I've never understood the mindset in which something as trivial as what you wear to work actually seems like a big deal.
Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#32How is this newsworthy? Some company (not named) fired some interns? Oh I see, this is an excuse to have yet another commentary about how millennials are so self-entitled.
Yep, this is spot on. Young people with no work experience made a mistake that got them fired, let's just flag this article and move on.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#33Is there possibly more to this story? As it stands it looks like the interns made a polite request and fired for it. I understand the "intern is a guest" argument, but he/she is also a future employee playing that part and would like to be treated as such. If any polite request is countered by firing I can't imagine that will be a good place to work.
Individual polite requests would likely have been denied without the firing. However, the group participated in collective action, which many employers simply cannot tolerate, whether it's about dress codes, compensation, working conditions, or anything else.
> which many employers simply cannot tolerate
They certainly can, they just don't want to.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
A polite request is asking their respective managers about the dress code and whether it can be relaxed. Creating a petition, circling it among the entire intern group, and essentially demanding change at a place that was generous enough to hire them for a learning experience is not a polite request. I interned at four separate companies when I was younger. I would have never even conceived the idea of doing somethin…
> A polite request is asking their respective managers about the dress code and whether it can be relaxed Which, according to the original source, is exactly what they did with the supporting argument that at least one employee didn't follow dress code, resulting in them being shut down with no answer: > I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything, until I noticed one of the workers alw…
Maybe the other employee had a health issue that prevented them from wearing dress shoes, and management didn't want to share that private information?
It definitely sounds like management would prefer to force the lone employee to follow dress code than to allow everyone else to break it.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#35The key here is signaling. The interns showed that either they don't understand the game or that the have an 'union' like attitude towards employment. Either way not atractive for an employer.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#36According to the article they didn't even disobey the dress code, or cause any real commotion. They just sent a letter just asking for a rule to be changed slightly for practical reasons. Is it really ethical to fire an entire group of people for merely questioning a rule? Is this really evidence they are "entitled" as comments here are saying? Perhaps the letter was worded very rudely?
> Is it really ethical to fire an entire group of people for merely questioning a rule?
Corporate America doesn't concern itself with ethics. Interns sending a common proposal (however polite) up the management chain is one step removed from unionisation, which is one thing Corporate America will shut down sites or states over.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#37I think they shouldn't have complained about something that everyone was following, and a formal code is not very uncommon. I also think that firing everyone point blank just because they wrote a letter is an extreme overreaction. They could have been lectured on professional behavior instead and I'm sure most of them would have understood.
> I think they shouldn't have complained about something that everyone was following > they weren’t going to complain. That is, “until I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.” The interns were told that was a medical exemption… after they were mass-fired, but not when they i…
> The interns were told that was a medical exemption… after they were mass-fired
That's nice. What business of it was theirs, that they should be told at all? It smacks of a third-grade classroom, where little Susie is upset because little Janey didn't bring enough comfortable shoes for everybody, so Teacher makes a rule that either you bring enough for everybody or you don't bring any at all.
Of course, in a third-grade classroom, this sort of thing makes some sense, because we don't expect children of such a young age to be fully in command of their emotions. I gather the interns we're talking about are in their early twenties. One would reasonably expect them to have learned something in the decades since they were in third grade themselves, but perhaps that's too much to ask.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#38Hum
Short sleeves and shorts have a positive impact on ecology and money savings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Biz_campaign
I mean concerned citizens are hammered between increasingly enforced orders of being a good citizens (that don't pollute or be honest), while companies may make them do stuff that makes them bad citizens (pollution or tax frauds).
And the more a citizen does not comply with either one or the other role he gets more and more hammered down.
This world is crazy.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A polite request is asking their respective managers about the dress code and whether it can be relaxed Which, according to the original source, is exactly what they did with the supporting argument that at least one employee didn't follow dress code, resulting in them being shut down with no answer: > I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything, until I noticed one of the workers alw…
Maybe the other employee had a health issue that prevented them from wearing dress shoes, and management didn't want to share that private information? It definitely sounds like management would prefer to force the lone employee to follow dress code than to allow everyone else to break it.
> Maybe the other employee had a health issue
They did, they had lost a leg, which the interns didn't know beforehand.
> management didn't want to share that private information?
Except they shared that information… after firing all the interns:
> We were told to hand in our ID badges and to gather our things and leave the property ASAP. […] just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in.
Re: Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work
#40According to the article they didn't even disobey the dress code, or cause any real commotion. They just sent a letter just asking for a rule to be changed slightly for practical reasons. Is it really ethical to fire an entire group of people for merely questioning a rule? Is this really evidence they are "entitled" as comments here are saying? Perhaps the letter was worded very rudely?
I don't think it is, it sounds like the company is rather tyrannical and will not tolerate employees expressing something they want as a group.
Ideally, since employers hold most of the power, it should be feasible for employees to band together to even the playing field. This company is one I wouldn't want to work for.
That said, this article is non-news and it's just trying to manufacture outrage. I've flagged it.