Instagram | @harenmajesteit_

Woman Sidesteps Strict Workplace Dress Code By Dyeing Her Hair Gray

Updated September 5, 2021

It was once the case that workers had to follow dress codes like they were the law. However, this is totally starting to change, with many workplaces opting for more business-casual threads, visible tattoos, and unconventional piercings. Can you believe even Starbucks had a strict dress code? The global coffee giant only recently gave-in to the climate of celebrating individual uniqueness through dress and accessories.

One retail worker took to Reddit to share her own story of how she got around a pretty ridiculous dress code.

Reddit user easy0lucky0free shared a story of their cheeky workplace "MaliciousCompliance" in the eponymous subreddit group.

Instagram | @putting_on_clothes

They explained that the princess/superhero retail store that they had worked at a couple years back had a very strict dress code, noting that over 75% of the staff were females, including everyone in management.

Their uniform had to be wrinkle-free and perfectly ironed at all times.

They couldn't have visible tattoos and could only rock "natural" hair colors.

Unsplash | Annie Spratt

Women were also encouraged to wear makeup and style their hair, and men had to be clean-shaven or manicured facial hair.

Aside from all this, they expressed that one of their managers liked to nitpick them quite a bit regarding the dress code.

"I was constantly told that I needed to iron it better, so I started getting it dry cleaned and somehow that still [wasn't] enough," they wrote.

Instagram | @skylerae.hair

OP (original poster) chose to wear minimal makeup, and her manager wanted them to wear more.

"Once, she got down on her hands and knees with a ruler to prove my pant hem was too long only to be proven wrong. There were also some conversations about my appearance that looking back were definitely body shaming," they continued.

The list seriously goes on and on, including not wearing bows.

OP had always wanted to dye their hair before working there, and they still felt the itch to do it. So, they came up with a pretty clever compromise, still in compliance with the dress code.

Instagram | @harenmajesteit_

They decided to go silver, a super trendy, and most importantly natural hair colour.

"When I showed up to work that day with my new shiny silver hair, my store managers were appalled," she wrote.

Instagram | @jens_hairdesign

They wanted to send her home, right in front of upper management who were there visiting that day.

And, in front of them, also tried to argue that their hair was in violation of the dress code for not being natural.

"I turned [to] the higher ups and asked if I was in violation. They agreed with me that I was not."

"In the end, I got to keep my silver hair AND my bows, and my manager was told that HER hair actually was a dress code violation and she had to dye it before coming in the next day."

They sure showed them, and got to rock some pretty cool locks to boot!

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