In my one 5 year stint in the corporate world, the company phrase for
everything from dress to office furniture, was "corporate standard."
After years in casual, I remember enjoying it as a form of 'drag' - looking
for hot ties to contrast with serious and expensive tweed. I was an art book
publisher and the company was owned by a very successful, very predatory
national real estate company, proud of saying their land ownership exceeded
the size of the state of Rhode Island. When the Corporation began to go
belly up in a big real estate downtown, we were the first of their companies
to roll off the side of its belly! Ah, we did such beautiful books and it
was great to have the Corporation as a no questions asked bank. Nothing like
a poet on a binge. Icarus, etc.
Poetry is, at best, a seminary/monastery business! Occasionally I get
nostalgic for 'corporate standard.'
Stephen V
http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> Roger Day wrote:
>
>> EDS was/is one of the few computer firms that required a *strict*
>> dress code, most existing computer firms (outside of IBM and their
>> infamous blue-suiters) shy away from strict dress codes.
>>
>> "For example, discussing salaries has been an immediate firing offense
>> from the first days at EDS, Perot's company. The company dress code,
>> up into the 1970s, required white shirts only for men (he considered
>> blue shirts effeminate), no pants or flats for women, and no "mod
>> looks," as the contract put it. But the intrusion went much further."
>>
>> "EDS tapped phones and used detectives to investigate its own
>> employees, according to Posner. He traced license plate numbers in the
>> parking lot to see who came late or left early, just as Nader
>> telephones employees at home on sunny weekends to test how long they
>> work. And in "particularly heated" fights for contracts, employees on
>> the bid team would be physically searched to ensure they did not
>> remove any paperwork that could assist the opposition. (Posner,
>> p94-5)"
>>
>>> From the EDS site I can a few - oh the humanity! - blue shirts so
>> maybe things have changed.
>>
>>
> Oh God, you reminded me. Right. I knew that the man wore suits. So
> did I, different firm, it was just Business UnCasual. I forgot about
> the women, all of whom dressed like Donna Reed clones or Stepford employees.
>
> I can condemn Perot's FBI routine but I am not sure he's that much
> different from most employers.
>
> Blue shirts were effeminate? Wow. I wore blue all the time, sometimes
> maybe beige or stripes, and categorically refused to wear white shirts.
> No kidding, I referred to them as The Badge of the Oppressor. Do I
> wonder why my "business career" wasn't a glorious success. I was damn
> near a C.O.!
>
> Ken
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