Thank you for your thoughts Abboudrashid. I agree standards are changing, but I would also say that employers should be careful, as there seems to be a proven correlation between how someone is dressed and how professional they are perceived to be. The expectations in the industry are very important.

What a great story Michelle! No, I’m not always in biz clothes, so I definitely have thought about the “grocery store” thing too. The thing in Florida is that it is soooo casual. People show up to meetings in jeans and tee shirts. So, the good news is if I do run into someone at the store there’s a good chance they are not in their business best anyway! 🙂 However, it’s happened a few times, and I know that feeling you describe.

The good news is at least you got to see the recruiter again at the air show and make another impression! Hope it can turn into something for you.

Thanks for taking the time to share!

I think about things like that when I’m out and about, sans makeup, and wearing my favorite tie-dyed Pittsburgh Steelers t-shirt and my faded-nearly-to-worn-out jeans. “Gah! What if I get into a conversation with someone who needs our services? What will I say?”

It just happened a few days ago, when Scott and I were at a little hole-in-the-wall pizza joint we never go to. We’d been shopping all day long — for a “uniform” we could wear to shoot video in front of 45,000 people the next day at the local Air Show, believe it or not! — and we were dressed way more than “down.” I was wearing a T-shirt from our church, an old pair of jeans, no makeup, and having a bad hair day.

We ended up striking up a conversation with the family at the next table about their adorable toddler, and then the Dad asks, “Are you going to the Air Show tomorrow?” Gah!!

We told him we’d been hired to shoot video of the National Anthem, and then he asked us *sigh* what we do. We told him — and we told him the name of our COMPANY — and I just wanted to crawl under a rock. He started talking about marketing, asking questions about social meia, the whole nine yards.

Turns out, he’s a recruiter for the RI Air National Guard, and interested in using social media to reach young people. And here we are, the folks who can deliver for him, and we look like we’ve been moving furniture all day.

We saw the officer the next day, at the Air Show, and in a professional capacity. He walked by with 64 young recruits, and stopped to talk to us — only this time, we were wearing our nice, neat, professional-looking matching outfits! I’m surprised he recognized us!

Yeah that was a huge part of it, you know as much as Wal-Mart is this huge corporate giant I learned a lot of tips n how to provide customers service from that company. I worked there fro 3 years I wouldn’t change anything, what an amazing experience.

Great to connect with you as well! Welcome to CTS.

Thank you for sharing your story; it is interesting to learn about the policies at different companies. It’s obvious the company realizes that employees are representing their brand when wearing the company vest. Also, in the retail environment, I would guess they don’t want people in uniform on break because they don’t want customers to approach them for assistance and be told “sorry, I’m on my break!”

I don’t really know of anything innovative in this area. It’s really about expectations. Why did she come to work? My guess, she needed the hours and did the bare minimum to show up and clock in. Was she having a bad day or is this who she is every day? That’s the catch; it doesn’t matter to the customer; she represents the brand when in uniform. Even if she is having an off day, it can’t be that far off — ever.

Hopefully, as you say, she can be supported towards wanting to do better.