Outrageous Camilleri orders workers to brush teeth after lunch and dump oversize wallets

Alan Camilleri, the executive chairman of the public investment promotion company Malta Enterprise and Malta Industrial Parks, has enraged an entire workforce – and now inviting industrial action on Monday – with an outrageous memo demanding trimmed moustaches, no dangling earrings, light make-up, regular showers, fresh breath, and a maximum of ‘one bracelet’ per wrist from workers.

Nobody has been spared from the memo, so much so that Camilleri this week reportedly sent home the ME’s human resources manager, Elaine Bonello, twice in one day for not adhering to his ‘commandments of appearance’.

A former spokesperson for Lawrence Gonzi, Alan Camilleri was until recently chairman of the Dhalia real estate group before landing at Malta Enterpise and MIP with a €70,000 salary that includes health cover, paid mobile, landline and internet fees, a chauffeured car and other hospitality allowances.

Now he has told all ME employees they must meet his “high standard of excellence in grooming and appearance” in a memo issued this week. In a nutshell, Camilleri wants employees to be more like himself – a clean-shaven business operator with an over-inflated sense of self-importance.

While Camilleri runs ME from his office at MIP headquarters in San Gwann’s industrial estate, where he reportedly invites friends over to spend the day, his employees must goose-step to his fashion bible: “Grooming and hygiene are very personal subjects. However, guidelines must be set and met,” the memo starts.

The memo says ME employees must project a professional image of themselves. But while workers are told not to wear sexually provocative or offensive clothes that draw undue attention – a basic requirement in a professional workplace – Camilleri goes a step further by telling workers to clean their teeth regularly, “especially after lunch. Odorous breath needs to be well controlled.”

But this is the least of Camilleri’s minty-fresh revolution, who has declared war on bulging wallets carried in back pockets.

Here is the full list of demands the ME chairman has issued in the memo:

No objects, such as large combs or oversize wallets, should be carried in pockets if they are visible.

Hairstyles must be “neat, attractive and not extreme. If hair is coloured, roots of different shade may not show.”
Hair longer than chin length “must be controlled … so that it will not hang or fall forward on the shoulder or over the face.” Moustaches must be “neatly trimmed and extend no lower than the upper lip.”
The same goes for beards, while sideburns cannot extend below the ear and be “well trimmed, of uniformed length and not bushy.”

Camilleri wants women’s make-up to be “tastefully applied and not excessive, particularly eye shadow” and that light-make-up “is encouraged”.

He told female employees that nail colours cannot be “loud or garish and must be free of jewellery and patterns.”

Inside Camilleri’s investment promotion gulag, only a maximum of two single rings on each hand is allowed, with “wedding and engagement rings considered one ring.” Also on the jewellery quota is: one bracelet/chain/wristwatch on each wrist only; and no “large, dangling or extreme” earrings and necklaces. Men cannot wear ear jewellery at all.

Camilleri also warns women to wear “support and undergarments” at all times, no strapless tops, halter necks, “tops exposing undergarments and tops with potentially offensive words”, and to keep skirts not shorter than1.5 inches above the knee and no longer than mid-calf.

And he wants polished shoes that “blend with and complement clothing”.