Business Casual Rules

I violated Business Casual Rule #3 this week (or Biz Caz if you are on the street) - wearing brown shoes with black pants. Not sure which is worse - violating the rule or not remembering even putting on my shoes in the morning. Either way here are the rules:

1) No logos on your shirts - avoid horses, penguins, alligators, swooshes, or anything that says "I've been to XYZ and bought/received this great shirt in order to remind both you and other random people that I visited place XYZ". (I violate this rule at least twice a week, just to make sure people don't think too highly of me)

2) Wear formal attire strategically - wearing a tie/sportcoat can belittle those who don't, making all of us wonder if our attire is somehow sub-par. Your coworkers will then combat your over-dress with a counter-assault of casual: rolling up sleeves, taking off their shoes at their desk, and wearing bluetooth headsets.

3) Don't mix black with brown unless you know exactly what you are doing - I think MacGyver did this once with explosive results, so be careful and make sure you don't cross the line from complementing-contrast to colorblind.

4) Button down collars are the standard - collars that don't button down can cause an unintended 70' vibe. Be even more careful if you have substantial sideburns.

5) Jeans are not slacks - even if you get the dark blue ones that are expensive, they are still jeans, and much like how free-range pork doesn't belong in a burrito, neither do jeans in the office. One caveat - if you can pull off the jeans/cowboy-boots/large-belt look, then wearing jeans could possibly catapult you into Biz -Caz lore...