Can casual dress day go too far?

In this story from Reddit, a fed-up employee decides to push the boundaries of “Casual Fridays” and have a little fun in the process.

We love to see it.

Check out the details!

Casual Dress Day

I worked for a large religious based not-for-profit for five years.

Despite not praising God, I was too good at the job to be fired (the GM tried) but it was clear I had no career there.

And that freed me from the fear of making a career limiting choice.

And freed him up to really push the boundaries at work.

In their infinite wisdom and grace, they decided we could have casual dress day once a month – for a gold coin donation.

Which you had to make even if you didn’t come in casual dress.

For the first one, they made a huge deal about what a big deal this was.

They announced the phones and internet access would be cut at midday, and we were all going to clean the office so wear “your comfiest clothes”.

So they charged employees whether they participated or not and made them clean the place to boot? The author knows the perfect response.

Perfect.

I turned up in fleecy pajamas, dressing gown, slippers and a hot water bottle (with wool cover) tucked under my arm. HR swarmed me and I pointed out these were my comfiest clothes.

One of my greatest achievements is having HR formally change the casual dress policy on the first day of it’s implementation to specifically exclude sleepwear.

But he wasn’t done yet.

They formed an official ‘fun committee’. They tried to get me to join the fun committee and I flat out refused.

After the first casual dress day, they invited a(nother) charity to speak at lunch and gave them the donation money.

So when they had someone talking about mental health, they had a theme of ‘Crazy’ – very tasteful and sympathetic.

They gave a prize to someone who wore a hat with eyes on it and someone who wore odd socks.

Not a great look, but once again the author has the perfect response.

I hired a cow costume and came as a mad cow. I didn’t get a prize.

I kind of miss having a job where I just didn’t care anymore.

Some potential jealousy in the comments of this one.

Let’s have a look.

What happens if you didn’t make the donation, this commenter wants to know?

Red flags everywhere, says this comment.

Could have taken it even further, suggests another comment.

This commenter had their own response to weird workplace dress codes.

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!

I know this guy is way better off now.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.