For Appearance’s Sake

The Center for Financial Training, a Norwich, Conn.-based firm specializing in educational programs for banks, is putting on an interesting webinar later this month.

It is entitled, “Dress Codes: Legal and Practical Advice,” and it promises to inspire and encourage bank managers to enter into empty-headed, awkward, borderline offensive conversations with the excessively pierced, malodorous, trampy tattoo enthusiasts currently crowding the industry’s front lines.

Frankly, The Teller is into that. Well, the piercings and tattoos, anyway.

But perhaps we’re not qualified to answer questions like “what is appropriate work appearance? Do you have the right to tell employees what to wear? How much can an employer dictate styles of dress, hair, perfume or jewelry? Where do company appearance rules become discriminatory or violate employees’ legal rights?”

Yes, those questions are probably best left to the experts. However, we can be assured that most of the managers participating in this webinar will do so with particular employees in mind. They’re not looking to become human resources generalists. They just want to know: “Can I fire that guy who shows up for work looking like Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford and smelling like a cross between low tide and a locker room?”

The Teller worries, though, that these folks might be disappointed. It seems as if the program aims to teach managers to encourage better habits, rather than simply fire the offenders.

“Learn how to coach employees for ‘more effective’ appearance,” the ad says. The session will also teach you how to address “appearance issues … even piercings.”

The Teller can’t help but wonder why bank managers would even waste so much energy stressing over this stuff. They whine about how nobody wants to use their branches anymore, but then staff them with schoolmarms and meatheads and think it’s a problem when the one cute teller wears a skirt that’s a little short.

That’s the problem. Want the members of The Teller’s generation to look forward to some time spent in your offices? Staff them with Suicide Girls. In fact, The Teller is willing to issue a challenge: The Teller will transfer our substantial accounts and make a weekly visit to the first bank to hire a female teller with a pierced nose and full sleeves.

And if you need to look up what that means, you’re further behind the times than we feared.