While there haven't been any memos or discussions about it, the men in my office seems to have come to some kind of collective informal psychic agreement that ties are now optional (I'm assuming this is just for the summer months- presumably a similar psychic agreement will put them all back on when it starts to cool).
`twasn't always so. In fact, on my three month review, my boss said I was doing great, but that I had to start wearing a tie. I tried to tell him that it would interfere with my guillotining duties, flop all over my keyboard, dip itself into my tea, but my protests fell on deaf ears. Actually, I kinda wished they HAD been deaf ears, because then I could have screamed:
"What kind of IDIOT ties a NOOSE around his neck in a job that entails use of one's brain?!?"
without getting fired. Sadly, this was not to be.
Apparently (I looked it up, because Seinfeld already wondered who invented ties. Hear his voice with me now folks: "Who thought THAT up? Did some guy just have some extra curtain and say: I know, I'll hang it around my neck? What's up with THAT?") ties came into fashion when Louis XIV saw some Croatian mercenaries wearing silk scarves around their neck, and was impressed by the 'look' it gave them- his adoption of the practice was quickly mimicked and spread like wildfire throughout the courts of Europe. And, I'll admit, someone with a tie does look better than someone without. Whether it be for asthetic or cultural reasons, ties can and do look good. (Especially on women in white shirts and plaid skirts, which you don't see a lot of in the workplace, unfortunately. Ruff!)
But you know what? I'm not paid to look good. They didn't hire me as window dressing*. If I was a receptionist, maybe my appearance would be more important than having blood actually reach my brain. But I think, given the trade-off between, y'know, 'slightly more attractive' Dan and 'slightly more oxygenated blood in the head' Dan, I think they should definitely fall on the 'smarts' side of the equation, since they hired me for my brains (for which they're getting a truly sweet deal), not my looks (for which they'd be overpaying me somewhat dramatically).
d
* Ha!
This is a 
Still there is a reasonable argument for everyone in an office to look smart. Especially if client comes to the office. The same way their is a reasonable argument for everyone in an ad agency to look cool.
I reject the notion that a tie is prerequisite to looking smart. The women in my office don't wear them, why should we?
I didn't say that wearing a tie is the only way to look smart. But ties do (IMHO) make one look smar, especially with a decent suit and shirt.
Women have other (and far more) ways of looking smart without ties. Although as you say women with ties also look very smart.
Yeah, but humble opinions should not play into it. Bottom line is, I'm instructed to wear a tie. Women aren't. This, to me, is more or less as bad as telling a female employee that they have to wear a skirt.
So you disagree with a palce of work having a standard of dress they wish people to adhere to?
No, not at all. I'm against sexism in the workplace. And, y'know, in general, as well.
Dan... I think you're tieing your ties too tight!
Touche!
Move to the civil service?
"Friends of the Tie will have foreseen its demise during an industrial tribunal last year in which a male civil servant claimed sexual discrimination for having to wear a shirt and tie even though his female colleagues did not."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4119292.stm
Awesome! I'm printing this and taking it to my boss.