Thanks aurelia! That was what I thought. We are a university, but they try to go by equity rules sometimes, and the one annoying director NEVER includes time to get into costumes. The guest directors never seem to have a problem with it.

If I started talking about "gray collar workers", what would you interpret that to mean? (Other than that I need to get out more and find some better topics of conversation.)

Older employees?

Seems natural, right? I'm in this workgroup and they're insisting on using it to mean people who straddle the line between technical skills and knowledge workers, i.e., a cross between blue and white collar.

It's so non-intuitive and it's actually a pretty big part of the message we're trying to craft. I'm getting no traction.

Part of the problem is that white and blue do not make grey- they make light blue. So maybe you need "oxford collar" or "henleys" or something like that.

a cross between blue and white collar.

Gingham!

Gray collar just sounds like one of those old ring-around-the-collar laundry aid ads. Which seem to have largely disappeared, now that I think of it -- people haven't stopped sweating in their shirts or shaming (people they assume to be) housewives, so whatever happened to the OMG crisis-level national epidemic?

Googling around I see it's used to mean both those things, or people who are outside of jobs classified as white or blue collar, and in some cases also sub-blue collar. So obviously super clear.

ring-around-the-collar laundry aid ads.

No one washes those kinds of shirts at home anymore.

Which seem to have largely disappeared, now that I think of it -- people haven't stopped sweating in their shirts or shaming (people they assume to be) housewives, so whatever happened to the OMG crisis-level national epidemic?

Market research indicates that ads where women do nothing but cheerfully wash their kids' clothes are marginally less offensive than ones where women gain life satisfaction from washing their husband's clothes, I assume?

No one washes those kinds of shirts at home anymore.

Huh. You're right. Thank goodness, as it allows that portion of the national shame budget to be reallocated to telling women they're destroying their children and/or betraying the feminist movement by taking a selfie!