Call it Dresscodegate.
For days now, HP has been caught up in a raging Internet conflagration over rep0rted rumors and rumored reports that programmers in its Enterprise Service division had been banned from wearing t-shirts and other casual clothing to work. According to The Register, several teams at Hewlett Packard received a confidential memo about the couture crackdown, reading in part:
According to HP, men should avoid turning up to the office in T-shirts with no collars, faded or torn jeans, shorts, baseball caps and other headwear, sportswear, and sandals and other open shoes. Women are advised not to wear short skirts, faded or torn jeans, low-cut dresses, sandals, crazy high heels, and too much jewelry.
Quelle horreur! was the response from Silicon Valley where t-shirts, skinny jeans and Giants caps are practically required fashion at startups and corporate tech giants alike. Or as skinny-jean-wearing Apple CEO Tim Cook might say: Sheesh, what is this? 1953?
Not surprisingly, to have one the region s high-tech legends issue such an un-cool edict sent legions of programmers, developers, product manager, venture capitalists, founders and co-founders into a veritable tizzy. Even more embarrassing, techies took to the Twittersphere to ridicule HP s fuddy-duddy dictum while rival companies dangled job offers before HP s disgruntled masses, promising them they could wear whatever the heck they wanted to wear to work.
It was getting ugly, with one observer Tweeting out:
I understand the motivation behind HP dress code – HP customers are mostly clueless idiots that judge people by the way they dress.
Suffice to say this was all bad publicity at a very bad time: HP is on the verge of splitting its business into two separate companies, presumably creating two separate dress codes that it must then defend, enforce, deny, or make funny videos about.
But now the plot has again thickened, with HP releasing a short tongue-in-cheek if rather lame video of HP Enterprise s head of HR insisting his company does not have a global dress code and that you can t believe everything you read on the Internet. It was chuckles all around for HP s Alan May as he smiled and joked and slipped into and out of one crazy outfit after another, with a heavy emphasis on plaid.
His message:
Hi, I m Alan … Guess what?! HP doesn t have a global dress code. And if we did, you d think I d know, being the head of HR for Hewlett Packard Enterprise an all.
OK, so no dress code at HP, right?
Not so fast. While May s funny video was going viral, the ever-vigilant Register reported on some funny business going on behind the scenes: HP insists we don t have a global dress code – while deleting one from its website, read its headline.
HP Enterprise s head of HR says his company does not have a global dress code, while his minions quietly remove a webpage on workplace appearance from HP.com.
Fun video, but none of this changes anything… except one thing: a webpage in the HP Technology at Work section of HP.com, dated August 2013, titled Being smart about casual and listing do s and don ts for workplace attire – such as no short skirts or sandals or ripped jeans, and so on. HP still links to the article .
Earlier today, we noticed HP had deleted the contents entirely. Gone. A page that had been online for two years, and according to HP insiders, matched the memo sent to some engineering teams last week.
HP did not comment.
So, dress code or no dress code?
For most of us, it s no big deal either way. But HP employees might want to think twice Monday morning when they re picking out their day s wardrobe.
But if you re feeling really lucky, take a cue from that dude in HR:
Choose plaid.
Credit: SiliconBeat
