Dress Code Advice Backfires

Office of Special Counsel chief Scott Bloch is in hot water with his employees again, this time for some information in an employee newsletter on office attire. The Washington Post reports today that Bloch, dismayed by some OSC workers' intepretation of "business casual," issued an edict in 2004 on clothing rules. Then, last month, the agency's employee newsletter chimed in with some additonal advice. Men were told to avoid sneakers and earrings. Women were cautioned against tight clothing and told to consider wear tailored pants, shirts, sweaters and purses. Both men and women were told that a "conservative watch" would help, too.

This led to two problems:

• Some female employees found the recommendations in the newsletter to be sexist and patronizing.
• Bloch was forced to admit that the words that ended up in the newsletter was actually plagiarized from a couple of university Web sites.

Bloch ended up issuing a memo to the OSC staff simply saying that the 2004 policy was the operative one. Update: The Project on Government Oversight has a put up its take on the incident in a blog item, which includes a link to the newsletter. (Warning: it's a big file.)