Like clockwork, the internet will get itself into a tizzy on what we can or can’t do when going into work. The modern office is a relatively new invention, one with fraught rules and ebbing culture that places workers in an artificial situation not unlike a Great Dane in a sweater or a crab in a terrarium.
And a simple pair of shorts seems to be the new straw that has broken the camel’s worn back. A recently posted TikTok posted by @mtyreshiadaily set off a debate regarding office attire. In her video, Tyreshia explained she was asked to reschedule a job interview after the recruiter asked her to change clothes.
Wearing the same cardigan, blouse, and shorts that she wore to her interview, Tyreshia said she had been asked to “get changed” and come back. Showing a 360 of the shorts in question, she says, “I was like, no.”
In a live video, Tyreshia explained she’s 28 and was applying to a tech company. After said postponement, she canceled the rescheduled interview and found another job. In a follow-up video, she unpacks her mentality. “When you’re an asset to a company…you have options. These companies are not trying to lose an opportunity to work with you,” she said.
But still, much has been made about the shorts. “They were polite to reschedule you. Most would’ve just outright rejected same day,” wrote one of the top-liked comments on TikTok. Another came to Tyreshia’s defense: “you should see the stuff I seen people wear to interviews, there’s nothing wrong with this in warm weather.”
One viral comment on Twitter noted as much: “maybe working from home for 3 years and my industry has warped my frame of reference but like its [the] dead of summer and the shorts are not short.”
Indeed, the pandemic and the ensuing shifting norms of work have put some customs into question. After time away from the watercooler, employees came back to the office with a new business-casual dress that leaned all the more on casual. Add climate change and its gnarly heat to the mix, and nixing shorts for etiquette’s sake seems, well, silly.
“If it’s 98 degrees outside, it should be okay to prioritize someone’s comfort,” Chris Barca, director of communications at the office of Queens borough president, told the Wall Street Journal.
But tradition seems to be hard to shake for some, as a Wall Street Journal/Ipsos poll from 2023 found a whopping 41% said it’s never appropriate for men to wear shorts in the office. Even in deadly heat, which reached record highs this year, the office is clinging to its rules of the playground. Simply telling people how to dress seems to be a very American pastime, notes fashion historian Heather Vaughan Lee.
“That Puritan background has continued to influence governments—and other ruling bodies—who seek to control the outward appearance of Americans, either as written law or cultural norms,” she told NPR in 2015 when describing the long journey in shorts becoming not as taboo for women.
Men’s aversion to shorts can be traced all the way back to British royal tradition and the idea that boys wore shorts only until age 8, per New York Times critic Vanessa Friedman. And everyone else, women or nonbinary individuals, are stuck with an extra set of unwritten rules that hinge on whatever the male gaze deems subjectively appropriate for work, which depends on uncontrollable factors like the body itself.
“I don’t agree with the shorts but I think that girl wouldn’t get screamed at nearly as much if she wasn’t thick,” tweeted culture writer Shamira Ibrahim. “I’ve seen slim girls get away with straight-up minidresses at corporate workplaces while curvy girls are demonized for wearing anything remotely figure hugging.”
Much has been made about the anecdotal rise in not just dressing casually, but a newly laid-back style of interacting with coworkers. Gen Z has become the face of this careening into a less uptight style of work, wherein you bring yourself to the office or less of an alien doll version of said self.
“Does anyone else feel like young adults display a distinct lack of professionalism,” wondered a commenter on a viral tweet regarding the video. “They don’t know how to dress for interviews, send emails, network, write resumes, or conduct themselves professionally in a lot of ways and I’m wondering where this ‘gap’ is being created.”
Of course, many of these generational differences are often overplayed. Across the board employees are feeling less engaged with their 9-to-5s, likely in part due to an existentialism as spurred by the pandemic, climate change, and socioeconomic turmoil. Formality, or the placed importance of acting and looking a certain way, is seemingly thrown out the door as interest in our jobs wanes. With all this apathy, maybe it’s time to throw in the towel on the office-wear debate, or at least our shorts.
