Dressing Business Professional / Casual

Music: You Look Good in My Shirt- Keith Urban

Mood: Sunday Evening Lull

OK, so I have to get this out of my system before I go crazy. Judging at the debate tournament was fun, but I'm so glad I only did it for four years. It is certain helpful and a lot of work, and it stinks that all that work comes down to simple rounds. But anyways, I'm writing today to complain about how poorly debaters (from my observations, LD debaters) dress.

The dress for debate is typically business professional and sometimes business casual. If you saw a large number of awkward people gathered around the UTC both Friday and Saturday, those were the debaters. And my goodness were there so many dress violations I just wanted to pull my hair out. If I were a recruiter, I would have just left.

So this is what I noticed and can comment on:

• A casual shirt from Hollister, American Eagle, Aeropostal or any other brand with a logo on the left side IS NOT a dress shirt. Do NOT wear it with a tie. EVER.
• For guys, if you wear a suit jacket and there are three buttons, it's sometimes, always, never. And if you have a two button jacket, it's always, never. NEVER EVER, EVER BUTTON the bottom button. EVER. It looks soooo horrible.
• If you're going to wear a tie, tie your tie correctly so we don't see the tail end sticking out from behind the larger end
• A dress is not business professional. DO NOT WEAR A DRESS, especially if it looks like a dance or ballet dress
  
• If you're going to wear a sweater vest over a dress shirt, iron the shirt first. Don't wrinkle it all up. And if you wear a sweater vest over the shirt, then don't roll up the sleeves up to your elbows. Only 3/4ths of the way. if you're going to roll up any sleeves, roll it up only 3/4ths of the way
• No tennis shoes with dress pants or a suit... Please. Especially guys. Girls, I can understand wearing flats and switching to heels, but guys, come on.
  
• No white socks with black shoes
• Make sure your belt matches your shoes; whatever color you decide, keep it consistent
• if you're going to wear a tie with your shirt, don't wear it slightly done if you're not done with your event. only loosen up your tie when you're ready to relax
• Name-tags should worn on the right side as you shake hands with your right hand (sometimes, i even forget this)
• Comb or fix your hair so it doesn't look like you just woke up or walked through a storm

Well, that's all I can think of right now. Let me know if you have any to add or can comment on any of these business professional violations.