The End of the Workplace Necktie
From Dickon Edwards’ diary from 2005:
Wednesday 22nd June – a historic date for some. The head of the UK Civil Service announces the wearing of ties as no longer mandatory for male employees. As long as they’re still smart, office boys and men alike can now wear their shirts open-necked as they oil the cogs of government. Must be a relief for those suffering under the current heatwave in offices built before the invention of air conditioning.
It may just be the Civil Service, but I suspect the trickle-down effect for the world of work will be ineluctable. When a similar guideline was made with bowler hats in the past, the trademark headwear of the English businessman soon disappeared from the streets and onto the naughty head of Ms Minnelli in Cabaret.
Fascinating! That was just a few months before my first escape from office work.
When I went back to office work in 2017, I didn’t like the “open collar” lack of formality (so it did indeed trickle down as Dickon expected, though at the time I saw it as Silicon Valley trend-setting). It was as if The Company had sidled up to me, straddled a chair backwards, and said “hi buddy, let’s rap.”
We’re not friends, The Company, and we never will be. Our neckties were there to put distance between us. Well, that’s how I felt until they were taken away.
So I continued to wear a beautiful tie to work most days, despite all of the justified ridicule. It worked too. It said “I am here formally.” It was a Big Fuck Off to the lot of it.
Dickon continues:
I personally welcome this news. Soon, when a man is seen in public wearing a tie, he will no longer be accused of having come straight from work. Tie-wearers will at last be deliberate tie-wearers. All ties will be nice ties, not ugly arrows of drudgery.
Nice.
And a final detail:
This apparently follows an industrial tribunal where a man claimed the forcing of ties upon male workers but not their female colleagues was tantamount to sexual discrimination. He won. The times are indeed a-slightly-changing.
It occurs to me there might be more pinpointable moments like this in the history of work: the day they invented modular office furniture, for example, or the very first building to have air conditioning and flourescent lighting instead of windows. I’ll try not to get carried away.
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About Robert Wringham
Robert Wringham is the editor of New Escapologist. He also writes books and articles. Read more at wringham.co.uk