How to get one of my associates to wear a belt?

January 30, 2016 1:48 AM

I'm an assistant manager at a sub shop and one of my associates has a bit of a uniform problem. Her butt is often hanging out. How do I ask her to wear a belt?

There are a couple complicating factors. We get along well and she has confided in me that she has Aspergers. The department manager does not get along with her. Our higher up managers would not want to deal with this at all. She clearly doesn't wear underwear and her pants are too baggy. We do a lot of bending over to grab stuff from lower fridges. Customers sometimes notice and laugh to each other.

I did tell her once on her third day. I told her discreetly and said in a "Hey, just so you know, your pants are hanging down" way. I thought it may be a one time issue. But it's been happening once in a while for a couple months now. I feel bad for not addressing this sooner. I have to admit I'm worried about hurting her feelings or making her uncomfortable.

Since I get along with her I would like to be the one to talk to her. How do I go about this? How should I phrase it? Should I have a sit down talk about it, or pull her aside and quietly suggest she wears a belt?

Thanks for any help.

posted by blackzinfandel to Work & Money (23 answers total)

Speaking as somebody who has Asperger's and has often been this oblivious: this question is painful to me just reading it, and I would not sit her down or discuss this in a formal way; that could be really humiliating. If your job has uniforms, are there belts available at work? The next time it actually happens and her pants are slipping down, I would address this quickly and efficiently: "oh, hey, your pants are dragging a bit. There's a belt in the supply room; I'll go grab it for you." Just like you'd grab a cart if she needed one.
posted by thetortoise at 2:15 AM on January 30, 2016 [20 favorites]

And if you don't have belts at work: I'd bring an old one you "just happen to have" as part of a change of clothes in your bag and lend it to her. Solving the problem immediately and proactively strikes me as less embarrassing than presenting it as something you've been thinking about for a while.
posted by thetortoise at 2:20 AM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

If she has Aspergers, she's not going to get that saying "Hey, just so you know, your pants are hanging down" means that you want her to wear a belt. If you get along quite well, I think you're in a great position to politely but informally (no sit down meeting, no print out of policy) let her know that her trousers are too loose and you need her to wear a belt to keep them up, so that her uniform looks neat.
posted by kinddieserzeit at 2:25 AM on January 30, 2016 [9 favorites]

You are the assistant manager, you just tell her it's a uniform issue, "hi Kirsten, you need a belt for your uniform hon, here you go, thanks!"
posted by Iteki at 2:28 AM on January 30, 2016 [38 favorites]

Since your profile says you are male, it would be better coming from another woman. Not sure how you can arrange that though without talking about her butt behind her back, which is worse.

If you actually do have a uniform, can't you just make belts a mandatory part of that now and send around a memo that everyone has to wear one?
posted by lollusc at 4:14 AM on January 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

Can you require that all employees tuck their shirts in? We also had a line that said "Where belt loops are present, you must wear a belt." That did it for us in terms of ceasing any boxers or midriff display. I would come at this from a position of "everyone, the dress code is updating!"
posted by blnkfrnk at 4:53 AM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I like the idea of just saying belts are mandatory for everybody now. Don't single her out at all.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 5:03 AM on January 30, 2016 [14 favorites]

I have Aspergers. If you said to me "Hey, just so you know, your pants are hanging down", I would definitely not understand this as you wanting me to wear a belt. It's just an observation to me, and it looks like she understood it that way too. (mandatory statement, though: not all people with Aspergers are the same!)

If you want her to wear a belt, tell her exactly that. You don't need to include any awkwardness about her pants being too loose or other people noticing and laughing. Just say it as an order. Iteki, blnkfrnk and Ursula Hitler gave good suggestions.
posted by frantumaglia at 5:34 AM on January 30, 2016 [13 favorites]

Maybe just get longer shirts?
posted by yesster at 6:30 AM on January 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Even if she does wear a belt that might not fix the problem. Particularly if she views the belt as a fashion item, not a functional one. Which is why I suggested longer shirts.
posted by yesster at 6:34 AM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

Someone close to me has Asperger's and I just wanted to reiterate from that perspective that although just telling her to wear a belt is going to feel rude and/or confrontational compared to hinting at it or making store-wide uniform changes, it really is the correct answer. Odds are good that she'll even specifically appreciate you having directly explained a social expectation with words.
posted by teremala at 6:57 AM on January 30, 2016 [7 favorites]

Depending on a lot of things, if you can afford to, it would be extremely kind to take her (or for a female coworker - even better - on your dime) to get her pants tailored. Maybe there's an Alterations Express type place nearby? Uniform pants are ... uniform, and bodies are not, especially women's bodies.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 7:00 AM on January 30, 2016

A belt alone may not solve this problem. It really depends on the fit of the pants and the body of the person wearing them.

You might want to be even more specific and let them know they shouldn't let people see their butt and explain that a belt and tucked in shirt is the solution.
posted by srboisvert at 7:05 AM on January 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder if it would be less embarrassing if you said that she can't let her lower back show, and not mention butts or butt cracks. it sounds like you will have to be clear about the problem in order to solve it for good, but mentioning butts seems like the awkward part.

is part of the problem that the uniform shirt is too small in general? a tight shirt will ride up more. the solution might be a tucked in undershirt under the uniform shirt or just a larger/longer shirt.
posted by katieanne at 7:32 AM on January 30, 2016 [6 favorites]

I've never known women to wear belts functionally, at least most women born in women's bodies ( I don't mean to be fumbling this). Even for very slim hipped women, your hips sit a bit wider than your waist and that's how pants stay on. Men and men's pants are built differently. Women's belts aren't really meant to be functional. Therefore she either has been wearing pants built for men, or pants that otherwise just don't fit her body - too small is my guess.

This is kind of why I think you need a woman to address this with her- I highly doubt handing her a belt will have any effect.
posted by sweetkid at 8:38 AM on January 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

Can you, as an assistant manager, dictate dress code and that a belt is a mandatory part of the uniform? It seems like if there is a dress code, you should simply be able to handle this as a dress code issue. (Politely, discreetly, and directly.)
posted by jferg at 8:46 AM on January 30, 2016

Okay, maybe a bit of a derail—and a bit of a gross one—but if she is not wearing underwear under her pants, could that possibly be a bit of a food handling/health concern in a shop that makes and sells submarine sandwiches? Like, are these uniform pants being washed every evening to eliminate any poop skid marks (sorry) that normally underwear would be catching?

My thinking is that, belt aside, wearing underwear would fall into the important “These are things that are required to be worn at work” list.
posted by blueberry at 8:51 AM on January 30, 2016

Seconding sweetkid. A belt is almost assuredly not going to solve this problem for a woman. She needs to buy higher rise pants or possibly a larger size. My guess would be that they are low rise pants, since I can't wear lowrise pants without this happening to me.
posted by gatorae at 9:08 AM on January 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

sweetkid, many women do wear belts functionally, especially in a non office environment. At least half the women at my workplace do.

My son has Asperger's and always needs a very direct approach. I would tell her honestly that she needs to wear a belt and why. I know if I were her I'd rather know what was going on and how to fix it than for people to be laughing at me behind my back.
posted by Requiax at 9:09 AM on January 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

I want to suggest that she may not be entirely unaware of this issue. There are some figures for which these magical pairs of pants that sit exactly right even when bending and kneeling are very hard to find. It can extremely frustrating and bewildering to shop for clothing and be confronted with literally thousands of variations of items, each with their own fit and their own hidden rules of matching, especially with limited funds.

I know someone who went through a similar situation--the pants available even after much searching and thriftshopping were just low-cut enough to making bending and stooping a point of embarrassment. When her manager brought it up to her, chaos ensued, and she resigned in the loudest and most vociferous way possible. You can still hear the creative and multisyllabic swears echoing off the walls. Because she was not unaware of the problem, but didn't have to consider it a problem until her boss made it one.

This may simply be beyond solution, unless someone is available to her with good advice on the right cut of pants--and where to find them, at the right price, without a lot of having to think about these impossible issues.
posted by mittens at 9:16 AM on January 30, 2016 [5 favorites]

Pants for women is really hard. A belt might help, or it might be that a longer/bigger shirt is required, or it might be that there's a way she can bend down differently that won't expose her lower back to customers. I know when I was younger and trying to figure out how work clothes worked, I would have loved for an older female coworker to say to me "Hon let's figure this out okay? How can I help?" Instead they just told me I was a mess without saying in what way or what I could do differently.
posted by bleep at 2:01 PM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think the belt is a red herring. It's on her to make her pants stay up. That might mean she needs pants that fit, rather than a belt.

So, next time this happens, just tell her that her pants are hanging down and that she and other employees need to not let their lower backs show. It's on her to fix it. She'll ask you if she needs specific advice.
posted by J. Wilson at 2:52 PM on January 30, 2016

I'm aspie. For me, making a big deal out of it, asking a woman to deliver the message with kid gloves, or being condescending about how "showing your butt is actually bad" would all be very, very poor ways to deal with it. Just be direct and don't make it a big deal. Next time you have a moment of relative privacy with her (in the break room or whatever), just tell her "hey, sorry but I'm going to need you to wear a belt with your uniform from now on. Thanks!" If the other parts of the uniform are provided by the company, provide the belt. She will appreciate you being direct and specific about what you need. If the pants are still sagging too much even with the belt, just be simple and direct again: "hey, gonna need you to tighten that belt up. Thanks!"

Making a big deal out of it or in any way indicating that you've been thinking about this a lot (like getting a third party to do it, or being overly solicitous about it) would increase the embarrassment by several orders of magnitude for me. It could also come off as extremely condescending. So don't worry about all of her potential reasons why it wouldn't work - just start simple by asking her to wear a belt with her uniform from now on, no big deal. The more it seems like no big deal to you, the less of a big deal it will feel like for her.
posted by dialetheia at 3:20 PM on January 30, 2016 [3 favorites]