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Gaffes That Keep IT Geeks From the Boardroom
buzzardsbay writes "Yes, it's all in good fun to point out the mismatched belt and shoes and the atrocious hairstyles, but honestly, I'm committing three of these errors right now! Is that why I can't get a key to the executive washroom? Or is it my rebellious attitude and pungent man-scent that's keeping me down? The shocker in here was pigtails on women... I love pigtails on women!"
Trying to get first post is a classic sign
-1 not first post
Who cares about the pay, once you are earning above a certain amount, being happy with what you do is far more important than earning more money. programming sounds far more fun than managing things and people. Give me t-shirts and jeans, screw wearing shirts, ties, suits and overpriced uncomfortable stuff like that.
is a major cause of slow-downs in innovation, one has to wonder if we're not looking at the problem in reverse.
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People base a hell of a lot on first impressions.. Although in theory this isn't the best approach, unless we have a new enlightenment one would be wise to "overdress", always.
I'm in my mid-40s here in the UK, I've been a techie in telecoms and security for 25+ years now, I'm now a consultant earning a good salary as does my wife. Admittedly we've no kids but we've got our own home as well as two holiday homes overseas (not time-shares, fully ours) and I couldn't want for a better life. I work a 37.5 hour week and at 5:30pm I can pretty much forget about work until the following morning, but whilst I'm at work, I do work hard.
So quite frankly, you can stuff your boardroom job, flashy cars, Armani suits, the endless travelling and hotel rooms, and the sixteen hour days because I'm not interested. I earn enough to live very comfortably provided that I'm careful but my life of "three thirds" is going great - one third work, one third sleep and one third pleasure...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
You might be right. Women don't go for guys who dress like slobs.
The author of the linked article seems to know all about being a "board"-whatever, but isn't able to make a decent presentation (the page is updated too quick for me to read the text). Sort of fits together...
I've seen both: ties are a safety hazard if you have to put your head inside server racks or do lifting to get equipment into the right place. But they're a dress standard in many corporate cultures, just as a tidy desk is. Like doctors wearing scrubs in the hospital, they identify you as professional staff rather than as service staff, even though we often are service staff.
Communication is the name of the game when it comes to management, and someone who can't communicate who they are through their clothing are probably going to have problems communicating in other ways. Is this the way it should be? Maybe not. But society is built upon judging people, and if you don't try to be judged favorably, don't bitch when you aren't.
Well, it's great to know how people should be judged. Unfortunately, that's very rarely how they actually are judged... in part because the people doing the judging often don't even have the capability to assess the correct criteria. Knowing how to impress people with poor evaluative skills is still useful if you want to get somewhere in the real world. And those people aren't completely on crack, either -- they're doing something that we all do sometimes, using evidence from a known domain to give clues about the quality of an unknown domain. If you're buying a car, and you have a choice between one with a perfect exterior and one with a few rust holes in the body, you're probably going to pick the nice-looking one, even if they appear to run the same, because it's evidence that it was better treated, and the mechanical parts of the car are likely to last longer, too. Of course, you could be completely wrong, but you're still basing your decision on the evidence you have. For people, the reasoning is similar: someone who is careful in their appearance is also probably careful in their work.
Personally, I work for a nonprofit, mostly from home, so I don't have to worry about my appearance much. On the other hand, I also don't make much money; if I cared enough about money to work in industry, I certainly wouldn't ignore how I look.
That's right. Why adjust the dress code slightly when you can install expensive refrigeration and hike up the energy bills.
The general problem with "low level" employees is not that they aren't bright enough, or hard working enough to be management. The problem is that they only care about themselves.
You get paid at work because you're useful to someone else. But "low level" employees do their tasks, and that's it. "High quality" employees succeed by figuring out how to constantly be more useful to their boss. Don't confuse this as "sucking up" - creating efficiencies, new opportunities, and helping your boss achieve his tasks means your organization is making more money, and some of that money will get directed to the source if it can be found.
Lower management takes objectives and organizes the people to accomplish them for the middle management. A middle manager strives to hit the benchmarks for the upper management. The upper management strives to keep the profits growing for the CEO. The CEO is redirecting the company and dealing with the board of directors and everyone who wants his ear as the figurehead. Every step is about serving someone else - the CEO is a slave to the Board, who are slaves to the investors, who need the stock price to go up to pay for their retirement or their kids' tuition.
If you want to be paid more, just keep trying to keep the end customer happy.
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Let me have a stab at that. Could it be that 'management' involves, in part being able to communicate effectively with both colleagues and and people external to the company. The latter in particular is helped by conforming to societal norms in terms of dress.
Clothes convey a message - you might not like it, but they do.
So you ask: "why is it that if an artist dresses like a tramp and snarls at anyone who tries to distract him (or her) while working, that's just how talent operates, but when it's engineers or programmers, that just shows how dysfunctional they are?"
The answer is - society thinks, of artists as idiosyncratic individuals who can defy social norms as part of their 'work'. It doesn't matter if an artist paints herself green and snarls like a dog, because they don't have to work as a team or manage anyone. The artist is sending a message: 'I don't conform', but that's part of the job description.
Now imagine an engineer or programmer giving exactly the same message: 'I don't conform'. That may not be a hinderance in any way while they are bashing out Perl in a cubicle somewhere. But management requires the manager to conform - to buy into the company's and societies norms - at least to an extent.
So that's why both the artist and the geek will be accepted as artist and geek while dressed as a tramp, but will find it more difficult to become a C*O
You might be too young to remember, but in 1968 there was a big movement about changing society, authority, ditching old values etc. Today's revolutionaries are pretty tame compared to the the generation of 68. So what became of those revolutionaries and non-conformists? Today, they sit in suits and ties and are exactly those dinosaur managers you accuse of being the establishment incarnate. With Gen X and Gen Y - whatever those may be - exactly the same will happen and fresh approaches to things will be discarded like before.
No, you got it wrong. For them life is to short waste time to figure out if that moron who can't even dress properly has other redeeming values.
More generally speaking, clothes and appearance are the cues you give other people what to think about you. So if you dress like a techie, people will treat you like a techie (which is in short: Fix this and begone). This is perfectly fine, as long as you want that. However if you want to be treated differently (eg being taken seriously by people with decision power) you'll have a hard time. The easiest way to overcome this is send other signals. (eg dress in a cheap ill fitting suit with an atrocious tie for the used car salesman treatment). The extremes in this area are con men, who make it an art to appear a lot more than they are.
Clothes are just a communication protocol: Learn the spec and use it when appropriate.
That's a tad hypocritical don't you think? Us geeks being the ones with the rooms filled with racks and racks of incredibly efficient space heaters that demand constant refrigeration 24/7.
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That's fine, because it rarely matters what you think of me so long as you do your job. As your consultant my job is to help make you successful--I find coming in with that kind of attitude (instead of demanding you kowtow because I have on a tie) defuses most of the friction you might expect when the customer has your attitude, and then we can collaborate to the extent required to get the job done.
This is perhaps an example of those "great social skills," but some might call it "social intelligence." I'm hardly a social butterfly--actually, something of an introvert--but I know how to handle surly know-it-all geeks and this is why I keep getting hired again and again.
The key to your employment, on the other hand, is your technical skills. You picked a field that fits you, which is great...A little social skill would probably help out but it doesn't need to be your bread & butter. We occupy differ niches, is all.
Well, I will have to make sure I wear my brown belt more often (I only own one pair of office-quality shoes, and they're black).
I don't want to be management. I like being a programmer and sysadmin, and I'm good at it. I don't think I'd be that good at management.
And since I have the ear of the person who is, for all intents and purposes, the IT Manager, I have a good amount of say in what goes on (when I want to) anyway ;-)
Dan Aris
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You never know when making a good impression on someone will help you later in life.
Several years ago I was working in a job I didn't intend to keep for long. I made a good impression on one of the guys on my team there.
Flash forward to a few years later and I'm working somewhere else at a job I hated. Long story short, I was lied to in a bad way during the interview process and the job was completely unlike the answers I had gotten to my questions while interviewing. Out of the blue I was offered a much better job because of the guy at the first job.
My story is more about quality of work than matching belts, but it never hurts to make a better impression when you can.
It is said that Einstein had 7 identical suits and just picked the next one each day.
I have 30 identical pairs of black socks. All purchased on the same day from the same store. When I grab two socks out of the drawer they ALWAYS match. They will all be faded and lose their elasticity around the same time. They will all be brought to Goodwill at the same time, and I will buy 30 new pairs at that time. Enough on socks.
I have 15 pairs of dark pants. A few black, a few navy and mostly various shades of gray. All the pants can go with basically any of my shirts (mostly).
I have 20 long sleeve, button up shirts. Almost all solid colors. The only acceptably pattern is vertical pin stripes. Always wear a v-neck undershirt.
Two pair of simple, polished black shoes and a couple of black belts.
There you have it. You do not have to do wash for two weeks at a time. You never have to "match socks". You never have to match shirts to pants. You always look good and feel good without having to put forth mental effort.
Hey, programmers are elite. Those other "artists" dress in jeans one day and silk suits the next. I just wanna look good and get a little respect. Management is for people who do not know how to code anyway.
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