White Shirt Bull

What the heck is such a big deal with the white shirt. Does it look better than a dark color shirt and tie? I guess, but if you give a customer great service, will they even remember what you were wearing? What other companies in American force their male employees to white shirt? Even the President occasionally wears a blue shirt. If you give customers excellent service, will they even remember what color shirt you wore?

I'm sure MTs love making in the mid 30s, but are forced to spend money in order to dress like a mortician.

I have never meet an MT that made over 29,000. I guess that an MT could make 100K but admin would try to get him/her removed.

Some groups allow males to wear light blue. I believe the light blue shirt was Andies contribution but it "failed" in many groups.

There is no explicit decree banning non-white shirts. From memory the personnel manual only talks about "conservative" business dress.

Guys in our group wore different shades of blue, stripes, white and off white without trepidation.

Of course, most of the L3's on up rarely wore much other than white.

Most groups had a "blue shirt" friday tradition etc.

By the way... who the hell is Andie?

Originally Posted by Beantown Red

What the heck is such a big deal with the white shirt. Does it look better than a dark color shirt and tie? I guess, but if you give a customer great service, will they even remember what you were wearing? What other companies in American force their male employees to white shirt? Even the President occasionally wears a blue shirt. If you give customers excellent service, will they even remember what color shirt you wore?

I'm sure MTs love making in the mid 30s, but are forced to spend money in order to dress like a mortician.

Remember those people out in Ca that all wore the same blue sweatsuits, same blue tennis shoes and drank the blue Koolaid and retired to their bunkbeds waiting for the UFO's to come pick them up a few years ago?

Get the picture?

I believe the white shirts and the long hours stem from Jack's desire to be like a bank... That is, the bank of yesteryear.

Banks, however, have changed with the times.

The advantage to white shirts is that when you're doing your laundry, you just add a bunch of bleach to the wash to get rid of the beer/sweat/dirt/pizza stains. Maybe that's why ERAC still recommends the white shirt.

I can't count the number of times bleach took out the vomit from after-hour meetings at the local bar.

With that advantage in mind, it's really too bad we can't wear completely white suits, like The Glad Man from those commercials. It would have been great to dump shirt, pants, tie, jacket into the wash along with a cup of bleach.

I don't think anyone would mistake us for bible salesmen then!

I'm not a guy, and don't have to deal with this bull, but I did ask about this once. They did a study (not for Enterprise specifically) that showed that white was the least offensive color. Red, blue, etc...could be construed as gang colors; pastels could be seen as too feminine and weak, yadda, yadda. White provides people with the impression that the people they are dealing with are dependable and trustworthy. Also, white can't offend anyone. Its the "right" color.

I have to say I loooooooooooove being female. Pink, purple, red, green, blue (not all together)--I can wear whatever I damn please.

Blue Shirt All The Way Man

The white shirt thing is just another example of erac being a little off the pace when it comes to doing business - one prominent train of thought in the biz world is that the old victorian starched-white-shirt look is actually intimidating to the majority of the consuming population and in keeping with this many of the traditional conservative sectors - banking, insurance, etc. - are moving away from the white shirt to a more casual and friendly look. The done-up look can and does come off as arrogant (this can become quite apparent when marketing to a bodyshop). A little colour and variety spices things up and makes us look less like mindless, cultish robots. Up here in C1 a lot of employees, male and female, wear different colours and I think it makes the ole firm look better. One guy is even famous for wearing a black shirt with a pink tie and gets great comments from customers and referal sources. It's his trademark and breaks down a lot of social barriers. Colour is hardly distracting - quite the opposite, it's appealing and memorable. As to thoughts of gang colours, that's just political correctness gone wrong with white people who misunderstand everything outside of middle-class suburbia. I think the emphasis on white, etc. is a reflection of the 1950s when the ole firm was founded and is so old school that it makes the ole firm look backwards.

Originally Posted by Surly Pete

I believe the white shirts and the long hours stem from Jack's desire to be like a bank... That is, the bank of yesteryear.

Banks, however, have changed with the times.

well, for one they work longer hours now