So, spring is sprunging and while today isn’t the warmest day, at all, one of my—male—co-workers came in wearing shorts. This prompted a conversation about men wearing shorts—yes, it was a slow day today—as they, the shorts, have a somewhat mixed response among Danish men.
Basically, the division is along whether or not shorts are appropriate clothing for professional settings. Not whether or not it should be banned at the workplacer; we don’t have a dresscode, and nobody wants that. _But_ one “wing” of the workplace, including me, say that shorts—yes, even “nice” shorts— are leisurewear, and don’t belong in the workplace, while the other “wing,” led by today’s shorts-wearer, say that, as long as it isn’t up to society or social circles or settings to dictate when it is appropriate to wear shorts; you should wear what you’re comfortable in.
It isn’t an attack on shorts from “our” side, as we all own shorts ourselves, but we wear them on vacation and around the house, in our yards and so-on. Not to work, where we put on “proper” trousers, or said in another way: you dress in an appropriate and nice manner when you’re not in private. And shorts are not appropriate outside of leisure situations. For context, this doesn’t mean formal wear, I wore a black sweatshirt over a white tee today, so it isn’t suit-and-ties we’re talking about. It is just not shorts.
This is a discussion that I _know_ happens in many families and in many workplaces—there are ofc. trades where shorts are appropriate—across Denmark, every year. Is there a similar debate going on in your countries, every year?
_edit:_ Just to clarify, the place I work doesn’t have any dress-code, it is a question on the appropriateness of shorts in the workplace; not on whether or not it is “_right_” or whether or not if it should be allowed—who cares?—but on how shorts are regarded as unprofessional attire, as leisure-wear.
_edit 2:_ I work in publishing
_edit 3:_ A lot of commenters seem to think that a sweatshirt and shorts are equivalent, which… I really can’t see? Like, a plain black sweatshirt, [like this](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91-BfnvWzuL._AC_UY1000_.jpg)(though I’m not wearing jeans,) is much, _much_ different from wearing shorts.
22 comments
Debated every year here amongst my colleagues in the summer when it gets warm and women wear skirts or tailored shorts (the loose kind that look skirt-like), and sandals, and men still feel that they can only wear trousers and shoes. Our company dresscode is pretty informal and does state that men can wear tailored shorts also, but it’s really uncommon for them to do so. Shorts seem to be heavily ingrained to our collective consciousness as leisurewear. I think the guys that want to wear them feel like they won’t be taken seriously if they do.
I guess I side with you, I would never wear shorts to the office, even though we have no dress code. I just don’t think they look professional. But I’m pretty sure everyone of my handful of co-workers have come to the office in shorts in the past. So I guess Finns don’t generally agree with me.
I’m sure there will be some exceptions somewhere, but in 99% of the offices in Italy it’s not acceptable to wear shorts. Even if there is no official dress code, and even if shorts are super common outside of work in any informal situation.
I’m not sure how it is at other offices, but here it’s totally okay wearing shorts. And I think that’s good. Women can wear skirts without being frowned upon, so I don’t see why men shouldn’t be able to wear shorts without being frowned upon.
My workplace is veeery laissez-faire on clothes, and most of my coworkers make use of that. I’ve seen shorts, band shirts, flipflops, everything short of a bathrobe.
I too refuse to wear shorts to the workplace, that just doesn’t feel right.
I guess the work you do is relevant to the debate. I’m a programmer and I’ve had jobs or been to offices across Europe, and had colleagues all around Europe and no one had ever cared. I’m not an office shorts wearer myself though as I find offices way too cold for shorts.. but I’ve seen colleagues in shorts or tank tops or whatever and it’s always been pretty relaxed.
Before becoming a programmer I used to work in call centres in UK or Denmark and in both places the shorts discussion was a thing. The general rule ended up with shorts should go bellow the knees.
If your work has a “business casual” dresscode, whether it is explicitly demanded or not, shorts are not allowed. I used to work at some soft corpo type of job and we all had to wear pants, shirt, jacket and no tie. Meanwhile all the IT guys, developers, etc, wore shorts, some even had flip flops.
But out of work.. ofcourse you wear shorts when its 20 or more degrees. Above the knee, for extra mobility.
I saw a similar discussion on reddit but it was about walking braless at work. The majority agreed that walking braless at work is ok. I tried to argue that it makes me uncomfortable because it is highly distracting. But I was downvoted, because why should my comfort dictate what a woman can wear or what she cannot at work.
So if walking braless is ok at work, I surely don’t see anything against walking in shorts.
And I am talking about office setting, not a factory floor where it could be against safety rules.
I am currently in university and I normally wear shorts from 15 March until 15 November. Nobody really cares about it, unless it is like below 15°C outside. In that case some people might give me weird looks, because I am wearing summer clothes in winter weather.
As always over here, I’m sure there are employers where it isn’t a problem to wear shorts when it’s really hot. However the grand majority of employers will give you some sort of formal or informal reprimand if you wear shorts to work.
I’m biased as hell because I have very sweaty feet so wearing trousers, socks and shoes is hell for me when it’s warm anyway.
Personally I feel that men and women are entitled to the same level of comfort when working, and that, you should be allowed to adapt your clothing to the weather conditions outside. If a uniform, safety related clothing items, or strict dress code is necessary. A shower and changing room should be offered.
So in shorts I’m in favor of being allowed to wear shorts. I’m also pro sandals or flipflops.
I would go with no shorts in office here, because I’ve never seen anyone come to office in shorts, it’s even little funny to think about a scenario that like boss just walks in with bare legs tbh. In the end most offices have air conditioning so it can even get chilly inside. I think it can highly depend on the company though, I’m sure some are more casual. Personally, I guess I prefer no shorts just because it looks a little bit ‘tidier’, no hate for them though.
Unless you’re working in high-end customer service (sales, banking, etc), I’d say shorts are ok, unless explicitly forbidden because of rules aiming to solve a specific problem. If your work has no problems with black sweatshirts over white tees, they should have none with shorts as well.
I’ve heard of people not being allowed to wear shorts to work or to fancy nightclubs, but on some level I think of it as a completely normal part of clothing, like a t-shirt or a sweater. Why it would inappropriate to wear to work is beyond me, to be honest. It’s not like they look provocative in any way, nor do they distract me, if other people wear them. I wouldn’t wear it for special occassions, like funerals and weddings, but work in my opinion should not be taken *that* seriously. Like, come on.
I think overall shorts are not seen as professional clothing. That doesn’t mean you can’t wear it at your job, it will depend on the general clothing culture of your job, how dressed up or dressed down people can be.
I remember that there was a big discussion several years ago about male bus drivers. It was really hot during the summer but apparently they were not allowed to wear shorts. Some ended up wearing skirts that were a part of the female attire (or at least an option, I’m sure the women could also wear trousers).
I forgot what the end result was, I hope for them they got shorts in their attire for the summer.
I don’t care about the legs and legwear of a bus driver, which we rarely get to see anyways. I care about getting from point A to point B safely (and hopefully in time).
In the offices I’ve worked at they are considered unprofessional.
However, people like you OP, are guilty of lowering the collective happiness. Because let’s be honest, the only thing that make a clothing “unprofessional” or “professional” in offices is purely social perception.
So what you are doing by trying to prevent people from being comfortable at work is an act of terror against society. Small uncomforts like those increase the chances of someone feeling like shit on a given day, they increase the chances of someone not saying you hello in the morning, and they increase the chances of them flipping off the HR director, getting fired and killing them.
For the good of society and for the good of mankind, please let people come in shorts, t-shirts or sweatpants at work. Let’s normalize being comfortable in the office and I swear that happiness will go up and sucide rates go down, since people will come back happier at home, they won’t fight and divorces might go down to !
I’m being half-Ironic here.
Today I wore tracksuit bottoms into work, nobody said anything.
Post covid working in offices seems to have relaxed dress codes so much, especially in start up offices where the bosses are just happy people turn up .
Having said that, I’ve also worked in Liverpool Street and seen a co-worker wearing tracksuit bottoms once. Mind after they implemented a smart uniform as in that area you should look quite presentable to all the toffs and chinless dickheads
Depends where you work and what you do in the UK basically.
If there’s a meeting with important people, don’t look like a tramp. If it’s a regular day, fuck it, do what I want
I kind of agree with you, but if shorts are not ok then neither are sweatshirts.
I think it depend on job, but if you interact with people (either customers, clients, students) I would say they are innapropriate.
In my experience it’s pretty normal over here for men to wear shorts. In some offices they might be deemed unprofessional, but I’ve not worked at such a place so far. The only reason I get a discussion about it every year, is because I’m usually the first to wear one (pretty much when temperatures go over 10 degrees I start wearing them) when others still deem it cold.
I have no personal preference (well I’m not male either and my job lets me wear pretty much whatever I want to anyways). However I do recall that back in 2014 our prime minister of that time, Alex Stubb, wore shorts for some work-related events. Not at parliament but for some local meetings and meet and greet type of things. It made headlines and surprisingly many people were indignant after the fact.
People wear shorts at our office all the time. Some people wear baseball caps, some wear flip flops, some even go bare foot. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone wear a suit, or even a tie. Nobody cares, there are no dress codes and a dress code would be laughed at.
We are a tech company; professionalism is in our performance not in our dress sense. As unusual as he was one of the best programmers I’ve ever worked with would frequently wear a tail. You do you.
I think over here shorts are acceptable for jobs done outside or where one is exposed to the sun and other elements. As for office jobs, depends on the company. My field, Graphic Design, can be quite lenient with regards to dress codes, but it does depend on the company. An independent agency is more likely to be that way than the design department of a company.
As for wearing them outside of work, they are very common during the summer and warm days. Below 18° I don’t think they’re super common, outside of tourists that is. Actually there have been some particularly rainy days this month, and some strong and cold winds, and yet I still saw tourists from colder countries walking around in shorts, summer dresses and sandals. Not sure if that’s common or not.
Thinking about it, I’ve never seen a man in shorts at work. I don’t think it’s forbidden through.
I have to say that I’ve also never worn a dress or a skirt to work either because our AC is… Well, let’s just say it’s very effective.