"Can we talk? This company has a dress code, and your skirt is a bit short, dear. After all, this company does run factories, and since there are a lot of male laborers, sexual harassment is certainly possible. Only up to two inches above the knee, okay? You understand, right?"

This is what I was told when I had been called to the HR office of a certain Texas company where I worked several years ago. Sure enough, the company dress code rules stated that clothing must appear business-like, and skirt length should be commensurately appropriate (though the two inch rule wasn't written). However, what I had been wearing was a business suit I had purchased in Japan. I had never been told that its length was too short.

"If those are the rules, are long dresses with a generous amount of cleavage showing, such as many women wear, businesslike? Don't they invite sexual harassment?" Though I felt somewhat humiliated, I couldn't bring myself to argue the point.

On a later day, I was told by my American boss to go home and change out of my sandals, which were a dress code violation. In Japan, this would have been unthinkable. I looked frantically about. "Michelle has sandals on too. Why isn't she being warned?" But when I looked closely, even her gruff sandals - the kind a housewife would throw on to go to the store - covered her toes, apparently making them okay. Why were sandals that didn't cover the toes against the rules?

One Japanese management consultant said "Perhaps showing one's toes has been considered to be in bad taste in America since long ago." I have a Japanese co-worker who has been told to go home and change out of her culotte skirt, it also being forbidden. It is certainly said, "When in Rome, do as the Romans", but one can't help but question why things are a certain way.

Things happen all the time in American workplaces which would be unimaginable in Japan, but they cannot simply be chalked up to cultural differences. Sexual harassment cases occur far more often when compared with Japan, and I have heard of Japanese working in America who have been accused and had to face being immediately sent back to Japan.

At American workplaces, where varying cultures are mixed together, there is a fear that comes with not knowing what one might encounter until one experiences it. However, we should try to show an effort in learning more each day about how things are done locally, then complying with whatever it might be. On the other hand, though, when something happens that we simply can't accept, it might be ideal to talk things through, taking the necessary time until both sides can gain an understanding and a solution.

*(photos) Sizzling New York. Though tourists might be clad in casual clothes, New York businesspeople maintain their neckties and long-sleeve shirts. It might be hot, but there's nothing a businessman can do but tough it out!