'When our boss arrived, he straight panicked': Employees play dress-up while head bosses visit their workplace

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 30, 2024 5:00 PM EST

These employees were thrilled to dress up for work for one day. Too bad their boss didn't agree with their outfit choices. 

Workplaces all have different codes for how employees should dress. Many decades ago, people wore suits and ties or nice dresses to their jobs. Everyone dressed like that every day for work, with few exceptions. These days, though, a lot of offices have relaxed their dress codes. With the exception of places like lawyers' offices or doctor's offices, many employees are totally fine with wearing jeans and a nice shirt to the office every day. 

Some places take their dress codes very seriously, and employees can risk getting in trouble if they don't abide by it. For example, at some companies, employees must wear closed-toed shoes, or they can only wear jeans on Fridays. (Worse still are offices where you're supposed to pay like $5 for the privilege of wearing your jeans on a Friday. What a silly rule!) 

This boss requested that his data center employees dress nice for one day. They were confused since they usually wore jeans and sneakers, but they tried their best to comply with what their boss requested. He'll have to be much more specific in the future after dealing with this overly-literal bunch of employees. Check out the whole story, then check out a story of an employee who just refused to change her password for the dumbest reasons. 

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  • 01
    **** **** ***** 64314 'Dress up for a tour of our workspace? Okay' D SLET
    via Massimo Botturi on Unsplash
  • 02
    Dress up for a tour of our workspace? Okay boss! S OC I work in a data center and obviously every day presents itself with something new. Sit at desk all day sometimes, yep. Crawl across ladder racks running fiber next day, yep.
    via u/lgoodat
  • 03
    Therefore, you dress for comfort and any situation. Which is generally jeans, t-shirt, sneakers, and for me a fleece jacket because it's cold as
    via u/lgoodat
  • 04
    Many years back, our boss informs us that his boss and a few other VPs are coming in for a tour and we need to be dressed up. His boss is new to him and he wants us to make a good impression, but when we ask for clarification, he didn't have an answer, just look nice.
    via u/lgoodat
  • 05
    Cue malicious compliance - there were only 5 of us working in this location and three of the four guys had tuxedos, the other one, a nice suit. I had a great floor length formal gown. So on the day in question, we arrived earlier than usual in our spiffiest duds. When our boss arrived, he straight panicked. He was
    via u/lgoodat
  • 06
    convinced that this would not go over well. We calmly explained that he's the one that told us to dress up and we had. Plus, there was no time for us to change before the tour was going to arrive.
    via u/lgoodat
  • 07
    A few minutes later his boss rolls up and the 5 of us, plus our boss are in the front lobby to greet him. Our boss is terrified. He came through the door, took one look and almost fell over. I've never seen anyone laugh so hard life. He insisted on taking in my
    via u/lgoodat
  • 08
    pictures of and with us and said it was the best thing he'd seen in a long time. Our boss of course then switched gears and acted like he'd been in on it and thought we were hilarious too. Mmmkay.
    via u/lgoodat
  • 09
    Our photo made the 2nd levels wall and even went out during a team meeting a few weeks later. It's still one of my favorite work memories. Our boss was much more succinct going forward when he wanted us to "dress up"
    via u/lgoodat
  • 10
    [deleted] This is awesome. I expected you and your coworkers to have dressed up like superheroes, the village people, civil war re-enactors. That could have become a fun tradition.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 11
    lgoodat OP the Village people would have been amazing!
    via u/lgoodat
  • 12
    EmersonLucero I love this stuff. At my past company I would visit other offices and one year in the Phoenix area I wore Birkenstocks in the middle of summer. Well one SVP took issue to that. So when he found out I was visiting again an email
    via u/EmersonLucero
  • 13
    was sent company wide to respect office dress codes. The head of HR did let me in it was because of my shoe selection last time. Okay, I can comply. For my next visit I was there in a full suit. Black shoes with a mirror shine, smart tie. 104F outside. When
    via u/EmersonLucero
  • 14
    getting to the office I did my walk around to say hi, lots of laughs and making sure I visited the SVP office to say hello. He was not amused. But I was.
    via u/EmersonLucero
  • 15
    My next visit I was planning to get a tux but luckily enough the SVP left the company so my reason for stepping up the dress code was done with. Funny enough when the SVP left the dress code for the office went out the door and people started wearing sneakers again, jeans, etc.
    via u/EmersonLucero

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boss fancy workplace-stories jobs job malicious compliance bosses work coworkers malicious-compliance-reddit big boss dress up data clothing workplace clothes malicious compliance reddit
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