The Office: The Regimental Tie

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It's one thing to wear a button that says WE TRY HARDER; it's another to prove it. When Board Chairman Robert C. Townsend of Avis Rent-A-Car turned up at his office in Garden City, N.Y., one day wearing his company blazer—the kind worn by Avis folks who deal with the public—a bunch of his subordinates started trying harder. They began wearing their own Avis blazers, red or blue, to the office. Soon supervisory personnel in Avis stations all over the world were wearing them. Last week a group of 16 of them posed happily for their picture in the Garden City board room—all got up in red for the occasion. There is no rule that says they have to dress alike, but it does give them a sense of community, a kind of feeling that even though they are No. 2, they don't look No. 2.

Such corporate happiness could be catching. It has already caught on with the people at the Fidelity Bankers Life Insurance Co. of Richmond, Va. Fidelity has laid out $23,000 to outfit 117 employees with identical wardrobes because, as Fidelity's President Harold J. Richards explains, "it furthers our esprit de corps."

Esprit at Fidelity means dark blue socks, a button-down shirt, neatly knotted blue-and-gold striped regimental tie, grey slacks, shiny black shoes, navy blazer with brass buttons and a gold F on the breast pocket. Neat, but not too gaudy. Even in the office, as he feeds IBM cards into the computer, the Fidelity man is certainly a credit to de corps. No longer is there suppressed boyhood envy of the white-suited Good Humor man, no longer jealousy of bankers' grey. A fig for Braniff stewardesses in Pucci bloomers. Even those Avis chaps with their blazers and TRY buttons shrink to insignificance when one no longer has to go to work one day in a blue suit, another day in brown. No more agonizing morning quandaries over what tie to wear! Except, of course, for Fidelity's girls. They wear grey skirts with their blazers. No ties.

The only worry is over the day the boss might bark: "You're fired! Turn in your clothes!" Fidelity has thought of that. An employee who stays on for a year can keep his uniform on leaving. Except for the crest. The code says that the crest must be surrendered. But it won't be easy, turning in that good old golden F.