Recently, I was watching a rerun of the Big Bang Theory where Dr. Sheldon Cooper decides to start a podcast “Fun with Flags.” The podcast is mostly arcane facts about flags. If you have not seen the episode, I encourage you to check out this clip. Sheldon is so delightfully awkward, it’s charming, and this sort of sums up the appeal of the show for me.
Watching this show, I found myself laughing out loud, even though I had seen the episode before. I decided that I needed a little more levity in my workday, especially when this job can be rather stressful. So I decided to start the Fun with Employment Laws segment of our regular blog. Welcome to the inaugural post.
Today’s weird employment law: In Germany employers can force women to wear bras to work. The State Labour Court issued a favorable ruling on a security firm’s grooming policy which provided that women must wear bras to work and that the bras only be white or flesh-colored.
U.S. employers may not receive so favorable a ruling from some state courts and may believe such a policy is not really necessary anyway. Surely, employees have some common sense? Well, consider this little tidbit of information that was told to me by a woman responsible for professional recruiting for a major U.S. law firm:
Q: (posed by a summer associate by email) Do I have to wear a bra to work?
A: I hope this was not a serious question and the answer is obviously, yes, in case you were serious.