Where do you work?

[Hamish]

Work? What's that?!!

OK, OK! I AM retired, and have been for eight years (such bliss!). I was with my last employer for 34 years - initially as Retail Manager at our London West End shop in Jermyn Street and latterly as Company General Manager with special responsibilities for Exports. Being 'Senior Management' there was no way I could have worn a kilt to work (it was pinstripe/chalkstripe three-piece suits for all of those 34 years!).

However, after I took early retirement, our Managing Director asked me if I'd like to help the company out over the very busy Christmas trading period - in the telephone/mail order department!! (Knowing the Company's products intimately, I was a greater asset to them than a temporary agency worker could have been!) Did I baulk at being offered such menial work? Certainly not - it gave me additional pocket money, and did so for the following two Christmases. On a par with the additional cash, being technically self-employed for those short periods, I was able to wear my kilts every day to the office!!

(PS: What was the business? Floris Perfumes - the UK's oldest perfumery house; founded in 1730 and still run by the same family. Perfumers by Royal Appointment to HM The Queen and HRH The Prince of Wales. Our only other shop was on New York's Madison Avenue ........ I wonder if it is still there?)

[Eujeankilt]

I'm a Network Administrator at a community college in western Oregon. Computer geeks are given more leeway in most behavior, so I had few comments when I started wearing kilts to work daily last fall.

Earlier I was chosen to have my picture on our departmental web page and I kicked off my kilt wearing at work by wearing a kilt for the photo shoot. It was supposed to change to a different staff member each term, but I've been up since August. Maybe it's the kilt.

http://www.lanecc.edu/it/

Dale

[Moosehead]

Regional Business Development Officer for both the Maritime and Prairie regions of Canada for a Native Marketing & Publishing company. Work from home, on the damned phone 10 hours a day. I wear whatever I bloody well please. Any wonder why I want to fish lobster and make kilts?

Oh, and ex-Canadian and British Air Force Officer (for the new guys who didn't know that). I was the "pointy" guy, also known as a Navigator or Air Electronics Officer.

[mudd]

I don’t believe that I am allowed to name my employer on this forum, for legal reasons, but I can give you a kind of hint.
I work in R&D for a Corporation that is a spin-off from a piece of what was once the largest telecommunications corporation in the world.
I work in the division of Laboratories that at the time of my hiring were named after a famous Scottish-American by the name of Bell.
I have worn a Kilt to work twice and have gotten no comments at all from management. Unfortunatly, I don’t really feel that the Kilt is going to be vary practical for me as a regular work garment. I carry lots of stuff in my pants pockets like pens, papers, a cell phone, small tools, etc, and the sporran just doesn’t work. Not to mention the fact that I may at any time need to ascend a ladder and crawl around in a cable tray. Although, I may just try my denim UtiliKilt and use Ron MacDonald’s description of “Scottish Jeans” and see how that goes over.

[Moosehead]

I don’t really feel that the Kilt is going to be vary practical for me as a regular work garment.

It happens. When I fly, I would never think of wearing shorts or a kilt. I've been burned before and it ain't fun! And that was wearing full nomex.

[CameronTaylor]

As said previously, I'm a Heavy Equipment operator and fair-skinned so jeans are a requirement for safety and comfort. Having been burned more than once by hydraulic oil and what normal operations does to jeans I will not wear a kilt to work.
Afterward however .....


CT - can you kilt me now? good.

[KiltedCodeWarrior]

Great thread. I love seeing the background about everybody. I am actually a senior manager for a global banking corporation, which is based in the UK. The unit I work for was acquired 2 years ago and was a well recognized name in personal finance in the US. It was a very beneficial company. My path to wearing the kilt is well documented on another thread, but I have found that our own fears are worse than anything a company can actually do to us. Every company embraces diversity, at least in lip service. Wearing a kilt should prompt no more reaction than someone wearing a yamulka or someone wearing traditional robes to celebrate and support their religion or someone wearing a turban, all of which I had seen and nevern heard any concerns. I have found wearing the kilt to be positive because more people know me than when I did not wear it.

What we wear shoud not matter one bit, as long as we get the work done. I originally had some thoughts about interviewing in a kilt if I ever needed to get a new job, but since I have interviewed and hired people while wearing the kilt, I have come to the realization that people need to evaluate me as a person and not based on what I wear.

[sorcererdale]

I am a horologist. Ok, I always like people to guess what that is, noooo, don't look it up, I will tell you later. You don't have to post your guesses, but come on, guess NOW and see what you think I do.

I will give you a hint, the word is Latin, so if you know that it might help. Actually I don't wear a kilt while I work at home and I will explain that in a minute, but when I go out to customer homes for service calls, I sometimes wear a kilt. Mostly the black Survival from UK.

Ok, give up, and havent' figured out that hora is Latin for "hour." Ok, so I work with hours, what could that mean? I repair clocks from my home and go out to get the movements from grandfather clocks in peoples homes. I tried wearing the kilt in the shop, but it is a small area and the kilt brushes up against all the weights hanging on chains for the clocks; cuckoo and grand father. Also the work can be very greasy and dirty at times, and would really ruin too many kilts. So blue jeans work good for that.

Just a note, my license plate is "TIMEFIX" and here is a web site for you. I also have a large automated Christmas light show every year and those links are on there too! The picture shows me in my tan mocker (now shortened) as I didn't have the Survival at the time. www.dalesclockshop.com And one other little fact about me, I have an automated home all run by computer. The house talks to us, and does many "amazing" things.

DALE.

[MacSimoin]

I don’t believe that I am allowed to name my employer on this forum, for legal reasons...

I am, or rather I was, bound by similar stipulations legally enacted by my employer (akin to a cease and desist order). I work[ed] for a foreign company with operations here in the USA but for patent and international copyright reasons, I can say what I do just not who I do it for (ridiculous, I know). Anyway, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that anyone working there could show up kilted, even if they work in the offices; there's a strict employee dress code that some have found [out the hard way] it's unwise to deviate from. Not every employer is 'kilt friendly' and a lot of those that aren't have good reasons for taking that stance (i.e., OSHA and insurance regulations). It's pure fantasy to say or think we all could or should go about our work wearing a kilt but I'll admit it's a nice fancy nonetheless.