Dresses with the tail poking out

Always be sure to minimize it. The Scotsman:

Civil servants are being made to feel ‘uncomfortable’ by a colleague who arrives for work dressed as a cat.

The male staff member is believed to identify as non-binary and is said to wear dresses with the tail poking out of the back of the dress.

I really doubt that the civil servants feel just “uncomfortable”. I bet they feel irritated if not furious. Jobs are jobs; they’re not playtime at nursery school. Jobs are about the job, not the fascinating inner life of a selected few of the employees. The workplace is the workplace, not a bar or a pub or a park or one employee’s living room.

A second insider, who works at Victoria Quay, also confirmed the person’s choice of dress. They said: “The issue seems light hearted but, actually, staff were uncomfortable but felt they couldn’t express opposition to this form of dress because we are encouraged to be kind and open-minded, especially around issues of identity.”

No, the issue doesn’t seem lighthearted, at least not if you think about it for longer than five seconds. It seems intrusive, insulting, childish, self-involved, tiresome, and bad.

The Civil Service Code states that staff must “always act in a way that is professional and that deserves the confidence of all those you deal with”. The rules extend to clothing and appearance.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “All civil servants are required to dress appropriately for work. The dress described in this claim would not meet that requirement.”

I should think not. Work is not the same as a costume party.

Comments

One response to “Dresses with the tail poking out”

  1. Piglet Avatar

    If this is true*, just imagine what would happen if an actual woman showed up to work wearing a dress with a cat tail poking out the back. She’d be laughed out of the place. Certainly nobody would be too intimidated to tell her she looks ridiculous and unprofessional. In any case, it really does give the lie to “we are terrified for our lives, using the men’s toilet puts us at risk of being outed” doesn’t it?

    *I admit I’m slightly sceptical because of those “schoolkids using litter boxes” stories which turned out to be about teachers having an emergency toilet bucket in case of a school shooter lockdown.

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