Woman Gets 'Pulled Aside' At New Job Because Her Looks & Wardrobe Make The Wives Of Her Co-Workers 'Uncomfortable'
She's not sure she actually believes that it was the co-workers' wives who complained.
Ivanko_Brnjakovic / Getty Images / Canva Pro A woman is furious after being dress-coded at her new job just 10 days into her position despite her clothing being professional and appropriate for the workplace.
As she shared in a TikTok, the incident has left her feeling not only harassed but also suspicious about why she was targeted in the first place.
She was told she was dress-coded because her co-workers' wives complained about her looks and wardrobe.
We're in the midst of a new wave of Puritanism that seems to have resulted in a wave of bizarre incidents of "dress-coding" women, including children in schools, for ridiculous supposed "violations" they've committed with outfits that are all too often anything but revealing.
For Fer, a Texas-based saleswoman and TikToker, that Puritanism has reared its ugly head in a truly ludicrous — and potentially illegal — situation at her brand-new job selling luxury cars, a job she relocated to take.
Just a bit over a week into the new position, it already went sideways for reasons she and many others online have found astonishing.
She was 'pulled aside' 10 days into the job and told she made her colleagues' wives 'uncomfortable.'
"I got pulled aside today and told that people's spouses were calling and saying that they are uncomfortable with me working there because of the way I dress and the way I look," she said in a video filmed in her car right after the meeting.
"First off, I've been here for 10 days," she said indignantly. "Why are your spouses calling? I don't know your spouse. I don't [care] to know your spouse. How does your spouse know what I'm wearing to work every day and what I look like?"
That's really the end of this story. This whole thing is insanely inappropriate, and the fact that anyone took it seriously enough to make it this woman's problem is astonishing on its face.
But then Fer panned her phone down to show her outfit — a simple white cap-sleeved dress that appeared to be a normal length just above the knee. "I don't think it's inappropriate what I'm wearing," she said. "I think it's fine." She added that she's worn the dress and similar outfits to previous jobs without issue.
She suspects her "curvier" figure is the basis for the complaints, and it's left her extremely uncomfortable.
Fer explained that she thinks her curvy body has created a perception that her clothes don't fit "the right way" and that's why she was reprimanded. Her employer didn't say this of course: "I got told that I am better off wearing a polo and slacks," she said.
But she was left slack-jawed at the audacity of everyone involved — enough so that she's thinking of not coming back to the job. "That is so uncomfortable to be told — like your spouse, your wife is calling in and saying they're uncomfortable with me?... That [expletive] just made me so uncomfortable. Take your slacks and take your polos and shove them up your…"
Viewers were suspicious that it wasn't actually the spouses complaining, and the woman agreed.
Viewers of Fer's video were almost unanimously on her side, with many feeling that it was obvious that someone in her office was bringing their marital problems to work. "That screams 'we have problems at home,'" one person commented.
But others had a different theory. They thought it was obviously a form of sabotage. "Nobody called," one woman wrote. "Guaranteed that person who spoke to you has the problem or is friends with another salesperson who thinks you’ll get more sales."
In a follow-up video, Fer said she agreed that there was likely more to the story than meets the eye because "other people show more cleavage than me," and yet she was the only one "singled out" to be reprimanded.
In the end, she did decide to go back to work, but the incident left her "super anxious" and uncomfortable. "I felt like I was being sexualized when my body was brought up," she said. But she's refusing to let them "run me out," and while she has covered up more, she's refusing to wear the polo and slacks they demanded.
Aleksei Isachenko photos / Canva Pro
People urged her to file complaints or even get a lawyer. Firstly because the woman who "pulled her aside" wasn't even a manager but merely a colleague who was told to go have the conversation, a wild breach of office ethics.
More importantly, this is likely all illegal. The EEOC defines unlawful workplace harassment as "unwelcome conduct" based on a person's status as a protected class that becomes either "a condition of employment" or so "severe or pervasive" that it creates an "intimidating, hostile, or abusive" environment.
Being singled out and made to feel "super anxious" and "uneasy" fits the bill, and Fer is right not to stand for it. Hopefully her employer gets the message before an attorney has to do it for them.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.