DCist: Morning Roundup: Mallard Mayhem Edition

monkeyrotica

Fri, 23 May 2008 21:08:30 -0500

So long as I can keep peeing in the sink, I'll wear whatever Britt Reid tells me to wear.

pants

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:16:55 -0500

Let's hear it for MPD losing that pesky $16 grand and the drugs. So, from this sample, they lost a third of the drugs, money and guns that they seized. That's too much to be sloppy work. I'm thinking that Ms. Harriette Walters from the tax office has some competition. Cash just doesn't go missing.

cminus

Fri, 23 May 2008 15:40:17 -0500

Reid, if you have to go back to the golden days of IBM to find an example where a dress code created a positive mystique, you've pretty much made my point -- that it's not a plausible argument in the modern world -- for me. I mean, you might as well harken back to the Victorian age, or at least the days of Prohibition, when no self-respecting Beer Baron would dare to swagger about without a new hat, seeming to say "Look at me, Rex Banner! I have a new hat!"

flapjack

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:24:27 -0500

cminus - I know some people who still act like "wow, we have to wear suits! we must be important!" and they're several years into their career. Unfortunately I'm related to a few. I've worked jobs with and without a dress code. I don't mind having to dress all "fancy" when everyone else in the office is. The problem is when I have to dress up because my boss says to and others in the office (not in my department) can wear god awful black spandex leggings with hideous tropical print shirts, or annoying as hell flip flops with cruddy jeans and department polo shirts, or any other combination of hideous weekend wear you can imagine. Dressing up doesn't make you any better at your job nor does dressing down make you worse.

Reid

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:21:02 -0500

I have a great deal of trouble imagining people who buy that for any longer than the first couple of weeks of their working career being "strong, young, able stars." Well I don't. One of the reasons IBM had such a great reputation for so long was that they required dark suits and white shirts. It's just a little thing, but talk to anybody who either worked for or with IBM back then and they'll tell you how much the image contributed to their reputation. For an office like the OAG looking to "professionalize" its image and reputation, a little bit of that old IBM-look could go a long way.

cminus

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:41:19 -0500

What's a really easy way to convince potential employees that an office is prestigious and worth joining? Have everbody wear a suit. I'm sure there are people who think, "Wow, we have to wear suits! We must be important!" I have a great deal of trouble imagining people who buy that for any longer than the first couple of weeks of their working career being "strong, young, able stars."

sordid

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:38:51 -0500

Any top notch firm doesn't even require their paralegals to clock in/out as long as the works getting done and the client's getting billed, let alone the attorneys. What a f-ing douchebag.

Bethesdaist

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:11:35 -0500

So, Nickles wants to run the AG office like Biglaw - so is District Gov offering Biglaw money and benefits? Besides, he hints in the article that he may leave the position at the end of June anyway (vs. moving into the city.) Why do this when your ass is halfway out the door anyway? Man needs to get his own house in order - and yes, work on his teeth.

Reid

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:10:23 -0500

"But if asked to choose between a higher salary and a less restrictive dress code on one hand, and a lower salary and a more restrictive dress code on the other, who wouldn't take the first option if they were good enough to be offered both?" I don't know if this is necessarily true. A lot of people decide to take a job being a government lawyer for the prestige (despite the low pay). But not all government jobs are prestigious. If you're going to convince someone to take a five-figure salary when they could get six-figures, you're going to have to convince them that the job is prestigious (or that it's a great lifestsyle, which it normally is. But then again, I don't think Nickles wants that office to be full of people who are there just for the lifestyle). What's a really easy way to convince potential employees that an office is prestigious and worth joining? Have everbody wear a suit. That's not to say a suit makes someone smarter, or that a smart person is made dumber by jeans (although I do think flip flops have that effect), but what it can do is help put forth the image that this isn't just some gov't-drone job and that it's worth it to take and keep the position rather than bail out to a firm. Besides, I truly do think that wearing a suit makes people act more professionally, or at the very least I think it makes people treat the person in a suit more professionally.

somegirl

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:45:00 -0500

At the government agency, the crappy clothes people wore totally translated into crappy work and not caring about how crappy the work was. I think you may be reversing cause and effect here. Letting a smart, motivated person wear casual clothes is not going to suddenly drain her of her will to perform; dressing a slacker in a suit isn't going to turn him into a go-getter dynamo. The hardest-working people I've ever met were entrepreneurs in jeans. But then, I'm prejudiced - as a bike commuter who has to schlep extra "fancy" clothes to the office every day just to sit in my office doing research with no in-person client contact, ever, a dress code seems utterly silly to me.

hoyacougar

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:37:36 -0500

crappy clothes totally translate into crappy work? what a load of crap!

voteprime

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:29:15 -0500

Did Roy Pearson know this dress code was coming down the pipeline? If so, I think we've finally got an explanation for his $54 million no-cuffs pants lawsuit. Or maybe we've got a better example of how snazzy dress doesn't necessarily translate to snazzy work.

JustJenny

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:17:26 -0500

I hate to say this, but wearing jeans around the office ought to be pretty unacceptable. I worked for a government agency before going to private practice. At the government agency, the crappy clothes people wore totally translated into crappy work and not caring about how crappy the work was. That said, it ought to be more about peer pressure than about a specific dress code. Also, the clocking in and out thing is ridiculous. Treat lawyers like little kids and they will behave like petulant little brats, just like everyone else on the planet would do. One of the great things about government work is supposed to be the LACK of billable hours. Besides, if I was forced to clock in and out, you can damn well bet that I'd be clocking out as soon as I was allowed to, rather than staying late to finish up a project.

Foggy Magoo

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:13:00 -0500

You know, firing 11 longtime employees to make room for "strong, young, able stars" might just open one up to an age discrimination lawsuit. Of couse, I'm sure Nickles thought that through before talking to the press, being a lawyer himself and all.

Vaughan

Fri, 23 May 2008 12:11:25 -0500

ugh. agreed, cminus. i'm learning that the smartest clothes aren't necessarily on the smartest person. but a good wardrobe can serve as a very good smokescreen.

cminus

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:41:50 -0500

It's one thing -- and probably a good one -- to require regular weekly reports from government lawyers, and it's at least defensible to introduce timecards. But the dress code? That's silly. At a time when private law firms are moving to allow "business casual" attire throughout the week, instituting a mandatory all-hours suit requirement seems like it'll make it harder, not easier, to get the "strong, young, able stars" Nickles wants. If asked to choose between a higher salary on one hand and a less restrictive dress code on the other, some people would go one way, and some would go the other. But if asked to choose between a higher salary and a less restrictive dress code on one hand, and a lower salary and a more restrictive dress code on the other, who wouldn't take the first option if they were good enough to be offered both? (Me, I'd rather have a lawyer wearing jeans and a sweater who was tops in his class at Harvard than a lawyer who always makes sure to wear a really nice suit but had trouble passing his classes at some low-fourth-tier JD mill like Florida Coastal or North Carolina Central or Regent or Arkansas-Little Rock.)

Silas Smootie

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:32:55 -0500

Can a single day go by without the release of a "scathing audit"?

the_heckle

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:30:40 -0500

Another twist of lemming sir?

flapjack

Fri, 23 May 2008 11:30:19 -0500

how did I miss the Old Bay debate of aught 6?

Vaughan

Fri, 23 May 2008 10:55:23 -0500

oh wow. is that nickles pictured in the post article? perhaps he should consider visiting his dentist before criticizing others' appearances. i think it would also depend on the dress code he's suggesting. i've heard lots of law firms are going biz casual. whatever that means.

monkeyrotica

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:58:22 -0500

Meh. I've seen more terrifying things in the MLK Library bathroom. Like Grandpa Monkey used to say when he was strangling geese with his bare hands, "You can't get to Heaven if you don't die." And FYI, it's the terror that adds that rich earthy sweetness to the fois gras. Same goes for most poultry. Such a shame that you're not allowed to chase cage-free chickens around the yard with a shotgun before blowing them to hell. The horror will tenderize even the toughest old hen. Their agony is our endorphin. It's just not the same driving at breakneck speed with a three-piece-and-a-biscuit on the hood and a Glock out the window.

Bethesdaist

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:57:21 -0500

Maybe the museum could bill the fountain as the "Time Life Books Trials of Life" exhibit. Ducks vs. drain, fresh carnage every hour on the hour.

Nate

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:49:20 -0500

Scars add character, and kids are resilient to begin with. I'll bet you the parents were far more traumatized.

ces12

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:48:14 -0500

Good for Nickles. God forbid people actually have to wear nice clothes to the office and work a full 8-hour day.

monkeyrotica

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:47:57 -0500

Norton should be ashamed of driving a car in DC. Didn't she get the memo that there's NO EXCUSE for owning a car in DC. Anyway, it's official: DC has the second dumbest drivers in the Nation. Only dumber drivers are in Jersey. Like we really needed a survey to tell us that people who drive in DC are about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. And yet this sets up a faulty syllogism: the implication is that people who DON'T drive are NOT stupid. You need only go to any of DC's traffic circles to see this theory disproven IN ACTION. When stupid pedestrians on cellphones meet stupid drivers on cellphones, it's stupid laughs galore in this summer's SMASH comedy, "Talking to People Who Aren't There!" And what if we *do* develop this Solanite bomb? We'd be even a stronger nation than now, right? Stronger? You see? YOU SEE? Your stupid minds! Stupid! STUPID!

OldPosterKnownAsCranky

Fri, 23 May 2008 09:45:02 -0500

Poor ducklings. Those kids are scarred.