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.