Hello! Yesterday was a strange day for me at my store. First, some background.
I've been at my store for a little over 2 years. In that time, I would say I have been well-liked both socially and professionally by coworkers and leads. I am punctual, direct, have strong people skills, and I try to take direction in good faith and always meet expectations. Late last year as modernization kicked up a notch, I had some difficulty adjusting, but my whole store does, and I've made strides to meet the new expectations and would say I am still considered a valued team member by my leads and coworkers, as far as I can tell.
Here's the thing--a couple of months ago, I bought a red vest to wear over my own shirts., because I had seen plenty of other people doing that and, unless somethings changed, that has been approved by the dress code since I began working for Target. I simply didn't want to keep spending money on plain red shirts that I am never going to wear outside of target and that do not look particularly nice and do no stand up to wear and tear. So getting the vest made sense.
I like to wear flamboyant shirts. That's what I wear in my day to day life. Floral, cosmic patterns. I think they're very nice, and I would say that I get a lot of positive feedback both from coworkers and guests, as well as from TLs and leads, on what I wear. Everything is appropriate, nothing is graphic or offensive. And they are always worn under a red vest with a nametag. The first day I wore the vest with one of my own shirts underneath, my store leader complimented my wardrobe. To me, that was confirmation that I was on brand. Another couple of times, when our district manager was in, she specifically complimented how I looked and said it looked very nice. Again, I see this as confirmation that wearing these shirts with the red vest is on brand.
Yesterday, I show up for work early, wearing one of the same shirts that our district manager had complimented me on in the past, and my lead says "Hey, I have to talk to you about the shirts. I got an e-mail. You can't wear the floral. It has to be solid patterns underneath the vest." I, of course, didn't argue. I zipped up my vest , apologized for the misunderstanding, and told him that after today I wouldn't wear them anymore.
I was sad about it, and I think understandably. I like to dress in a way that makes me feel attractive and confident, and I went out of my way to do it in a way that still respected the store brand. But, again, I wasn't in a position to argue.
Then we had our 10:30 huddle (as an aside, do other stores do a daily huddle? we started that recently and it feels strange to me), and during the huddle the store manager brought up dress code and sounded very angry about it, saying things like "play time is over" and "from now on it's red with solids, and we'll talk to people and if changes don't happen from there, we'll look into corrective actions, which would just be stupid". It was really demeaning. Everyone knew that it was about me, you could still see the floral poking from my under my zipped up red vest. Keep in mind, I'd been dressing this way and interacting with management regularly for a couple of months, and the store lead himself had specifically mentioned to me that he liked my shirts with the vest in the past. So while people are talking about this I can sense everyone knowing it's about. And it sort of felt like the implication was that I had been insubordinate or difficult.
It was obvious enough that I was the one being referred to in huddle that afterwards, people were coming up to me and saying they were sorry and that they always thought I looked nice. Maybe the look on my face just made it so apparent. I don't know.
The thing is, in all the time I have worked here, I always saw people wearing patterns and prints under their red. Maybe mine are more flamboyant or ornate, but that's what I wear. It's what I wear in my day to day life, same as anyone else who wears a solid or standard pattern shirt under a red vest. I don't think it's fair to expect me to buy a bunch of solid black or white t shirts that I'm never going to wear outside of work any more than it is to expect me to buy a bunch of red shirts I'm never going to wear outside of work. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the dress code (I haven't been able to find my employee handbook unfortunately), but I feel like I was always within line, and I was dressing that way for months and interacting regularly with leads and never was told their was any problem. It also just seems odd that they'd specifically single out floral. As far as I know, I'm the only person that regularly wears those kinds of shirts. So, I don't know, the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable.
Am I out of line? Did I misunderstand the rules? Am I being too sensitive? Why is the store leader who had complimented me in the past for my dress suddenly so terse and unpleasant about it?
I've been at my store for a little over 2 years. In that time, I would say I have been well-liked both socially and professionally by coworkers and leads. I am punctual, direct, have strong people skills, and I try to take direction in good faith and always meet expectations. Late last year as modernization kicked up a notch, I had some difficulty adjusting, but my whole store does, and I've made strides to meet the new expectations and would say I am still considered a valued team member by my leads and coworkers, as far as I can tell.
Here's the thing--a couple of months ago, I bought a red vest to wear over my own shirts., because I had seen plenty of other people doing that and, unless somethings changed, that has been approved by the dress code since I began working for Target. I simply didn't want to keep spending money on plain red shirts that I am never going to wear outside of target and that do not look particularly nice and do no stand up to wear and tear. So getting the vest made sense.
I like to wear flamboyant shirts. That's what I wear in my day to day life. Floral, cosmic patterns. I think they're very nice, and I would say that I get a lot of positive feedback both from coworkers and guests, as well as from TLs and leads, on what I wear. Everything is appropriate, nothing is graphic or offensive. And they are always worn under a red vest with a nametag. The first day I wore the vest with one of my own shirts underneath, my store leader complimented my wardrobe. To me, that was confirmation that I was on brand. Another couple of times, when our district manager was in, she specifically complimented how I looked and said it looked very nice. Again, I see this as confirmation that wearing these shirts with the red vest is on brand.
Yesterday, I show up for work early, wearing one of the same shirts that our district manager had complimented me on in the past, and my lead says "Hey, I have to talk to you about the shirts. I got an e-mail. You can't wear the floral. It has to be solid patterns underneath the vest." I, of course, didn't argue. I zipped up my vest , apologized for the misunderstanding, and told him that after today I wouldn't wear them anymore.
I was sad about it, and I think understandably. I like to dress in a way that makes me feel attractive and confident, and I went out of my way to do it in a way that still respected the store brand. But, again, I wasn't in a position to argue.
Then we had our 10:30 huddle (as an aside, do other stores do a daily huddle? we started that recently and it feels strange to me), and during the huddle the store manager brought up dress code and sounded very angry about it, saying things like "play time is over" and "from now on it's red with solids, and we'll talk to people and if changes don't happen from there, we'll look into corrective actions, which would just be stupid". It was really demeaning. Everyone knew that it was about me, you could still see the floral poking from my under my zipped up red vest. Keep in mind, I'd been dressing this way and interacting with management regularly for a couple of months, and the store lead himself had specifically mentioned to me that he liked my shirts with the vest in the past. So while people are talking about this I can sense everyone knowing it's about. And it sort of felt like the implication was that I had been insubordinate or difficult.
It was obvious enough that I was the one being referred to in huddle that afterwards, people were coming up to me and saying they were sorry and that they always thought I looked nice. Maybe the look on my face just made it so apparent. I don't know.
The thing is, in all the time I have worked here, I always saw people wearing patterns and prints under their red. Maybe mine are more flamboyant or ornate, but that's what I wear. It's what I wear in my day to day life, same as anyone else who wears a solid or standard pattern shirt under a red vest. I don't think it's fair to expect me to buy a bunch of solid black or white t shirts that I'm never going to wear outside of work any more than it is to expect me to buy a bunch of red shirts I'm never going to wear outside of work. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the dress code (I haven't been able to find my employee handbook unfortunately), but I feel like I was always within line, and I was dressing that way for months and interacting regularly with leads and never was told their was any problem. It also just seems odd that they'd specifically single out floral. As far as I know, I'm the only person that regularly wears those kinds of shirts. So, I don't know, the whole thing made me feel uncomfortable.
Am I out of line? Did I misunderstand the rules? Am I being too sensitive? Why is the store leader who had complimented me in the past for my dress suddenly so terse and unpleasant about it?
