Dress Code Explained

UBS, the Swiss banking giant, issued an employee dress last week that resulted in some controversy. Three items stood out. For each of these three, there's the Released to the Public Justification (or RPJ) and the Devious Corporate Real Reason (or DCRR):

1. Employees are required to keep their toenails clipped.

RPJ - We want our employees to present a fashionable yet professional appearance to the public. Open-toed shoes and dressy sandals are all the rage but really look most professional with well-trimmed toenails.

DCRR - Too many employees avoid boring, interminable meetings by scaling their cubicle walls and hanging there suspended by their fingernails and toenails much like squirrels fleeing predators. When management tears those employees down, unsightly scratch marks remain on the walls. Of course, unsightly bruises and broken bones also remain on the employees, but that's OK. It's cheaper to hire new employees than to purchase new cubicles.


2. Eating garlic is declared off-limits.

RPJ - Banking requires face-to-face contact and bad breath impedes effective communication.

DCRR - As a secretive Swiss bank, some of our best clients are Third World dictators, former Nazis, and, a little known fact, vampires. In a recent Customer Survey, our vampire clientele praised our decision to remove crucifixes and wooden stake and mallet sets from our offices while noting that vampires are repelled by garlic and some of our senior account representatives have been indulging in a Caesar Salad at lunch. They even threatened to transfer their accounts to Transylvania National Bank.


3. Employees are requested to wear flesh-colored underwear.

RPJ - While a sheer blouse and a black bra might be acceptable at the disco, it is distracting in a professional banking environment.

DCRR - We are such a secretive Swiss bank, that even we don't know how much money we have stored in the vaults. We think that some of it might be missing lately and fear an "inside job" by UBS executives. But how can we identify these embezzlers? If we require that everyone wear flesh-colored underwear, honest Swiss employees will, of course, wear pasty-white to match their nearly albino skin tone. We had a nice summer in Zurich last year. It fell on a Tuesday. Dishonest employees will flee to sunnier climes with their ill-gotten gains and return with that rarest of Swiss skin conditions, a suntan. Their original pasty white underwear will stand out like Hester Prynne's scarlet letter.