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Does this seem unethical?
One of my friends was called into the office of her boss's boss, who is a female, dresses business dress, although the office itself is business casual.
The boss said that performance is good, she wanted to talk about something more personal. And then proceeded to tell my friend that she needs to have a better appearance. And started talking about things, including:
Dress, needs to be more dressy
Needs to wear makeup
Should start wearing perfume
Might want to change shampoos or conditioners
And so on...
I guess I could understand giving some overall career advice, saying, you know, if you want to move up the ladder, it would probably help to dress more business instead of business casual, but that's just some career advice. But no, she was telling her overall that her appearance was not good enough.
So my friend was upset and asked if this was a problem and would affect merit increases or her yearly review. The boss said, no, but I might not give you certain clients unless you change. (My friend doesn't really see the clients, but would be willing to dress up more if she did.)
Anyway, when it starts getting into a discussion of you should change your shampoo, and wear makeup and perfume, my instant reaction would be, um, do I smell? Are you telling me I'm ugly?
It just seems wrong to me. She was obviously upset, cried in front of the boss, and left work the next day because she couldn't stop crying. She is dressing up more but doesn't want to put on makeup, perfume, or do any of the other stuff that was recommended.
I told her I thought this was unethical and I wonder if it would be considered discrimination or something like that. Thoughts? Has anyone heard of this happening before?
Re: Does this seem unethical?
That seems really sketch to me. I'd have to give the side eye to that one. What if your friend has an allergy and perfumes and make up cause her skin to break out, eyes water, sneeze every 5 seconds and nose red? Is the boss' boss trying to turn her into a call girl for the clients? I don't get it. And what the hell business is it of theirs what shampoo she uses? Maybe someone should contact HR? I don't know, I've never experienced that before (except for telling people NOT to wear perfume b/c it affects the animasl).
There are lots of times that I don't wear makeup. I do wear some when I work at macy's but its very light (eyeshadow and base). And I hardly wear perfume. I'm not a girly girl and don't really know how to really apply makeup.
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Yeah, my instant reaction when she told me this was that it just felt wrong. I told her I'd ask around and see what other people thought; if it was worth filing a complaint with HR or if she should just let it go.
She's not really happy with her job anyways and at this point I think she's really upping her job search to go somewhere else. I felt so bad for her! The killer for me was when she told me her boss' boss was making suggestions on changing her shampoo or something. But I'm not sure she'll be able to find another job quickly in this market. If she could, she'd just quit and not pursue it through HR or whatever.
(I don't ever wear makeup! Or perfume. I have a really bad sense of smell and I can't distinguish perfumes or even smell them on people- I would probably reek, haha, if I tried to put it on because I wouldn't know how much to put on.)
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"Unethical" is not the right word and I'm in the minority because I don't see anything wrong with this. Maybe this is the HR professional in me speaking but I think your friend is being a little too sensitive. I think your friend should change her appearance if she wants to move up in the company. Unfortunately I have had to have this conversation with people in my company more than a few times. Image is important and if your friend doesn't have the image that her company wants her to project then she is going to miss out on opportunities. I think she is actually lucky that her boss said something to her. I know people that have been passed over for promotions because of this over and over and nobody ever told them why. Its not an easy pill to swallow. I'll admit I was actually told this when I was 23 by a female VP in my company. It did not feel good but I realized that she was right. I had to polish my wardrobe in order to be respected and taken seriously by our employees.
I'm sure it was very difficult for her boss to have this conversation and I hope your friend can get past the hurt and take a serious look at her professional image and how she can improve it. Even if she wants to move to another job, this could be something that will follow her and decrease her opportunities in the future. I hope this makes sense. Her friends and family are going to support her and say everything is fine so if she is really unsure then she may want to get another professional opinion. If she is serious about her career then she should be open to improving her professional image.
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Thanks, this is a different perspective. There really isn't a way for her to move up in her current job unless she wanted to go into management and she doesn't like that... She's the only one who does her job at the company. But I know she does want to work in a different profession (she doesn't currently use her degree) and this might motivate her to really look for something else. It's too bad, she had a chance for a job where she worked at home but they had some requirements that she couldn't meet so she didn't end up taking the job. Then she wouldn't have had to worry about any of this.
I feel bad because I don't dress much better or anything, and I have really fine hair so if I don't brush it every so often it starts looking bad. (She has the same problem but where I keep a brush at my desk, I don't think she does.) I don't wear makeup, and I definitely don't wear perfume, and have had no problems moving up at my company. But if we were required to dress more nicely, I definitely would.
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