Ahhhh, it’s yet another dress code story from Reddit’s “Malicious Compliance” page…
And if you’ve encountered one of these before, then you know these are some of the most enjoyable tales out there!
Sit back, kick up your feet, and enjoy this one!
The One Time Dress Code Hurt Men
“In 1987, my dad got his first high school summer job on the kitchen staff for a local pizza place.
Things were about to change…
The place was a family-owned business and did make great pizzas, but they had just started to gain traction and just opened a couple secondary locations, and it was starting to inflate the owner’s head a little.
This meant the owner was getting focused on their “image”, particularly in regards to the dress code.
The dress code for servers and kitchen staff was the same – the company’s shirt on top, tucked in with a belt to either black pants or a black skirt, and loafers or heels.
It got HOT in there.
No shorts, untucked shirts, or casual shoes. The issue with this is that it was summer in the 80s in a town where A/C wasn’t a thing yet, and the kitchen staff were standing next to pizza ovens all day.
The girls on staff would wear skirts that fit the code, but they were able to free the knee and get some breeze on their legs from the fans, while the guys constantly complained to their kitchen manager that they were going to overheat in pants and they needed to wear shorts in the back.
The manager always said dress code was owner policy, and that if they disobeyed it they would have to get written up at the least.
So one day my dad and some of the other guys had enough, so they asked their girl friends for help and came into work with skirts themselves.
Oh, boy!
The owner walked into his original store that afternoon for a check-in to find a dozen sweaty teenage boys with ****eating grins wearing skirts so short they probably would have been dress coded even if they were girls, and tossing pizzas like nothing was different, led by a 5’2” 15 year old kid with earrings (yeah my dad’s a short king which adds to this).
That showed ’em!
After that, guys were allowed to wear shorts on kitchen staff but still not as servers.
My dad and his friends were not fired but were warned to never pull that kind of **** again, and the pizza place just celebrated their 50th anniversary this summer!”
Here’s what Reddit users had to say.
This Reddit user talked about a school in the UK…
Another person said the mail service did something similar…
This reader said to keep the opposite in mind…
One person talked about how things worked in their school back in the glorious ’80s.
Another Reddit user had a story to tell…
Down with dress codes!
Who needs ’em?!?!
If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.