Here, for your reading pleasure is my anti-tie rant, that I sent to the Female General manger of the organisation I work for.
I hope this helps anyone else in this position.
Anything that may identify my employer has been removed, or re-phrased.
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Dear General Manager,
The stated duties in my current position are;
- Participate in the conduct and development of technical training programs and training manuals for XXXX staff and clients.
- Liaise with management on analysis, development and maintenance of XXXX specific software applications.
- Assist with analysis, development and delivery of XXXX product utilising software applications and multi-media technologies.
- Investigate and correct equipment failure in computer, audio, video, television, computer, and related technology on an on-call basis.
- Develop, implement and monitor technical procedures for equipment maintenance and testing schedules
- Liaise with management, staff and external bodies on equipment and software purchase, maintenance, selection and/or modification and ensure compliance with XXXX guidelines in relation to purchasing and asset management.
- Develop, implement and monitor safe workshop practices.
The requirement to wear a suit and tie was not included anywhere on the duty statement for my current position. As XXXX does not supply a corporate uniform, the only requirement that I know of is that I wear neat casual clothing (ie: slacks & shirt with a collar)
I normally wear a suit to work as a compromise to the desires of XXXX management for staff to present a ‘corporate image’, even though I do not consider suits to be practical for the work I do.
As a Technician this quite often involves crawling around on XXXX floors, behind dust covered equipment racks and the like to resolve A/V faults. I have already damaged several suits to the point of no longer being able to wear them to work whilst in this position. I have since resorted to buying suits from the op-shop in order to minimise costs to myself.
Over the past year, I have been excluded from many activities which are listed on my duty statement, indeed many of them have been included on other people’s job descriptions, seemingly as a result of my refusal to wear a tie.
My reasons for not wearing a tie whilst performing my duties are –
- XXXX has had a female training officer present courses to XXXX staff in the past, and to the best of my knowledge she did not wear a tie, nor was tie wearing was an issue.
- XXXX also has female XXXX staff working closely with XXXX clients every day, and they are not required to wear ties.
- I have worked in nearly every site of XXXX across the state of Victoria, and as far as I have been able to acertain, no female staff throughout the XXXXX is required to wear ties.
-Three of the senior managers in XXXX are female, I have never seen them wear ties, even though they represent XXXX at meetings with overseas, interstate, departmental and XXXXX clients and/or interested parties.
-In the light of this, I believe the any requirement by managers for men to wear ties must be considered to be a form of sex discrimination, which runs contrary to the XXXXXXX stated position as an equal opportunity employer.
- In the course of my duties, I work mainly on Audio Visual equipment, often working behind equipment racks and under tables, and am sometimes required to work on equipment with moving gears inside. I believe a tie is a safety hazard in these situations. If the tie got caught in gears, the potential exists to drag me face-first into the equipment.
- I am usually trying to resolve problems in great haste when working behind equipment racks or under tables and a tie can catch on things. As a tie is basically little more than a cloth noose, this could cause strangulation (however temporarily). I don’t believe self administered capital punishment is a requirement of my (or any) position.
- I sometimes repair equipment with static-sensitive chips inside. given my current rate of pay, I would only ever be able to afford cheap nylon ties, which readily conduct static electricity. If was wearing such a tie while working on such equipment, and it fell across one the terminals of one of these chips, there is the potential to cause further damage to the equipment I am trying to repair, therefore increasing the cost of repair to XXXX.
- I find ties extremely uncomfortable to wear. As I have been involved in singing since early high school, I believe my neck may be thicker than the average person’s as a result of this, and other work I have done in the past, though I have never had need to check. I'm never able do up the top button of any shirt I wear, and any time I have tried it has led to discomforts such as headaches, breathing difficulties, and a feeling of constriction on my part.
- I do not understand what a tie is for! I do not wear earrings, bracelets, chains, rings on my fingers or any form of jewellery as I consider most forms of jewellry to be a safety hazard in the sort of work I do, and adornments such as these things do not interest me.
If it is ruled that I am required to wear a tie, I ask that XXXX should bear the cost of such ties, and also the cost of replacing my business shirts with shirts of a suitable neck size.
Yours Sincerely
One very pissed off employee (actually, I just signed my name)
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For some reason, the general manager never replied
But I can ALWAYS tell when new senior management have been reading personnell files, they always make some oblique tie reference.
