We don’t have a dress code in the office. Anything goes here but thankfully, such freedom hasn’t led to anyone pushing the envelope too far. In my previous job, it was consistently a problem. I worked in a call center where there were lots of eighteen-year-olds or formerly unemployed twenty-somethings still living at home. The limits of good taste were consistently pushed.

I might sound like an old fogy complaining about how young people dress these days, but personally, the issue isn’t whether an in-shape dude wears a muscle shirt or a babe with great legs wears a skirt that’s too short or a top that too low-cut. It’s not even the fact that once it’s allowed for the few beautiful people, it will happen for the many more and much less attractive remainder of the staff.

From experience, I know that men and women working together, demands a certain amount of decorum to avoid out of control behavior. Ideally, one should be able to wear whatever one wants without unwanted comments or undue attention, but realistically, although suggestive dress might not be an acceptable excuse for sexual harassment, it tends to breed a sexually charged atmosphere.

However, what one chooses to wear under one’s clothes seldom seems necessary to police as long as it’s not showing like all those thong tops that caused such uproar when chicks at the call center wore short tops and hip-hugger jeans. Nevertheless, if you’re a Canadian firefighter in Richmond, British Colombia, the government does dictate what you wear under your uniform.

The Richmond fire department wants to achieve greater levels of equality in a workplace ripe with harassment complaints. Therefore, to engender a sense of neutrality between the sexes, they’ve decided to spend approximately $16, 000 Canadian on six pairs of boxer underpants for each of their employees.

It seems that the current protective gear required to be worn when fighting fires doesn’t fit over anyone’s clothes. You’d wonder if having to strip down first didn’t waste time. However, as is often the case in the workplace these days, brief thought is given to real problems compared to controversy.