Quote Originally Posted by lph View Post
I agree that the salient point - and the most touchy one - is "legs in good condition". So how do you tell someone that their legs aren't up for public viewing? Or arms, for that matter? Whether it's hair, or skin tone, or bruises or acne or mosquito bites, I wouldn't want to be the one to decide. Here I happily wear sleeveless tops and above the knee skirts with no hose, but I work in a unformal environment and for any more formal setting I'd dress up.
Ah yeah...it wasn't fun. My requirement was that if it was 'gross' looking, it had to go. But I don't care where you work, a visible oozing road rash is NOT professional and I'm happy to tell someone that (if it's my place to do so, of course). We certainly had the ability to wear pants or longer skirts, so it's not like they had no other options and would have to stay home. I was only asking that they THINK about what image they presented and then dressed accordingly (bare arms faced the same scrutiny but were allowed).

I did not distinguish between pale skin or tan skin - that's a matter of personal preference not style. I also didn't differentiate between someone with skinny legs and someone with big ones (like me). The bottom line was image (it was HUGELY important) and every singe employee was made aware of this constraint during the interview process. Basically, if you don't like it, don't work for me. It was definitely one of the hardest parts of my job because by nature, I'm very accepting of all types. Luckily, I understood (and saw first hand) why those constraints were in place, so all I had to do was to make sure that my employees had the same understanding.

I even had to keep a bottle of nail polish remover in my office in case an employee wearing dark nail polish chipped or broke a nail. Even chipped polish was not acceptable.