My boss is a tuck-your-shirt-in Nazi, so I found a loophole in the dress code and stopped tucking. It’s small, but it keeps me sane. My brother-in-law worked for UPS for seventeen years and constantly got in trouble for crazy hair colors or cornrows. He was a big Italian guy, and they told him it wasn’t appropriate.
There was always something, but they could never say anything about him wearing sunglasses. So his little rebellion was wearing the most outrageous sunglasses he could find. Giant red lips, guitars with the stems sticking up, purple ones with rhinestone hearts. Anything for a laugh.
After a while, people knew him by his glasses. If someone said they lived in a certain area, I’d say, “Oh, my brother-in-law is your UPS man, the guy with the crazy glasses. ” And their reply would almost always be, “Oh, old John. Yeah, I love that guy.
He’s hilarious. ”
He passed away four years ago. He was hit by a drunk driver while out walking one night. At his funeral, all the guys from work came dressed in their browns with crazy sunglasses on.
His best friend gave the eulogy wearing neon green glasses three times the size of his face, and the pastor even borrowed John’s guitar glasses when he spoke. Afterward, we counted. He had over two hundred pairs. What started as him being a pain in the butt to his boss ended as a tribute to his character and his life of always wanting to make someone else smile.
A couple of friends of mine work at Walmart. They found out kilts are well within the dress code as long as they’re the correct color. They drove their managers nuts. It’s been a year and absolutely no problems.
While I was in the Navy, it was recommended I get extensive surgery on my ankle. My command felt I didn’t deserve time off for a surgery, so they said they’d approve it but with no convalescent leave. They refused to sign any paperwork. First thing I did was hit them with the regulation stating they were required to respond to all requests within a certain time, three days I think.
They responded with a no. So then I had Navy legal draw up paperwork stating that my command would be responsible for one hundred percent of my medical care if they didn’t abide by doctor’s orders. I let them know that would mean all my medical care would be handled by civilians and the command would pay the bill out of their own budget. They approved my surgery, convalescent leave, and the extension.
I used to work for a small town twice weekly newspaper. The editor publisher, mayor, county commissioner, and several others were skimming tax dollars. When I confronted my boss, he told me he’d blackball me if I said anything. So I went to the local television station, tipped them off, and they uncovered the story.
When they won their awards, my name was added to the list of reporters. I still can’t get a job in journalism, but it sure felt good. Small town politics. Used to work at a TV station with awful management and horrible bosses.
I complained about it to friends constantly. Some even asked me on Facebook about my job, and I’d reply, but I knew I could get fired for speaking ill of the company. So I read the HR handbook and found out as long as I didn’t specifically name the company, I couldn’t be fired for it. About a month later, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and posted on Facebook how terrible my job was, never mentioning the company by name.
They fired me a day later. I gladly walked out of that building and into a lawyer’s office. Got seventeen thousand eight hundred dollars, my yearly salary. Honestly, it feels good.
Worked in one corporate kitchen where our GM didn’t like our music, so he put on children’s music. We all started singing along at the top of our lungs. We won that war of attrition. Years later, in another kitchen, we had surround sound in a closed kitchen, and the deputy GM didn’t like our music and started passing draconian censorship rules.
So we switched to children’s music for a week. Moral of the story, never underestimate the power of a kitchen crew of misfits singing banana phone at the top of their lungs to fight fascism. Not so much a tuck-in shirt situation, but here goes. My boss went away for three or four weeks for a conference, and while he was away, a workmate and I had an idea, a George Foreman grill.
We’d go to the deli and grab stuff for lunch, hamburgers, lamb chops, pork, steaks. We did this every day for over a month. When the boss got back, he put a stop to it with the exact words, “I don’t want that thing inside the office. ” So we took it to the shared kitchen area on our floor.
We rented a suite. When he got angry at that and said, “I don’t want it on this floor,” we took it down to the underground parking area and used the power outlet at his parking space while he was out at lunch. He caught us because he was coming back from lunch with a business partner in the car, and we were hunched over a tiny George Foreman grill making hamburger patties. Imagine three IT guys crouching on the ground like cavemen in a poorly lit underground parking lot cooking hamburgers on the concrete floor.
It went over about as well as you’d think. If he hadn’t specifically said “take that home or I’ll break it and throw it in the trash,” our next step was to use a power point in the parking lot of the church directly across from the building, facing his office. Back when I was working and attending classes, I’d go straight from campus to work, getting there ten to twenty minutes early. Occasionally my boss would ask me to help with something before I clocked in, putting something away or answering the phone.
Over a couple months, this evolved from occasionally to every day, your shift starts when you get here. After a couple weeks of this, still clocking in at my usual three p. m. , I decided that if I was working extra minutes each day, I was going to get paid for it.
I did this once, and I didn’t make it an hour into my shift before my boss was screaming at me and throwing down the employee handbook, saying I was only allowed to clock in five minutes before and after my scheduled shift. Needless to say, I made it a point to not check in until five minutes after my scheduled shift every day, no matter how early I was. Fast forward three months and my boss gets fired. He got what was coming to him.
It is illegal for your employer to fail to pay you for any sort of work under the Fair Labor Standards Act, whether it’s part of your normally assigned duties or not. Not my story, but a coworker. Worked at a water park. The supervisor was a bee who wouldn’t let the lead guards at the top of the tallest slide in the park go to the bathroom.
The guard at the top radios that he needs to take a crap, but she won’t let him. The lead guards were allowed to ride down every once in a while to make sure no tubes were stuck. This guard was about to crap his pants in front of a ton of guests, so he went into the utility closet and shot into a bucket of cat litter we kept for cleaning up vomit. Then he rode the slide down to clean himself off and left the supervisor to clean up his bucket of crap.
My father was working in a post office in the early eighties. It was an unusually hot day with eighty-five degrees inside. No fans available, so it was crazy. Men weren’t allowed to wear shorts, but Dad came to work wearing shorts that covered his knees and part of his shin, figuring he was fine.
He wasn’t, and his boss sent him home to change. He returned in his grandfather’s Victorian suit from the late nineteenth century, top hat and all. The boss kept asking if it wasn’t a little hot in that suit, but he said he was fine. A man I can respect.
I love opportunities to overdress. I once went to a job interview for a dishwasher in a full suit with a sweater vest and knit tie. Not work, but school. I’m a senior in high school, and one day a bunch of senior guys decided to start tank top Tuesday.
Every Tuesday, the senior guys would come to school in a tank top. Our school had no rule about tank tops except the straps had to be at least two inches thick, so we didn’t anticipate any problem, especially since girls at our school wore tank tops all the time. After the first day, the school announced boys were no longer allowed to wear tank tops. When questioned, they claimed visible armpit hair was a distraction that inhibited learning.
The following Tuesday, we all went to school wearing tank tops and sporting shaved armpits. The school claimed guys couldn’t wear tank tops because armpit hair was distracting, and half the senior guys showed up in tank tops with shaved armpits. At a former workplace, the dress code changed. Men were no longer allowed to wear shorts.
Women could wear skirts. I started wearing a kilt because skirts were okay in the rulebook. I would have just worn a regular skirt. Not work related, but school.
In high school, I wore a freecondoms. com t-shirt to school. I was called down to the principal’s office after three or four hours. My cool teachers in the morning classes thought it was awesome, but I was told I was promoting abhorrent behavior.
I argued I was in fact trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I lost the fight and was told I had to leave if I didn’t have another shirt. Rather than leaving, I put a sticky note over the M in condoms and spent the rest of the day harassing faculty about fantastic lakeside condos that I was giving away for free. When Circuit City was still in business, I worked in the warehouse.
They had a strict dress policy of khaki pants and an awful color shirt that also had to be tucked in, even for warehouse employees. I discovered through an old warehouse employee guide, shoved in a drawer years ago and forgotten, that as long as warehouse employees had khaki colored shorts with no cargo pockets and a t-shirt with a Circuit City logo, there would be no problem. Circuit City stopped making those t-shirts long before I started. But thanks to a local Salvation Army, I picked up two Circuit City t-shirts, and a quick trip to Target for some shorts set my new uniform.
My managers were not happy, claiming I looked sloppy and unkempt. Even better, when the giant black dude who hated his job and slept in the back talking on his cell phone all day found out, he had some old Circuit City t-shirts too and joined in. Management hated us working together. I miss Circuit City.
Another former employee said they never did the khaki shorts thing, but they did wear old Fire Dog and other Circuit City related t-shirts constantly. Management didn’t like it, but they couldn’t stop it. I used to work at a lingerie store as assistant manager, so I had to dress nice and look professional. All the other girls wore huge heels and complained about sore feet at the end of their shift.
I always wore flats. They were still nice, stylish shoes, but without towering heels. My manager always got mad at me for not wearing heels and claimed it was part of the dress code. I looked it up and showed her it didn’t say anywhere I had to wear heels, just that I had to wear acceptable work attire.
She tried to say it was an out-of-date dress code, so I told her she should get an updated one. Eventually she brought head office into it, and the provincial manager told me to wear heels to work. I told them they’d have to pay me more than minimum wage to ruin my feet. I didn’t get a raise, and no one ever told me to wear heels to work again.
Heels cause sacral hip issues and lower back problems from the unnatural tilt. Heels are silly. At my old school, they had rules about hair length for guys, and our teacher got anal about it. The actual rules were that hair couldn’t pass our eyebrows or collar area.
Being the smart-ass I am, I used a ton of gel to slick my hair up and do obnoxious things with it. It was all raised, so it never crossed my eyebrows or collar. I got away with it for two months until the principal changed the rules, all just for me. I used to work at the Jaws ride at Universal Studios Florida.
Our uniform was a blue t-shirt, jeans or jean shorts, white socks, and white shoes. The unofficial dress code had all the girls wearing jean shorts and white knee socks. One summer, I worked the Jaws ride and the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World simultaneously. I loved Disney and had always wanted to work there, but I found it stifling with silly over-the-top rules.
At the Jungle Cruise, you wear a khaki shirt, khaki shorts or pants, white socks, and brown shoes. One day I didn’t have any normal sized socks, so I wore my white knee highs, which looked ridiculous with the jungle costume. When I got to work, a manager flipped his crap and told me my socks weren’t in compliance with the Disney look. He made me roll my socks down.
It looked like I was wearing little white life preservers around my ankles and looked even more out of place. I was annoyed, so when I went home I scoured my Disney look booklet for policies on socks. All I could find was that socks had to be long enough to cover the ankle bone. There was no maximum height.
I could have worn white tights under my khaki shorts if I wanted to. The next day I wore my knee highs again as a small act of rebellion. The same manager flipped out and pulled me into the office to write me up. Before he could get me to sign, I pulled out my copy of the Disney look and showed him that, while silly looking, my socks were perfectly acceptable, and I would continue wearing them.
And so I did. I looked stupid, but I didn’t care. Working for Disney wasn’t pleasant, and it was liberating to know I could at least wear my socks however I wanted. Working at Big Five, there was a policy that men had to be clean-shaven or have a mustache.
No beards or goatees or sideburns. I can’t wear a mustache without looking like either a pedophile or an eighties B-movie star, but I hate shaving every day. So I grew out the biggest, creepiest Hulk Hogan stache ever witnessed and wore it proudly for the entire time I worked there. I work in food service.
My job created a rule one day that hair couldn’t touch one’s collar. I have rather long hair, but I always kept it in a braid and we wear hats. I was informed of this rule two hours before the end of my shift and told I had to comply immediately because I was breaking health code. I politely informed them that no, I wasn’t.
This was store policy, but I would be happy to come in with my hair up the next day. It takes a while, not to mention pins and hair product, to keep my hair up. Not good enough. So I punched out for a break, bought rubber bands and floral wire, made eight braids with the wire woven in, and stuck them in every direction.
My boss saw me and began screaming. I calmly told him my hair wasn’t touching my collar. My boss told me I had to cover X this upcoming weekend, both days. Since everybody else had called in, I said, “How do you know I’ll say yes?
” He said, “You have to. There’s nobody left. ” I said, “You’re wrong. I’m left, but I quit.
Now there’s nobody left. ” He was speechless. His expression was priceless. I stood there about ten seconds and said, “I’m walking away now,” and left.
Thank god it happened the day after I had secretly secured a better job. One of my fondest memories. Not a job, but a school. I went to a Catholic college and they didn’t allow members of the opposite sex to spend the night in a dorm room.
I made a huge case that they were discriminating against heterosexuals, and the rule miraculously disappeared the next year. When I was in the army, I pulled up to an ATM on base to get cash. Four guys piled out leaving all doors open. While I was getting my cash, someone behind me said, “You actually drive that piece of crap?
I should call in for a tow truck. ” Without turning around, I yelled back, “Screw you and your tow truck. ” I never saw who it was. The next day, my squad leader called me aside and asked if I’d told a certain staff sergeant to go screw himself yesterday, and I admitted I probably had.
I was in trouble. There were three other witnesses who signed sworn statements that I’d told him to go screw himself and a tow truck. I was given the opportunity to read the incriminating statements before making my own. That was when I found out only one guy had even known who it was, because he was in civilian clothes, not on duty.
So my statement detailed an aggressively profane and hostile person in civilian attire, identity unknown to me, acting irrationally, and I attempted to defuse further confrontation by responding jovially in kind. Without reading the other statements, I wouldn’t have been able to mesh my version so perfectly with the bland facts. The key point is, under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there’s no such thing as disrespecting a non-commissioned officer, only insubordination, which is clear about being in uniform. Everyone decided to sweep it under the rug since the sergeant had far more to lose than I did, and magically everything went away.
He continued to be a jerk to me at every opportunity, so I made it a point of yelling, “Hey, P, screw you,” whenever I saw him out of uniform. Eventually my squad leader asked me to stop as a personal favor, so I did. It was fun for a while. On the flip side, I’m the boss enforcing policy.
When I took over the department, the old boss told me the place looked like crap because when he asked a sales associate to clean or put up stock, they claimed it wasn’t in their job description. The main boss backed them up, calling it a technicality. I pulled out the description and read “other duties as assigned by the manager” on the last line. Two out of nine quit.
My department is now clean, stock is always up, sales are consistently up. I’m cool with that. I’ve never understood not doing reasonable things at your job. Cleaning, making it presentable and comfortable for patrons, stocking, all part of sales.
I worked at a PetSmart about five years ago in the pet hotel where animals were boarded while their owners went on vacation. Everything I did was in the back. No customers ever saw me, just the dogs and kitties. But my boss would always get onto me for forgetting my belt.
One day she was particularly mad about it, despite the fact I’d picked up the shift last minute for someone who was sick. I picked up a dog leash, put it through my belt loops, and said, “Well, it appears I now have a belt. ”
In the Navy, you must always have a white t-shirt under your uniform. I had a senior chief who constantly checked that your t-shirt was visible and required it.
I checked the uniform regs and found that in a working uniform, you can wear a V-neck tee. I started wearing them, and he noticed right away. I told him the regs allowed it. He scowled and said, “One for the blue shirts,” and walked away.
Then he hammered me for every reg violation he could find. Smart-asses never win, at least not in today’s Navy. Company dress code allows women to wear open-toed shoes so long as they’re leather, but doesn’t allow men to do the same. A few years back, I started wearing leather sandals during warmer months.
Managers mentioned I was in violation, and I pointed out my shoes would be acceptable if I were a woman, and that it’s gender discrimination to deny me something considered okay on the other gender. Haven’t heard a comment since. This gender discrimination keeps coming up, and it’s true where I work too. Our dress code is simple, collared shirt.
Women never wear one, ever. Men have to or they get sent home. Wish I were kidding. When I was at OfficeMax about ten years ago, I was the only employee who didn’t smoke.
Everyone in the building took a fifteen-minute smoke break two or three times a shift, and I got nothing. One day I asked the manager if I could have a clean air break. He was confused. I explained that since smokers got their breaks, I should be able to step outside and do the same without smoking.
He knew he had to let me to avoid discrimination. Not really my boss, but my school principal, which was like a boss to me as a kid. I was at an all-girls Catholic school, and the nuns were strict, and I hated the salads they gave us. I found multiple ways to hide food because you can’t throw food away when there are millions of people starving, until one day I just went with a tray half full to dump it all.
The nun went ballistic, and I said, “I’m full. Gluttony is a sin,” and threw it all. That got me in trouble. I was nine.
Not work related, but at my old high school, a friend a year older decided to experiment to see how short short shorts could be. He made his own shorts and cut an inch or so off every few days. It got to the point where he had to wear a speedo underneath or people would have been able to see everything. The only reason he stopped was because he was reported by a killjoy.
The experiment was a success, though. He proved the dress code was sexist towards girls. When I was in grade four, pizza was sold at lunch for a dollar fifty a slice. I saw a business opportunity, went to Little Caesars a stone’s throw away, bought ten hot and ready five-dollar pizzas, and sold slices for a dollar, a dollar twenty-five on Friday.
When the school told me I couldn’t sell pizza on school property, I moved my operation to my aunt’s house next door. Every day at lunch, kids walked to the neighbor’s front yard, bought pizza, and came back. I made a tidy sum every day. I went to a Pentecostal school even though neither I nor my family were Pentecostal.
They made me get haircuts constantly, and I liked having long hair and sideburns. One day they gave me an ultimatum. I had to shave my sideburns or they would do it. I then told the principal I wanted a tattoo.
I was told I couldn’t because the school’s rules were biblically based, and she read Leviticus 19:28, “Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord. ” I told her to please read the verse above it, which read, “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.
” I got to keep my sideburns.