Office Dress Code | 辦公室服裝守則 - 辦公室隨筆 (二)

I saw our new colleague, who was just transferred from Europe to Hong Kong, sitting at the seat next to mine. I was little bit unhappy about our Administration Manager who should have given this colleague enough information like where is his seat before he onboard. Especially this colleague had visited Hong Kong office for 2 day in June within his personal trip in order to get familiar with our office environment.

星期一早上回到辦公室，竟然已經見到今天正式由歐洲轉識過來的男同事坐在我旁邊的位置。心想我們的行政部經理真是越來越不像樣了，同事上班竟然沒有跟他說清楚他坐的位置！人家還特地在6月份來香港旅行時上來辦公室呆了兩天，熟習一下環境。

Being a nice guy, I showed him his office so that he could start to settle down. There were only few people around the office at that early hours, and was not yet time for work, so we chit chat a bit. There was a typhoon close by, so we started our conversation with weather, like office arrangement during adverse weather conditions, what was our office hours, etc. All of a sudden, he pointed at me and asked :"This is a question for myself, what exactly is our Dress Code?" He continued after seeing my stunned face :"I saw you dressed like this... oh... don't get me wrong, I used to like this in Europe (pointing at me), not like this (pointing at himself)."

好事人的我當然會把新同事帶到他的位置，希望他能盡快安頓下來。由於時間尚早，辦公室沒有多少人在，他亦閒着無事，所以我們閒談起來。他理所當然地從天氣說起，談談惡劣天氣下的工作安排，再說到上班時間，突然，他指着我，一個問題發過來：「請問一下公司的服裝守則是什麼？」我呆了一下。他繼續說：「我見你穿着這樣的衣服上班......不要誤會，我在歐洲是這樣(指着我說),而不是我這樣的（指着自己說）。」

Let me described how we looked like. He wore shirt and trousers and black leather shoes. Basically what Hong Kong people refers as Business Causal. I was causal (some may refer this as smart causal), that is in polo shirt with company logo, jeans and sport shoes.

讓我先在些形容一下我們服裝吧。歐洲同事穿的是辦公室常見的裇衫，西褲，皮鞋。就是香港人說的Business Causal。而我剛是身穿有公司標誌的Polo裇衫(高爾夫球衫),牛仔褲，運動鞋，大部分人會叫這身衣裝做Causal有些時候會叫作Smart Causal。

He was told that Hong Kong office has Dress Code that requires at least business causal, that's why he dressed up like that, instead of just causal as he used to be in Europe. I was in my causal clothes that day because of the rain.

為什麼歐洲同事會有這個問題呢？原因就是他聽說香港辦公室一般都要求至少Business Casual的服裝，所以他亦入鄉隨俗，穿起這一身Business Causal衣服。而不是在歐洲平時會穿着的Causal服裝。因為天雨的關係，的覺得還是Causal服裝方便一點，所以我就這樣回辦公室。

We are a US company, used to without any Dress Code. As the number of Chinese management members increases, there was increasing pressure on establishing a Dress Code, which was officially launched a few months ago. No more sportswear for Gym during lunch hour! Actually we don't have Gym during lunch hour anymore! Would discuss that later.

其實我們這一家美資公司，原來是沒有什麼服裝守則的。大家喜歡怎樣穿都可以，只要不是太過分就可以了。不過可以因為來香港多年，而且香港人管理層越來越多，近年開始有聲音說要規範一下。後來就有了幾個月前發出的服裝守則。現在已經見不到女同事們為方便午餐時間去健身室而穿運動服的樣子了。其實連去健身室的時間都沒有了，這是後話，有機會再談。

Back to our European colleague, he was a team manager in Northern Europe, requested to transfer to APAC when he realized there was a similar position available here, probably due to his Asian girlfriend. He normally dresses causal to work, maybe he was not used to dress up in Hong Kong, that's why he was a bit disappointed when he realized our Office Dress Code.

話說回頭，歐洲同事原來是北歐區的一個團隊經理，知道亞太區有個差不多的職位，就要求轉職過來，大概是因為他的亞洲藉女朋友的關係吧。而他原本在歐洲上班都是像我當日一樣的Causal打扮，應該不太習慣自己要Business Causal 的上班吧，所以見我這樣穿就問了起來。當知道原來我們的守則是要穿得像他一樣的時候，好像感覺到他有一絲絲的失望。

As for myself, I hate wearing suits. I had to wear suits for about 10 years in my past career because my job required a lot of customer facing time, it was killing me during hot summer time. Ever since I changed my job to this company, I started to wear in smart causal. After I the chances to work in overseas offices, I like the way they go to work in causal wears so I follow them even in Hong Kong office. I don't know why we end up with that Dress code again. Is it because Chinese are more conservative in culture?

至於我自己，則是極不喜歡一身西裝的上班。雖然之前的工作需要，我有大約十年的時間是要經常面對客戶，所以每天都是一套西裝的穿在身上，夏天時真的是熱的要命。轉了這份工作之後，已經甚少穿整套的西裝。後來到了外國的辦公室工作的次數漸多，我也漸漸的跟隨了他們比較輕鬆的服裝安排。可惜好景不常，現在又要經常裇衫，西褲，皮鞋的，感覺很不爽快。現在我還真是羨慕經常不在辦公室的工程師們可以每天都可以輕便裝束。到底為什麼公司香港辦公室會有這樣的改變呢？難道真的是中國人比較保守嗎？

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