Ugly Don't Do

The word "professional" gets thrown around a lot as a benchmark of, well, professionalism. Be it your dress, your attitude, its just got to be professional. But here in the beltway, and on the people who claim it as their home, I have never seen more unprofessional people get away with more unprofessional dress. Let me run a few things by you:

• Slender black woman in a peach pant suit, white blouse, and black undergarments that were frilly and bulky enough to not only be seen thru the suit and blouse, but then paraded in front of a client. (PS - She is a self-proclaimed "super organized professional" and if someone ever suggested that she wasn't dressed professional, she'd throw the "disrespect" card in your eye) And yes, the racial aspect was necessary because dark skin under light fabrics is a problem when not managed properly.
• Slender but full-hipped woman in stretch pants made from a print fabric of some italian landscape painting. (PS - She is a tight ass who apparently likes tight fabrics covering her ass) Was that the Louvre that walked by?
• Skinny dude, dockers, hawaiian shirt, brown belt, black shoes. Is that even business casual?

These are just a few examples of choice of dress that DID NOT get challenged by any sort of authority. However, a woman wearing a totally acceptable black blouse with black slacks and 1 inch heels was asked to put a jacket on. Why? Because the authority and her had some sort of history . . . bad history . . . and the authority saw their opening to get even. Sad, but true.

Today, while running my observations by a co-worker, I expressed to her that little of the crap I see people wear on a daily basis would fly back in the midwest as "professional" attire. She, also from the midwest, admitted to me that the rule of thumb on the east coast is "look ugly". If you don't, you appear as if you're trying to be better than everyone else. She claims to have stopped wearing makeup to work, etc because all it did was set her up for others to shoot her down.

Quite frankly, I don't know what the deal is because it makes no sense at all. People are going to fuck with you however they want, you have to roll with it. There is no crime in dressing the part. Sure, cuff links and a jacket won't fly in a business casual environment, but birkenstocks never cut it anywhere. As for all the ugly dressers, I am sure your brain is a beautiful thing no matter what you look like, but if you can't use your head and take off your slutty victoria's secret purchase before you slip on your peach pant suit that looks like it came from a second-hand clown costume shop, you aren't going to get anything more than disrespect from me.