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IT Workers Worst Dressed Employees
Poorly Dressed Anonymous Coward wrote to mention are article run in the Syndney Morning Herald saying that IT workers have been dubbed the worst dressed corporate employees. From the article: "Help-desk staff were named as the worst offenders, followed by those working in technology start-ups, many of whom had continued to wear T-shirts to work as a consequence of the casual web culture of the '90s. 'The internet is now such a massive industry but people haven't caught up in terms of their dress'."
Who would be best poised to offer this? Which computer manufacturer has the best design/style sensibilities? Apple of course. Steve Jobs should put out a line of fashionable nerdwear with photos of electronic components on the interior labels.
Each line (named after cool-sounding components like "Capacitor", "Resistor", "North Bridge") has its own signature style and contains a 3 or 4 of each type of item (pants, shoes, shirts, sweaters, coats, blazers). Any combo within the line will look good. Buy two complete lines and you have a week's worth of outfits. Capacitor shirt, capacitor pants, capacitor shoes... you're color coordinated, looking good, and it took you no time at all.
Furthermore, they should have no complex care instructions (wash in warm, tumble dry regular), be seriously stain resistant, and be wrinkle resistant so they don't show the wrinkling effects of all-nighters. And most importantly, make them comfortable.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
forces their IT folks to wear clothes. Shouldn't the fur be enough?
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
The Herald seems to think that allowing workers to dress comfortably is a *bad* thing. How strange.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
If I wear jeans, how can anyone tell if I'm wearing a thong? :)
You are not the customer.
I guess the real question is why do IT workers get that freedom when others don't? There's certainly lots of other positions in the world where appearance matters as little. Is it because we've successfully trained the world to diminish their clothing expectations of geeks?
I move servers around, and get dirty regularlly. If I rip a teeshirt, I'm not too upset about it, but if I rip a dress shirt, then its gone. Same thing with pants.
Thats not to say I go to work in ripped clothes. I get clean and decent looking stuff, which is also sturdy.
And its kinda silly to give me shit about my clothes when I have my labret (lower lip) pierced. (Yes, I kept it in during the interview process.)
After Christmas last year I got a bunch of nice clothes. Black leather ankle boots, cashmere & wool sweaters, dress shirts, etc. You could say I was mildly metrosexual. When I started a new job the following January I was heckled by quite a few people in the company. One woman always said, "Hey that's a nice shirt... are you gay!?" The best part is the people who were actually gay in the office felt left out because no one was noticing their dress.
Translation: I work for a PR firm and I would really like you to buy more different clothes so my employer will get more money. Be a good consumer and buy a real shirt, not a polyester one. Then the firm will be happy, and you will perhaps get laid!
Seriously, Paul Graham has an essay about this (sort of) here: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
"Suits make a corporate comeback," says the New York Times. Why does this sound familiar? Maybe because the suit was also back in February, September 2004, June 2004, March 2004, September 2003, November 2002, April 2002, and February 2002.
Why do the media keep running stories saying suits are back? Because PR firms tell them to. One of the most surprising things I discovered during my brief business career was the existence of the PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
In my 10 year career as a techie, I've noticed something about technical people: Those who are the most honest, the least hype driven, have horrid dress sense; where those with the best dress sense are the .bomb millionaires who will leave the country still owing you unpaid paychecks.
This seems to hold true in insurance, real estate, used car salesmen, etc. If somebody is wearing a suit, it's because they're trying to distract you from some other deeper, more important character flaw.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If you work in a cube all day and never see a client, whats the problem?
I hate these beaurocratic types that have nothing to do but invent stupid rules, such as expecting everyone to dress to their standard even though there's no practical benefit.
Its what I DO when I'm at work that should matter, NOT what I wear.
Who woulda thunk it!
In general, IT workers are not the ones interacting directly with clients in-person, but instead are mostly interacting with people within their own company. Because of this, first impressions really don't matter that much. And, I'm afraid, first impressions are the only reason to get dressed up for business (that, or lack of imagination and fixation on inconsequential things, which is admittedly somewhat descriptive of middle and upper management).
Of course, dressing nicely does help some people focus, and I think it can be beneficial for many to have "work" clothes and "non-work" clothes in order to better differentiate between work and home, but (in another sweeping generalization) I'd say tech nerds (obviously the whole of the IT industry) feel less of a need to discriminate between home and work than some other groups.
... while another survey concluded that marketing is the most "Ghey" or "Metrosexual" (76%) of all departments. "I don't know what it is but the way those guys in marketing call eachother "bro" all of the time and complement eachother on their shoes and accesories is a bit ... yeah" said shipping supervisor Randy Beatty.
corporate stylist, Melanie Moss
OMG if your job title is corporate stylist you must immediatly proceed to kill whomever gave you that title and then yourself.
May I translate? Here in the great land down under, thongs are something you'd wear with your togs and sunnies, not with your dacks. Did that help?
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
... assanine article to put on the front page.
.... check .... check .... check .... check .... check
Most IT workers aren't dealing with customers face to face most of the time. They are sitting in front of computers, and oddly enough, barring big advances in AI and machine vision computers don't care how you dress.
Quick tip #1. If you are sitting in front of a computer all comfort trumps fashion sense evertime.
Quick tip #2. Wearing a stiff buttoned collar with a tie is a pretty bad idea for comfort or probably even good health. I suspect managers do some of the dumb things they do due to the constriction of blood to their brain.
Quick tip #3. Formal dress is expensive and time consuming. Anything that requires dry cleaning is expensive, and ironing or pressing clothes likewise is time consuming or expensive. Most IT workers want to do more productive things with their time and money than going to the dry cleaners or shopping st Nordstrom's.
Quick tip #4. If you are a geek and meeting geeks from other companies chances are they will be in shirts and tee's too and they are going to conclude you are a noob or a phony if you wear a shirt and tie to the meeting. Only time you are gonna do it is if you are meeting executives from a customer because they wrongly place value, and make judgments, on how good or bad the tie you are wearing is. On the plus side ties are a top subject for casual chit chat among air headed executives.
People who deal in person with customers on a regular basis do have a motivation to dress well. Customers will judge you on it and get first impressions, rightly or wrongle.
People who don't deal with customers shouldn't be wearing expensive uncomfortable clothes on a daily basis.
A twist on this argument is people who do dress well are probably some of the least trustworthy:
Politicians
Lawyers
Salesmen
Executives
Stock brokers
You see these are all people who are spending big money to create a facade partially based on their wardrobe. They seek to impress you with their clothes to distract you from their substance.
@de_machina
Which way are you going? I said I noticed the inverse porportion law- not that the rest of society did!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
I'm gonna wear 3-piece tweed suits with a bowler and a handlebar moustache to work every day!
Just like physicists in the early 1900's. Seriously, ever seen how neatly employees at Bell Labs, Bayer, IBM and other famous places dressed back then?
(This coming from a person who's summer wardrobe consists of 18 black Haynes t-shirts from WalMart.)
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
I walked into the local pharmacy the other week to fill a prescription. Behind the counter, next to the pharmacist, I saw a large florid-faced and bearded man wearing a polo shirt. I thought "That must be their IT guy. I bet he's wearing shorts." I stepped up to the counter and peered over. Yup. Shorts.
He noticed my glance and I could see him size me up. He too saw a large florid-faced and bearded man wearing a knit henley and shorts. Our eyes met and I knew that he knew were were of the same tribe, shamans to the silicon spirits. We smiled an went about our business.
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
For he to-day that sheds his tie with me
Shall be my brother; be he e'er so vile
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Sure, why not? After all, we're the first to get "downsized", first to have our budgets cut- this despite the fact that IT workers have the highest attrition rate of virtually any other job category. We're often the only people in an entire company "required" to carry a pager. Our managers won't stick up for us, we work in a job which we're visible only when something is wrong (so no matter how good a job we do, the question is "why did this break in the first place). We spend all day listening to people whine and have little "chats" with the boss when we don't bed over far enough. We're the #1 excuse of why business doesn't get done ("oh, I didn't get that out for fedex by 6 because my laptop stopped working right before I was going to save it! Those IT people can't do anything right!").
Tell you what? Give me that salary review I was promised when I signed up. Give me a competitive wage even half that of the slick-haired assholes in sales, or the ditzy bleached bimbos in marketing. Take me out to lunch when the mail server crashes and I get everything back up and running in record time, yet again.
I'll be more than happy to dress nicer in return.
Please help metamoderate.
We poor bastards have to work ridiculous hours, crawl around under and behind peoples desks, fuck around under server room floors, sometimes even do shit around dusty cable runs. It gets bloody uncomfortable. We even cut ourselves on bloody computers for our thankless companies and staff. Hello? We BLEED for those bastards! My mother always complained about how much *I* made her bleed during my birth. Well damn it, we bleed too and want some recognition for it! You know that saying? BLOOD, sweat and tears? It was a skinny nerd with thick black framed glasses, held together with a bandage that coined that phrase. I'm sure one day he just got sick of wrecking business shirts with blood and ink stains from the pens in his BROKEN pocket protector and decided, "To hell with pocket protectors, to hell with my own pens and to hell with uncomfortable business shirts! From now on it's t shirts, no more pocket protectors and fuck it, I'm just going to use whatever pen I find in this damn war zone".
Actually, I don't know what's worse. Getting blood on a $70 business shirt or getting blood on one of my most excellent and beloved OpenBSD t's.
Hmm, I wonder how many OpenBSD t's I could buy if I claim workers comp?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
She also recommends looking through magazines to get a feel for what suits you. "This is about thinking about what suits you instead of following trends," she said. Someone please explain to me how looking through everyday magazines for clothing advice is *not* following a trend. I honestly fail to see what the article writer is talking about here. I can think of nothing more trendy than browsing magazines to gain fashion advice of any kind.
The whole concept of "dress for success" is nothing more than shallow judgementalism. Who do you think a customer would rather work with? Some arrogant ass with a flippant attitude just because he's in a three-piece suit, or someone who is courteous and respectful but just so happens to be wearing jeans and a t-shirt? More than that, what does it matter, particularly if the person is in a position where they are not seen by the public or they are in a position that has little or no visual contact with customers? Are they performing their duties in a professional and courteous manner? Are they proving themselves to be valued employees who work efficiently and effectively? Yes? So, why isn't that what's important?
Could you imagine the actions (not to mention looks) towards any manager who insists that if you're "on-call" and get called at home, you need to get dressed before you dial into the network? Well, if that's a requirement at work where I don't meet the public, why isn't that a requirement at home where I don't meet the public? After all, it's doing the same job but jsut from a different location.
We don't lose IQ points for wearing jeans; we don't gain IQ points for putting on a three-piece suit. Frankly, any manager who stresses "professional" or "business casual" dress on employees who are not in a public relations role must look at the pointy-haired manager in Dilbert as his idol. I'm convinced of that.
Knowledge comes from the mind based on our education and experience; professionalism comes from the soul based on how well we treat others; the patterns and dyed cotton that we wear on the outside of our bodies in order to maintain an ancient, moral code is (or should be) irrelevant.
Fortunately, I work in an environment (in a corporation of over 10,000 employees) where management doesn't really care about dress code. As long as we come in and do what we get paid to do and put in that extra effort when necessary, they're content. Dress isn't even part of the employee review process. This is the biggest, NYSE-listed company of its kind in the U.S. with billions in revenue -- yet there is no dress code and the stock keeps increasing. Well, we must be doing something right -- without worrying about a dress code, either.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
I had the CEO of a company I was working at start to gripe about my ignoring the dress code. I pointed at the pile of dirt and dust and dead insects that'd fallen out of the ceiling tile I'd pulled aside to work up in there and asked him if he was willing to get into that wearing his suit? He said no way, it was too expensive to ruin. I asked him if he was going to pay if I ruined my good clothes in there? He said no. "Then why should I? Now, can I get back to finding and fixing this wiring problem, or do you want the demo you're doing this afternoon, the one you said was critical to the company's success this year, to flop when none of the stuff you want to show off actually works?".
What the unwashed masses here miss out on is that if you start dressing nicer, people will treat you better, and you will get promoted and or paid more... Sure, you can be judged objectively
on your work, but most of your work is presentation and communication. Those should be as neat and professional as possible. Do you go to
the doctor expecting him to walk in wearing flip flops, with greasy hair etc... no... why?
It is the expectation of professionalism. Dress for success is a common factor that really holds its value. But you should only dress just a little bit less than as good as your boss, or your bosses boss (if you want your bosses job and you think your boss is an idiot).
Seriously. You will be surprised how quickly you get promoted or well treated and taken more seriously.
If you dress like a student, you get treated like a student. If you are 40 and still dressing like a student, people think you are weird. If you dress better, you get women or men whichever is your fancy.
Many grad students also go through this phenomena. The start off wearing the same old same, and then as they get closer to graduation they start dressing nicer and nicer until one day the boss no longer thinks of them as a student in training, but as a credible scientist.
God help you if your boss dress like a slob. I would take another job seriously.
C'mon, it takes a lot of money to look good and to develop the style to know when you look good. People in tech support don't get paid enough money to look good.
Plus,...well,...their brains work differently.
It could be worse. Lip Shit Ralph Lauren forced the people working in his stores to buy the company clothes from his company at full retail cost. And then he paid them minimum wage plus a few points commission on what they sold. How's that for suck?
Plus how about filling some of the cubicles with beautiful young women? Tech support guys know that they are zeros and will most likely always be zeros. They realize that they will constantly have to be studying new technologies in order to remain employed at chump wages. They know that they will never have the social status that their counterparts in Bangalore and Chennai have with the general public. They know that they will be working for the rest of their lives in dead soulless drab cubicles. They know that the only difference between their lives and the lives of those who are serving (in USA the same verb is used for being in the military and being in prison) 20 years for killing record company lawyers is that they are less likely to be raped after 'work'. So they figure, why not where whatever I feel like wearing.
What difference does it make to anyone?
Why should I wear (and wear out) good clothes when there's no single women where I work?
If you aren't the average size.
My relevent dimesions are 32, 36, and 36. Those are waist, inseam, and sleave length measured in inches. It is near impossible to find clothing that fits, even at big and tall shops. Actually, big and tall shops are much more consistant. They never carry anything that fits.
Long ago, I mostly gave up. I could find and buy short sleave shirts and jeans without major effort so that's what I wore. More recently, I am finding that I can't even find jeans without a multi day cross town search. After the last such search, I found two pairs at the largest of several GAP stores in my metro area. I bought them both. After I left the store, they once again had nothing in my size.
Some say the Internet is to blame. Brick and morter clothing shops think they can avoid the expense of carrying a full range of sizes but telling odd size people to buy online. Never mind that fit can not be verified through a web browser. Whatever the reason, it takes all the fun away. It is hard to get excited about fashion when even the basics are denied.
dress-code really doesn't matter.
I disagree.
Dress-code must be robust, readable and maintainable. Period.
Million Dollar Screenshot
That's strange. As a reasonably smartly-dressed, skilled and experienced techie, my conclusion has been that there is pretty much no correlation whatsoever between how smartly someone dresses and how good they are at their job. Frankly, your implication that I'm an unprofessional rip-off merchant because I'm happier wearing reasonably smart clothes to work is kinda offensive.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"Always dress for the position you strive for, not for the one you are in" -Some Middle Management Suck Up
Swim trunks and sunscreen. Got it. Should I carry around the little coconut glass, or does that not fall under the category of "dress"... ?
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
The CEO can kiss my ass and the dumb ass secretary he is banging can kiss my ass too. If the clients don't like it they can take turns kissing my ass after the CEO and his whore are finished. Jesus, you zombies don't realize that essentially a coporate entity is dictating what you wear!! That is exactly the problem with corporatism. Instead of focusing on the business and getting things done more effectively, HR dildos are generating memos about violations of business casual policy. I would sooner scrub fucking toilets than go back into a coporate environment that has a stupid ass dress code. It's an attempt to strip away individualism. How much is yours worth? How much money does it take to pimp yourself out so you can feed your stupid ass kids, keep them in Tommy Hilfiger clothes, and make sure they have a steady stream of PS 2 games to numb their minds? No wonder corporations are such shit holes these days. All about style and no substance. Ok I'll shut up now so you all can tell me what a loser I am.
Yeah! Fight the man! We all think you're cool now that we know you're an individual who doesn't care about what others think! ;)
Good job. Next time bill for a four hour minimum. If you can fix it in ten minutes when they were stumped for days, you should at least be able to take the rest of the day off.
We are all just people.
Quite honestly, I'm with everyone else here on this. [Of course, this is slash-dot.]
.. VERY nervous.
.. made sure to say 'Hi' to me, and [bluntly] I had a lot more 'package glances' from co-workers. Maybe I just look 'nicer' in an expensive suit (who doesn't ?!) but I think, in a professional environment where you interact with outside departments who *NEED* to dress nicely to deal with clients - it can help them feel more comfortable. Job advancement is mainly based on other people's perception of how you do your job. I've seen *AWESOME* coders get shafted again and again, but jr. guys who know how to play the game - get given better projects, raised, and recognition.
.. i mean .. 'look at them'.
:)
Dress doesn't matter in IT.
Several jobs ago, I was a sales-man. Selling toy soldiers. I wore suits, but when you were selling $10-$20k of product to a small independant retailer, you needed to make an impression.
I then worked for a cable giant, and was told to wear kakhi's and a polo to work. I did, there were a *LOT* of cute girls in that office, seemed easy to comply - especially with lunch dates in mind.
I left that job to go work for another fortune 500, where Jeans were expresly forbidden. I wore jeans every day. Once a director asked me [infront of a vp, and a department head] why i was allowed to wear jeans. This man, ironcally - the head of it/ecommerce, and 2 years later, my boss - was told by the VP of marketing : "Oh, thats cause he is one of those programmers, who wants to do all that math in a tie ?"
The two or three times I pulled an armani out of the closet (remember, i was in sales!) and wore them to work, I made people VERY
That being said, in a fortune 500 environment, I noticed that on the days I wore a $1500 suit, people stepped out of my way
Now I am the V.P. of IT at a smaller company, and all upper management actually tells me all the time to 'dress edgy' when I ask if I should wear a suit.
In the small co. / startup / under 50 million a year industry. Venture Caps *LIKE* to see the crazy IT guys, it provides them with an oddly inverted feeling of comfort - NO ONE who dresses like that could be hired by such a small company if they were not REALLY good at their job
Like it or not, we actually *HAVE* fostered the belief that good programmers really *don't* wear suits. And the tighter we hold on to that conviction, the more truth it gains
--Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum, non erravi pernicose!
/*RANT
And where does attitude about clothing have a damn thing to do about attitude about work? When did we decide judging a book by its cover was the right way to pick? In what irrefutable experient with repeatable results has it been prooven that those who wear "Stylish" clothes vrs "unstylish" to work have better attitudes?
What does it say about someones attitude if they are willing to buy something they don't like, that costs more than what they do and then wear it the majority of the time because its what people expect? Everyone else is doing it why don't you? Cause I am not a fucking sheeple god damn it. That isn't an attitude problem, its called free will.
Why in the world do we seek and praise conformity ? And I don't care if it was in the form of REQUIRING eveyrone to wear jeans and a T-shirt... its a silly thing to persue in something as irrelevant as manner of dress. Dress codes are about power. The ability to decree what is and is not acceptable and its a large load of very smelly bull shit.
What is wrong with a jeans and a T-shirt vrs not jeans and a polo shirt? What precisely is the difference there? Is Denim some horrid material not fit for public? Is the lack of a collar, two buttons and an overall thinner cotton weave a dire issue of productivity? To even have this argument is stupid. To consider it of any importance an admission of valuing shallow appearance over the substance of what the person does and how they behave. That is an improper way to judge someone and no amount of justification will change that at its heart judgement of appearence alone is shallow and idiotic. If someone has a bad attitude don't ascociate it with what they wear.
I see a jackass in a suit and they are still a jackass. I see a king in rags and they are still a king. We all bitch about judging based on sterotypes and appearances rather than on the substance of a person. And then turn around and teach our kids you have to dress a particular way for anyone to take you seriously. Does anyone else see the utter damnfool hypocrisy in that? The truly heartbreaking thing about it all is if we just quit doing it we would no longer have to put up with it. Easier said than done obviously but damn its still annoying.
RANT*/
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
Can't find it online, but it's in the book "Travels in Hyperreality", a collection of miscellaneous essays. Postmodernism at its best, or worst, depending on your tastes. A brief sample ("fair use", I hope!):
Oh please. I try to dress neatly, even if I'm not dressed super nicely for work. But I have to say, as a female Systems Engineer who tries to be fashionable... it's inevitable that if I'm trying to break in my newest pair of heels, or wearing an expensive sweater or blouse, I'll have to head to the data center and deal with something. I've torn blouses on racks, bled on nice clothes, and also, rack grease doesn't come out of clothes... they don't pay me enough for that.
Also, have you ever had to crawl under a desk for cabling... in a skirt?? Yeah, it sucks, though I'm sure that employee had a nice view that day.
IT workers rarely deal with customers, though I try to look decent when I know I'll be meeting with vendors.
It's just not entirely reasonable to ask anyone in IT to dress up. We think on our feet, deal with hardware on the fly, and deal with various environments.
Everybody knows that any non-manager who wears a suit at a tech company is incompetent. Even the smarter customers won't believe anything unless they hear it form somebody dressed in ratty jeans and an old shirt.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
IT can be a lot more than what you are pigeon holing it to be. The department including "software engineers", as you call yourself, is often as a whole called IT.
Anyway, who cares what IT people dress like if they are not the kind of IT people who deal with customers? Judging on appearances could land you a nice job in marketing though. Practice your ass kissing, it's probably your next "career path".
Noone will ever criticize your sense of fashion. You are automatically haute coture.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
We do live in a "class" based system, and to some extent, I have no problems with this. I don't want all events being like all others: I want my wedding to be a special event that requires thougtfulness and aesthetic care. I see your indifference to personal appearance as a resort to pure utility.
Conformity is another matter. Someone who creates a different identity with their appearence or uses it thoughtfully is in a different category than someone who just doesn't give a damn. I'd rather work with someone with the mohawk and noserings who is at least aware that he's being seen than someone who, as David Sedaris put it, shows up looking like he's here to mow the lawn.
I am far more comfortable judging people by how they dress than by most other factors. Clothes are semiotic: they are chosen consciously by people who exist in a society where the codes and signs of dress are relatively available to them. Attire is not a secondary feature over which one has little control.
They are also aesthetic. Beauty matters. It is not necessarily about judging people's character, but it can be about judging their consideration for others. You can't help, in the short term at least, most aspects of your physical appearance. However, just like you can keep your work area relatively clean, you can control your attire. I will judge you by the fact that you don't care what I have to see every day, or at the very least that you are so aesthetically illiterate that you are unaware of it.