I work in a large ER, so lots of patient and family contact. Clothing choices are pretty reasonable: scrubs, uniform from an EMS or transport service, or business attire.
This *very petite* woman showed up wearing an extra-large hoodie sweatshirt with a mens dress shirt over it, the hood hanging out the back of the dress shirt, what looked like her husbands large dress slacks, rubber, athletic flip flops, a baseball cap, and sunglasses.
As if that didn't make her look silly enough, she also had a row of about 5 brightly colored, cartoon character band-aids on one cheek.
When we asked her to take off the ball cap, she told us she couldn't because her hair was pulled through the back to keep it out of her face. We offered her a rubber band, but she said she wanted to keep her hat. The sunglasses, we were told she couldn't take off, because she had bags under her eyes. As for the band-aids, she told us her cat had scratched her face and showed us a very minor, very thin scratch. When we suggested some thinner, flesh colored band-aids, she whined that Spongebob was her favorite and she didn't want to take them off.
We told her that if she couldn't modify her attire, she would have to go home, thinking that of course, no one would take that option on their very first day. Nope, she told us this was good, because she had somethings to get done that day. Needless to say, she was then told to go home and not bother coming back.
The weird thing is that this woman had experience in a related field. I can't imagine how she didn't see that she looked like a clown, and didn't know that you certainly can't wear flip flops, the ball cap or the sunglasses in a setting like this?
We thought maybe she really didn't want the job, but she called later in the week, to ask when she would be put on the schedule.