Just wondering

[beetiger]

Since Monday, I've been wearing pale blue nail polish with glitter on one hand, and electric blue nail polish on the other, with decals of demon cats on two of the nails. It was left over from my party, and I just felt like leaving it on. No one has made a comment about it, in any way.

Is this perfectly reasonable business grooming here? Is this an office where personal privacy is just held at a really high level? Is everyone talking about me behind my back? Or, as seems most likely from what I can tell, has no one even noticed?

Comments

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I rarely look at people's nail polish, unless I'm checking them out.

[cloverr.livejournal.com]

I've worked for the Law Library now for over two years; it was only this past summer that I started wearing clothing that let some of my tattoos show. Didn't catch any flack about it, and got a few interested comments, so I guess that's cool. Of course, now it is winter and I'm back to wearing long sleeves anyway. :)

[verse.livejournal.com]

I don't think anybody really looks at nail polish unless they're checking you out.. I'm the only 'boy' where I work with long hair, nobody has said anything to me yet; and this is a company that's big on appearance.

[chipuni.livejournal.com]

Well, yesterday, I had a plush bunny sticking out of my pocket, and nobody commented.

[paka.livejournal.com]

If people have noticed this, are okay with this, and especially if they say they like it at some point, then for God's sake keep the job if you can.

[genders.livejournal.com]

I think this is highly dependent on the culture of both the industry and office that one is working in, as well as on applicable law.

For example, I once worked in a brokerage firm which instituted a dress code requiring button-down shirts for men, because they felt that too many of the gay men in the back office were coming to work in sweaters designed to highlight nipple piercings. Ultimately, this came down to a huge discrimination issue in that firm's human resources department, and language was added to the employee manual specifically allowing affectational preferences. This solved a number of appearance-related issues including the question of dreadlocks.

The other side of the coin are small software companies I've worked in where everyone is pierced and tattooed to the eyeballs. Or my town, where I worked as the tattooed librarian for as long as I wished.

As a freelance, I always made sure to do at a minimum what everyone else was doing in the appearance department, but again, I was mostly in investment banking.

Yes, I still owe you mail and packages. If only I could stop reading and commenting in the little time I have for the machine right now.

Okay, finally.

[beetiger.livejournal.com]

One coworker(male) finally stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, "Hey, are your nails two different colors?" Then, backpedalling. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, I was just wondering."

They must have had their diversity training, and good, here!