A dressing down for staff over workwear

Columnist

Friday 26 October 2012

WORK, work, work.

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Robert McNeil

Every day, you turn up, check Facebook for eight hours, then stagger home exhausted. It's nothing but drudgery. I'm getting a message in my earpiece. I see. Apologise? Oh, all right. I'm sorry to those who work non-stop and never get a chance to check Facebook. Right, shurrup, and let me get on with this.

My point is – who do you think you are? Andrew Neil? – is that it would be all right if you could just waddle into work and get on with it.But employers expect outrageous extras: punctuality; remaining awake; and certain standards of dress. The first two I can understand, with perhaps some leeway for hourly naps. But the last has ever been a source of ire to the proletariat.Now they are up in arms. Actually, that's a lie. The proletariat haven't been up in arms since Margaret Thatcher let them buy their own homes. But, still, there are pockets of unrest, particularly at HMV.As primarily a record store evolving into a shop selling online technology that you don't need to go into a shop to buy, you'd be right to assume HMV is (a) ailing and (b) largely staffed by young persons.You might even expect these young persons to have an interest in music, and the culture that goes with it. Be still my dancing feet, and all that rot.You'd expect young persons interested in music and iPatches to be a bit alternative, non-conformist even. They prefer perhaps Zulu Leprechauns, We The Peephole, or Rats of Unusual Size – actual band names, not all of them successful – to an actuarial career.And you'd expect them to look different, which is to say departing from the respectable norm and not necessarily dissimilar in themselves. Life among you Earthlings is fundamentally paradoxical, thus those who set out to be different end up looking the same as each other.Your head swims with examples involving hair, clothes and posture (typically, there will be slouching). It's all good and lovely, part of the wonderful warp and weft of human confusion.But at HMV, of all places, they want to clamp down on this. Reportedly, the company's desk-botherers have issued an edict, banning big tattoos, long hair and flip-flop footwear.I will not comment on flip-flops, as these are beyond my remit. However, I have a lot to say about tattoos and hair, some of it well researched, some not.The first thing I have to say is this: what the bejasus? Faced with a declining share price, this is how HMV responds? Unsurprisingly, a backlash has begun among leading intellectuals online.Here is an example, and I am not making up the spelling: "I always thought part of this industory was having people who were inderviduals working there."A good point, badly made. Others said they expected staff at a record store to have long hair and tattoos. Personally, I prefer people who have long hair to shaven heads and whatnot. They're more elvish.And surely everyone has a tattoo now? HMV says it's just the big "sleeve" ones they're worried about, but I've known people with these who could eat with a knife and fork.There's a whiff of prejudice in all this. Prejudice creeps up from the lower part of the brain and must be battened down.I don't agree with baldness, for example, because of its scientifically proven link to immorality. Each fallen follicle is the product of a sinful thought. I try not to be prejudiced when confronted by a slaphead.There are areas where a conservative appearance is mandatory, even reassuring: I'm thinking of the police and newspaper columnists. But not folk in record stores.Perhaps they could at least allow them a "dress-down Friday", where they could flaunt their tattoos and glue their hair back on.Let's get some perspective here. True, you wouldn't vote for an election candidate with the word "hate" tattooed on his forehead, despite his Labour rosette. But, if he removed the rosette, you'd surely buy a CD from him.

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A dressing down for staff over workwear

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