JEANINE “J.T.” O’DONNELL AND DALE DAUTEN Dear J.T. & Dale: My company’s dress attire before the pandemic was business casual. Now that we’re back in the office, everybody is truly casual — I mean it feels like anything goes these days. I swear the guy next to me had pajama pants on the other day. I’m actually happy to be back and dressing up again — I was sick of being in sweatpants all day long. But I find being in an environment with everybody being so casual to be a bit depressing.
People are also reading… DALE: Casual attire is a job benefit, and if it gets out that you’re pushing management to upgrade the dress code, you’ll be a pariah. Rightly so. After all, coming back to the office is an expense and hardship and to take away another benefit would be hard on morale. Plus, I’ve heard people saying that their pre-pandemic clothes no longer fit, creating a problem that would require effort and expense for many employees to solve. So, forget complaining.