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Sandals and Ponytails Behind Slow Linux Adoption
Eric Giguere writes "CNet is reporting that according to former Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn 'the lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments.' In particular, Quinn blames the 'sandal and ponytail set' for sluggish adoption of Linux by businesses and governments." From the article: "Quinn, who faced plenty of scrutiny over his support of the OpenDocument standards-based office document format, said proponents of open source in government faced formidable opposition from vested interests if they went public."
Its all about class and swagger.
Eventually I think linux and OSS will take hold. I agree with the articles thesis: uptake of OSS (and, for the record, ANYTHING) is affected (negatively in this case) by sandals and ponytails.
In my long career pathetically ended after 21 years by an unfortunate "right-sizing" (let's get rid of the 20% MOST expensive employees in IT, but make sure to get rid of some of the kids too so we don't get sued...), I conducted an ongoing rant/argument/rage/discussion with my best friend at work about the impact of dress. Bob (not her real name) insisted not only are others impacted by your appearance and demeanor, but your very own work and feelings about yourself change based on your dress.
Being a long-haired sandaled techie I disagreed. It took Bob about fifteen years to win me over. I get it now, maybe a bit too late, but it does matter.
For doubters, read Robert Malloy's book. I love and hate this book. It's hard to dispute empirical research... you dress for your audience or risk losing them.
Still I like to wear my rose-colored glasses and think good conquers evil eventually, and still hold hope someday linux along with OSS gains the purchase it needs to be a viable and dominant market force unto itself (it already passes the viable test...).
As an aside: this does take an interesting turn when you consider that the "dress code" for "good tech" is oxymoronic, i.e., while it is true business leaders and decision makers like/prefer business dress and decorum from people they meet and strike deals with, at the same time it's a time-honored tradition that the most savvy and high-octane techies wear cutoffs, sandals, t-shirts (that probably say "fuck you" in some obfuscated way), and piercings. Go figure. (From my own personal experience, I would add, I found little correlation with the raggedy techie look and competence and would even submit many less competent techies cultivated the look as an offset to their less-than-great skills.)
And, now I'm off to install the new Firefox /. extension (God Bless OSS)
Does -anyone- wear sandals and a ponytail anymore? That's kind of cliche.
Specialization is for insects. -Heinlein
People who are too shallow to see past how some dork dresses get what they deserve, sheez..
On the other hand, people who don't care whether you wear sandles, have a ponytail, are black, white, asian, a woman, or whatever, will come out ahead, because they'll pick stuff that is best, rather than looking to see if it wears Armani suits.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
The problem is with idiots who believe that they can judge the quality of a product by the shoes of it's creator. Noone ever complains about my t-shirt, Dickies shorts, and piercings when I'm done fixing their shit... in fact, I'm the one they ask for by name.
Some of us feel that being proficient at your job and being comfortable are much more important than being a shortsighted, uninformed asshole in a fancy monkey suit.
The problem is on THEIR side.
..we raise our children to "not judge books by their cover", and then turn around and do just that.
I understand that by dressing like the stuffed suits would make me more appealing to them, but I don't care about them. They need me more than I need them. I'll always be able to find tech work somewhere. They won't always be able to find a lot of techies to work for them. The sooner they get over themselves and their dress code ideas, the better, for realities sake.
obviously no one's seen my anarcho-goth-punk linux nerd mates...
they seem to go down pretty well, actually - I think their employers are pleasantly surprised at how effective tehy are considering how much time they spend throwing moltovs
I thought it was the companies thinking they could replace their technical management with bean counters responsible for the slow uptake. Managers that think if IT gets on their nerves enough they can simply outsource them to India. Or the fact that many company IT departments are staffed with MCSE's who see every IT problem as a nail for the MSFT hammer.
And here all this time it was sandals and ponytails. Missed it by that much!
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Of course, it all depends on context. If you're interacting a lot with clients, then you probably want to dress somewhat like them, depending on the situation, of course!
the real reason, right there in the article, has little to do with dress and more to do with the incredible political influence (money) wielded by those who want to keep OSS down. the 'image' of OSS developers is not the problem. it is that the political process has been hijacked from seeking public good to seeking personal good.
there are plenty of suits involved in the OSS movement. but as he says at the end of the article, what got him to drop out of the fight was not the image of OSS but the constant barrage of attacks brought against him by those with the wherewhithal to do so - big business.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It may be that, at the current moment, this is what Mr. Quinn sees as the major issue. But it's just the latest battle in the war, and it won't be the last.
I dress well enough at work. Nothing that I can wear without ironing it first, anyways. That battle has been fought and won, but now I'm faced with people who insist on paying the idiot tax - why spend $10,000 on a good FOSS (commercial or in-house) solution when you can spend $150,000 on a craptacular proprietary one? Obviously the proprietary solution must be five times better if they can charge that much.
Of course, that's utter malarkey. Anybody who works the trenches in IT knows that the industry is full of used-car salesmen, and at this point in time, virtually every "manager" I know is far too stupid to know any better.
Red Hat has the right idea. Raise prices. Their stuff is way too expensive for what it offers, but if they lowered their prices, they'd lose sales. Go frigging figure.
(We're a software development shop, and our stuff is priced in the millions. Recently our President and CEO needed to increase the price by an order of magnitude or else risk losing credibility in the target market.)
.. that only people in a shirt and tie or similar "professional" dress are capable of performing their assigned duties to which they agreed when they signed the employment contract. After all, how many of us completely lose the mental faculties (alcohol not withstanding) to do our jobs as soon as we get home and get the jeans and t-shirt on? Come on, raise your hands! { watching tumbleweed blow by }
So, basicaly what the author of the original article is saying is the following:
open source + casual dress = no credibility regardless of the quality of work
open source + "professional" dress = complete credibility regardless of the quality of work
Someone needs to do a study on this. I'm fascinated by the attitiude that some people have that the design of the cotton on the outside of our skin somehow has a direct correlation on the ability for us to maintain our servers through open source. It must be some kind of intellectually stimulating chemical that is weaved into the fibers of "professional" clothing that we absorb through our skin whereas casual dress does the opposite.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
Free Software is given to you free as in speech, and free as in beer.
If you want us to look the way you want us to look, that will cost you a FUCKING LOT. Start writing big checks, or STFU and stop looking a gift horse in the mouth.
Ungrateful stuffed suit.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
At 37, I haven't suffered any harm from this attitude yet
Or you're too conceited to have noticed.I would not work with you based on that comment.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Style is always much more important than substance to those who have little of the latter.
Fantasy and superstition should be used for entertainment purposes only.
Exactly the ignorant elitist attitude that will place you near the top of the list when it's time to lay a few people off. Fact of the matter is that management needs tech and tech needs management, but neither needs arrogant know-it-alls like you.
At 37, I haven't suffered any harm from this attitude yet.
Time is not on your side. A more polite and still smart and pleasant to be around kid will soon replace you. Sure they will need some training and education that comes with experience, but the benefits to the management, that you are so quick to insult, of this new fresh blood out weigh your value.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Given a choice between a guy in a suit with a mediocre piece of software, and the guy in jeans that hasn't shaved for two days and smells of pizza with an amazing array of programs - they're going to take the suit. The marketdroids want to see success oozing from the vendor, not an air of dishevelment.
All in all, it's sad to see decisions based on quality of presentation as opposed to quality of product, but with few exceptions, that's the way it's always been - and probably always will be.
Shower. Shave. Buy some button up shirts and a pair of slacks. From my experience, this makes all the difference in the world. Like it or not - it's the way the game is played.
hi mom!
Just based on this post, there's no way you could do the suit's job in a million years.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Because when I open up a software program, I know the way my first impressions are created is by hunting down the people who wrote that software program (often hiring private investigators to do so) and evaluating their visual appearance.
In other news, I spent some time as an employee of Sun Microsystems and you know, it's the funniest thing, I was writing commercial, proprietary, closed source software the whole time, but oddly enough I still went to work with a ponytail and birkenstocks on every day. I wonder how that works? Oh, even odder, have you ever seen a picture of Jonathan Schwartz?
Now, there might be a point here if the object of the advice were to separate the people who create and use open source software from the people who evangelize it to businesses and governments. If the advice were to get some people who wear nice suits to promote the benefits of open source to business suit types in their own language, then that would make a lot of sense. It is indeed quite possible that the public face of open source promoters looks too much like me, the guy who at Sun would have been stuffed in the back room writing the code, whereas the public face of closed source promotion tends to look like Scott McNealy or Johnathan Schwartz (whose hair may be as long as mine, but hey, he cleans up well). I have no personal experience of this; I would imagine that Peter Quinn does. As it is though his advice was quite poorly explained.
I'd always thought of goatse as the opposite of pornography.
I may get flamed for this but it seems that many of the posters are missing the point Peter Quinn is trying to get across. He used the "sandal and ponytail set" as a figure of speech, trying to point out that many of the open source advocates need have a more professional appearance AND be business-savvy. He wasn't really talking about some programmers locked up in an office somewhere programming, as this applies more to people who are visible. For example, if there's a sales meeting full of suits and the presenter is in a t-shirt, jeans, and "sandal and ponytail set", do you honestly think the suits will take the presenter seriously? Sure, in an idea world, no one will "judge a book my its cover" but this is not really different that a good looking jerk having better chances with the girls than no-go-gook looking nice guy.
Quinn also blamed the leaders of technology departments for not communicating the benefits of open-source software to their businesses effectively.
He has another valid point here. Just look at the posts on Slashdot. It seems that many here think that posting insults and profanities makes them look smarter than they really are. Picture this in your head:
Slashdotter (S): Dude, you really should switch to Linux.
Business Guy (BG): Why should we need to do that? Every Dell we buy already comes with a copy of Windows.
S: M$ is an evil empire and they kick puppies.
BG: That MS sales guy sure seemed nice to me.
S: Only morons like you fall for their shit. I know this because I'm so smart.
BG: I don't see why I need to listen to someone that's insulting me but Windows run fine and all of my clients use Office.
S: OMG! It's motherfuckers like you and your idiot clients that enabled M$ to retain its power. You guys all need to fucking die because to are just too stupid. In fact, the sheer number of cuss words that I used just proves how smart I am.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
If only people were that objective.
The truth is that, as a salesman, you have to play to your audience and different audiences have different requirements - in essence you sell yourself along with a product. This doesn't always mean a suit, but you are conforming yourself to your audience.
If a business suit might level the playing field where your potential clients take you that much more seriously, while someone who shows up in stained T-shirk and slack will have to have a product that is that much more better to be taken seriously, why even risk it?
You see it everyday, in how consumers pick products. Usually, lets say in electronics, the more polished products get more serious consideration. Something that looks slapped together or superficialy cheap/chintzy is either not taken seriously or has to be sold cheaper - even if the functionality is better.
If you really like to believe that people are so objective to look past the superficial, I suggest you put some research into "packaging..."
guess business people won't take jesus seriously now.
please disregard the son of god, he's lying.
there is no salvation, it's just some ponytailed-sandal-wearing-freak, waxing poetically.
instead, listen to the religious leaders who are appropriately dressed. only those who have a clean presentation can provide the truth. and don't forget, you get what you pay for. so it should be expensive too.
three can keep a secret, if two are dead - benjamin franklin
A few problems with this. First of all, being a "geek" doesn't put you in the same league as Einstein. Come back when you've revolutionized a field of science. Second of all, Einstein didn't have a ponytail and his hair, while wild, was not that long. Third of all, Einstein frequently wore a suit and tie, or at least a sweater and tie or a sport coat. Fourth of all, he would have been lynched? Give me a break.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Here's a completely different point of view.
Yes, the corporate suits are not comfortable with OSS companies, because the folks in the OSS companies don't wear suits. But it's not actually because of the clothing, it's what the clothing implies. The lack of suits tells them that these are technical people in charge, not business people. The suits don't like dealing with technical people, because they don't really understand us. They feel more comfortable with people wearing suits, because people who wear suits are their kind of people.
I just love hearing from our C_Os about how we in development should do whatever the sales/marketing folks tell us, because "if it weren't for them, we wouldn't have jobs". Meanwhile, I'm sitting here thinking, well, what the heck would they sell if we weren't creating products?
Never mind the fact that the sales department has a very regular turnover, and the sales people themselves aren't anything special, just your average ex-fratboy business major who made it through four years of college with an average 0.8 BAC. Nobody blinks twice when they leave, they just replace them. Yet, the company is horrified that I ride a motorcycle, because of the possibility that I may get injured/killed and thus leave them with a serious hole to fill that requires very specialized knowledge.
Truth? They fear us. They know that they are a dime a dozen. Our entire sales department could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and it would set the company back a month at worst. If the engineering department walked out, the company would fold up like a wet kleenex, and would *never* recover.
Not at all. It catches those who know and understand whats important for buisness and what isn't. How I dress doesn't effect the code I produce, or how I answer interview questions. Since how I dress doesn't effect my work, as long as I am dressed (not being dressed would probably effect the work of others) and not wearing stuff with racist/offensive slogans and the like that would effect my coworkers negatively, they shouldn't care. If they do care, it shows they're wasting valuable company resources on utter bullshit, and are actively counterproductive to the company (happy workers are productive workers. And if I have to wake up and care about what I dress in or spend money on a new clothes, I'm not happy). As such they are a moron, and such a stuffy place is somewhere I would likely not enjoy working. This is actually better for both parties- I wait for a job I'll enjoy more, and they don't get someone who would actively flaunt a dress code and tell them to fire me if they don't like it.
:)
On the other hand, there are things that do matter- coding conventions, code review procedures, etc. I follow these because there's a reason to have them, even if I think some are suboptimal (if suboptimal enough, I may try and work to change them. Depending on how much effort it'd take and how much unneeded red tape there is). Hell, if I did nothing I don't want to I wouldn't have a job in the first place
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
The orchestra played in the space in Rockefeller Center currently used by Saturday Night Live. However, there was no audience present during the radio broadcasts, save for a handful of people not in the orchestra (radio engineers, NBC executives, perhaps a representative from the sponsors or two).
Despite this fact, every member of the orchestra wore a tuxedo, and Maestro Toscanini wore tails.
Radio. No audience. Formal dress.
The story has stuck with me ever since, and I'd often pondered the reason for this. Remember, this was back when even street dress for a professional musician was a suit, tie, and snazzy shoes. No "business casual" back then.
The best reasons I could determine for this were:
Personally, I'm inclined to judge a person's performance rather than their appearance. But even I can't help but think about appearance sometimes: if a vendor showed up to pitch my company while wearing shorts and a UCSC Banana Slugs t-shirt, my first thought would be "Jeez, he just doesn't care, does he?". The product or service would live or die on its merits, but my opinion of the salesman would be tainted by that first thought.
I think the bottom line is finding the appropriate level of casual/formal dress for the situation. The owner of the surf/skate shop might not mind if I showed up in shorts and sandals to install a POS system, but the funeral director probably would.
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Doesn't it strike anyone that it might make the job a lot easier if you just adapted to whatever dress standards your customer might like? I'm just a coder, so I don't do a lot of work around customers, but if I am to appear at a meeting I damn well know how to put on a suit. Try explaining something they won't be able to understand to your customers. Do it in a suit, and they probably lay off the really silly stuff. Do it in slacks and slippers, and they won't believe a word you say. Maybe the tech guys would, but you put them in a bad position for supporting you just by looking the way you do.
Once you're back behind your workstation, go ahead and wear your underpants on your head. It's what I do, if not so explicitly, but I'm definitely one of the shorts and sandals type.
It just seems unsensible to me that you try to do your best to keep your code clean and manageable, you go to all lengths at keeping up to speed with technology and then spoil more than you can make up with speed and quality by having one client meeting going the wrong way.
While I follow the dress code of my California based company (beard, polo shirt, chinos, dress shoes), I am well known as someone who "cleans up well" and can readily give a good impression at a goverment or business presentation. I have no problem with this and rather much enjoy having an excuse to dress to the nines. On the other hand, when I'm back to the lab I'm casual again. This works for me.
The key point is respect, by dressing up I'm showing in a rather painless way that I can meet managers or business types halfway and can effectively interface with them. If I'm dressed sharper than they are I've beaten them at their own game and have a point in may favor immediately. It makes them considerably more receptive to my non-negotable issues.
On the other hand folks who made a point of not being able to "clean up well" tend to be rubbing their arrogance in peoples faces. They do it because they assume that they can get away with it because of their awesome skills. Problem is, skills change, and everybody loves to undermine an arrogant bastard, especially when they hand you shovels. Worse yet, they don't see it coming because they aren't able to collect intelligence dressed like that.
Haberdashery is a form of legal social engineering which is fun and easy to practice.
The point Mr Quinn is making isn't that the Linux crowd in general should wear suits. The average programmer isn't going to be doing sales. I personally think the issue is a lack of open source advocates who are business friendly at all. When a organisation wants to move to open source they want to know the company doing it is professional. Having someone turn up in a T Shirt and jandels doesn't do much for their confidence.
Appearance is important, we cannot possibly invest the effort to get to know 'the real person' for everyone we meet. In order to function we need our sterotypes. Its a bit like justice - justice not only must be done, it must be seen to be done. Similarly, quality in service must be seen. Thats not to say everyone needs to be in a suit; but certainly if you are making a open source presentation to a large organisation you should have appropriate attire; or not bother at all.
Not bothering is fine of course - nobody is forcing you to advocate and sell OSS solutions, but if you are in that game, and you do care about getting that contract, then perhaps how you dress will impact your chances.
'the lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments.'
Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, my response would be that if the clean cut, three piece suit set did more of the actual important work on the big projects, then they would be more visible and this would not be such a big problem.
Therefore, it is the clean cut, three piece suit set who are really holding back the uptake of Free Software in commercial environments.
Assuming what we did, what is wrong with the reasoning that followed?
all the best,
drew
--
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Being a person that is very shortly to escape corperate america I can give some real good insight into this....
There are Two truths to attire in the workplace if you are never seen by the customers.
Restrictive dress codes stem from new CEO or other leadership trying to prove they can control people and getting their personal high from doing it. Dress at work has NOTHING to do with performance and "professionalism" IN fact I code best in my ratty jeans and the "SHUT UP! I'm coding." on the back T-shirt. I remember one really good IT guy from 2 years ago when we became Comcast was verbally reprimanded by a upper level exec for not being clean shaven. The man just worked all night getting the Jackass exec's equipment working... All he said was, "so fire me. do me a favor so I do not have to work with assholes like you." The exec tried to fire him, the regional VP put the exec in his place and made him apologize to the IT guy... He left 9 months later because he saw the downward drain sprial before everyone else did.. now the rest of us rats are jumping ship.
Second, It's about percieved professionalism. Too many MBA's are programmed at college that expensive clothes make you successful and try to encourage the staff to do likewise. Which is great if the exec's will give everyone a 30% raise so they can afford to dress like him. It's a "clone" ideal. Just look at the sales department.... they look like fricking clones because they think they have to.... now look at the most sucessful sales people, they are different, get in trouble with the boss regularly but will not be fired because they out sell the other sales people 3 to 1.
It's all about the fact that most business professionals really do not have a clue to how to really manage people. They can run numbers and repeat verbatium all the BullShit(tm) they teach them at business college but none of them have a clue how to manage people and get the most out of their workforce. It boggles the mind how clueless corperate managers really are when it comes to motivating their employees.
(Hint: Do EVERYTHING to increase morale in any little way. if you make high 5 figures or 6 figures then you buy the office donuts every week out of your pocket will go far. You buy lunches for your people once in a while, throw them bones, etc... Either business majors are morons or the professors are morons because I can not believe they do not teach this stuff in college.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Without GNU/GPL/FSF/etc would there even be a credible OSS solution for the business world to consider?
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
You statement by wearing something may be as simple as "Look at me" or as complex as "I'm a smart business woman bucking for a promotion." It may say "Stare at my chest and think I'm sexy" or it may say "I'm trendy and hip." It could be "I'm rich and ostentatious" or "Don't notice me, I just want to blend in."
But make no mistake, any fashion is a statement.
So to dress one way and be mad at people for taking the hint you're sending. That is one of those things that really annoys me.
As for the car buying example, that was the first thing I thought of. It would work for realtors and other sales people too. Same with doctors. Do you trust the one in the white lab coat, or the one in the bike-racing suit more?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I am not at all certain I understand the problem. As I read it, the Linux and open source communities are not driven by the goals of market share and profit. Rather, they are driven to provide quality software at no cost, along with the means for other users to use, share, and modify that code. Maybe they see a niche that needs filling, maybe they just like coding - the reasons are not important. What is important is that they don't give One Tight Shit about whether Linux etc. is being adopted by the business world. Whether or not that happens is completely, utterly irrelevant to the ongoing development of their software. If Peter Quinn is concerned about it, that's his deal. What, exactly, does he feel are the consequences that will befall the open source movement if they don't take his advice? Are they going to stop developing Apache just because the head of IT at, say, Sears thinks it's put together by some dude with a Prince Albert? Is the NSA or Merrill Lynch going to stop using Linux because Dan Lyons makes a bunch of jokes about smelly hippies in Forbes? If you can't make a cost- and quality-based argument to convince accountants, CXOs, or politicians, I don't know what to tell you. I don't understand that bullshit world, and I'm glad I'm not a part of it.
I find it hilarious that some in the business world are trying to use ignorant statements like this as some sort of blackjack with which to intimidate the open source dudes. "You guys better shape up or we won't use your software!" To which the obvious reply is, "That's fine, your decision makes no difference to us whatsoever. If you change your minds, however, Apache, Linux, MySQL, ethereal, snort, and any number of other wonderful programs are available to you at no cost, any time day or night. Good day to you, sir." There's no leverage in this situation because they don't understand that while outward appearances trump everything else in the business world, they don't make any difference at all to the people who actually write the software. If your company believes this, that's fine - you will get the IT you want, and the IT you deserve. I'm sure these people would be shocked to find out that IBM, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Novell, Dreamworks, Lucasfilm, Pixar, the NSA, and the United States Armed Forces , among others, all use software written by scumbags who have long hair and wear t-shirts while they work, because everyone knows that anything done by someone with a ponytail is shoddy and unreliable, and will never be accepted by serious professionals.
In one tiny nod to the suit-and-tie crowd, however, if they want the textbook example of the childish arrogance of the bedroom coding crowd, look no farther than BitchX. You, sir or ma'am, are either a twelve year old kid, a stupid, childish asshole, or both. What are you, in fourth grade? "Dude, I'm going to call my program BitchX! It'll be totally awesome!" Fuck you, child. Why didn't you call it CuntTalk or FaggotyFaggotClient? Maybe you could have made a fart joke for good measure. I know, I know, you didn't write it for the business community or for grandma's desktop. You wrote it for those who weren't too shallow to be put off by appearances. You sure showed us, we are totally impressed by your non-conformity.
Shady car salesmen wear suits. Drug kingpins wear suits. The heads of Enron wore suits.
A man in nice suits sent our military into Iraq after WMDs that weren't there.
The former thug leader of Iraq wore suits.
So what does a suit prove again?
Preclaimer: I'm a semi-sloppy dressing engineer.
Second, It's about percieved professionalism
There are so many bullshit posts in this thread from anti-dressup types that I decided to pick one near the top. Don't take it personally, I just picked the first self-important, self-proclaimed geek who was full of crap.
It's not about 'professionalism' at all. It's as much about professionalism from the busniess side as it is about comfort from the geek side (t-shirts and cutoffs aren't very comfortable compared to well-made, ironed clothing). It's about laziness. They see you as too lazy to make yourself look good, and let's face it you (and I) are too lazy to do the work. Business clothes aren't any more expensive than jeans, and if you don't count trade show handouts, button down shirts can be had for the same price as a printed tee. But you have to iron, and wash properly, and button, and groom. You'd rather pull on whatever is lying around and go about your day. That speaks to your attitude. There are things you are going to decide aren't worth your time, and your clothes show it. Subconsionsly, everybody else knows it too.
Ok, so it pisses your off when you have a dress code. Dress codes *are* stupid for grown adults. Choosing to dress nicer does make a difference though. I still can't get myself to do it every day, but it's obvious the way people's attitudes change towards you when you put in the effort. It also makes you feel better about yourself once you get over the rightous rebel bullshit. Also, a nice cotton button down with a color (even if it's plaid) and some ironed pants are more comfortable than jeans and a crappy big-seamed tee with huge silk-screening any day.
Semi-related, since hair matters a bit less as long as it's washed and combed... Also only a subset of techies are culprits: Cut off the damned pony tail when the hair has fallen out on top already. You look like an idiot, and combined with the smell of your t-shirt, it's why you never get laid.
When I hire someone (I'm a software engineer / team lead), I want him or her to have things that they consider to not be worth their time! I want them to spend their effort on what is worth their (and my) time. I want them to be studied, creative, productive, committed to quality, ... much more than I want them to be dressed up for a wedding party every other day.
For clarity: I never wear T-shirts or jeans myself, most of my clothing has a decent brand name, and I even wear an original (albeit a by now badly worn one) Armani leather vest on a daily basis. But I don't care at all what the people I work with wear, as long as they don't show up at a sales meeting in their underwear.
Linux user since early January 1992.
I had to wear "smart office-wear" for my sixth-form college a couple of years back, and that came out over £100. Fucking elitist school, but the best in the area. Worth the sacrifice, but for the rest of my life I'll always look back on it with an element of shame because of the sheer elitism of it. Not that that's applicable to business and IT jobs, but the prices are, at least over here in Britain.
By the way, you could have done without the second part of this phrase:
In most "advanced" human cultures it's illegal to discriminate on the grounds of:
1 Race.
2 Skin Colour.
3 Sex.
4 Sexual orientation.
5 Physical Disability.
7 Age.
However personal choice of attire seems to be amongst the last bastions of acceptable discrimination.
And just why is it that the "acceptable standard" is always based around the preferred attire of a fat, middle aged, white man with no discernible dress sense and who's probably spent one half of his life being dressed by his mother and the other half being dressed by his wife ?
(And now I'm off on a good rant) Have you seen the fat fools in their golf wear ? or in the utterly embarassing "casual wear" they occasionally wear on the rare "team building" events in the pub ? The mind simply boggles... but hey it that's what floats their boat more power to 'em. (yeah I know I'm sterotyping heavily here but this is the mindset we're dealing with...)
Personally I look forward to the day when the mindless majority wake up to the idea that the packaging is not the contents, that people are all different, and that this is a GOOD THING. Diversity breeds innovation. Conformity breeds stagnation. We need suit wearing, small minded, twits as much as we need poinytailed, sandal wearing geeks. The two should just learn to see the good points in each other and get along... Or have a war when us geeks will seriously kick the suits asses (after all who invents all the good weaponry ?)
And people wonder why aliens never bother landing... when most humans can't even cope with members of our own species who have a different taste in haircut or pants.
Pah.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
All I can say is that one of the 'self-important' geek says, you're full of shit.
Programmers/geeks ARE SUPPOSED TO BE lazy, by definition. Otherwise why would we write programs at all to do things for us?
Dressing is not about 'look formal' rather than 'comfort' and 'practicality'. I'd never employ a programmer who prefers to wear a suit, because it gives one sign: "this guy prefers to do things the less practical and efficient way".
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say