and the US, viewed as unoffensive outfits in a typical man's wardrobe. I would argue that clothing free of words or symbols should be considered quite unoffensive.
6) Suits don't make the best uniforms for the very reason that it is not uncommon for a man to go arbitrary places wearing a suit. I know that in the past I have been often classified as an employee by other customers due to my appearance. Nametags/badges with the company name/logo make a better identifier; since they usually can only be seen from the front, some sort of clothing style/color scheme is helpful for customers to recognize potential employees from a distance (which is similar to the point you're making).
7) Eww, I don't think I look good in a suit. I'm told I do, but I'm far more comfortable with my appearance with all sorts of other outfits.
8) Haha. Yes, wearing a suit when you're trying to pick up women does tend to get you noticed.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive