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HP R&D Starts Enforcing a Business Casual Dress Code
An anonymous reader writes: HP was once known as a research and technology giant, a company founded in a garage by a pair of engineers and dominated by researchers. Whilst a part of that lives on in Agilent any hope for the rest of the company has now died with the announcement that HP R&D will have to dress in business "smart casual" with T-shirts, baseball caps, short skirts, low cut dresses and sportswear all being banned.
Seriously, who gives a shit.
Who cares? Are that many geeks worn down by the brutal requirement to wear something slightly more formal than gym clothes?
"HP was once known as a research ant technology giant..."
I hear ant technology is the wave of the future!
~Liberalism Is A Mental Disorder~
I've yet to see a dress code policy that had any real impact on performance. Better to let people be comfortable than to push fashion on them.
Finding science on the matter is a crap shoot. There's support for both business casual and casual.
This seems like a logical step to encourage an atmosphere of professionalism in which HP's remaining employees can train their H1B replacements.
i take it you are not american
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
At least partially silly but I do understand some of the banned items like baseball caps (or any other head wear like hoodies) as they are totally impolite to be worn indoors.
POV, even in US.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Baseball caps reduce the horrid glare in our crappy, poorly ventilated office.
HP tried to step back in history today to more profitable and professional times, unfortunately reality refused to cooperate and they were still bleeding money like a sieve. Worse, their engineers were now leaving because they were pissed off by the dress code.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Indeed, the people who work in R&D should be forced to wear the white lab coat, i.e. "R&D Casual".
WTF is "business casual" anyway? A business suit with a funny tie?
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I think it is the case HP R&D was running a bit too informal. As in they were not doing any real good Research and Development, and were mostly slaking off.
I mean what do you think that is new and exciting from HP now? Printers Color and Black and White? While they are still the leader in printers they are mostly the same thing that has been around for decades. I can still find some Laserjet 4 kicking around and printing the same quality as the newest ones, they are just a little slower to do it. Desktop and Laptops? HP PCs are more or less the cheap mans out. On the PC Side Lenovo has been winning on the professional end, then a slew of cheaper makers on the consumer end.
HP does a lot of other stuff too... But much of it isn't giving much press, and is falling behind.
R&D May be slacking off, enjoying the care free "creative" work environment, a bit too much. Putting in a dress code, is to remind them that yes you are at work, not social time.
Business casual dress isn't any more uncomfortable then dress down is it? But when you get up in the morning you say to yourself I need to dress for work.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
... in severance packages. A hostile work environment will definitely reduce personnel.
Of course the smart people who have no problem finding another job will leave first.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
... strutting around in their low cut shirts and bare midriffs... And do we really need to see your tramp stamps?
In other news, Jerry that keeps showing up to work in his S&M gimp suit will switch to a more work appropriate polo shirt. Thanks for ruining it for everyone Jerry... you jackass.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I care about the quality of your hardware and software, not about what your engineers are wearing. Or, for the "anonymous reader" and the understandably anonymous Dice editors, "waring".
HP management is looking for scapegoat for their incompetence and has finally ran out of (other) scapegoats.
A sure sign of a company in trouble is when assholes at the top begins to blame people at the bottom for all the failings. I expect to see a lot of people shorting HP soon..
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
well, apparently that POV is shared by someone in charge so...
Yeah, it's the point of the story.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
.
The divisions that were left behind when Agilent was spun off were Just Another Company, with nothing special to speak of.
You've never seen shirts with buttons? You need to get out more.
Basically, a way to get people to leave, without going through the trouble of laying them off or providing severance. The often overlooked part of this is of course that good people leave first, and mouth breathers and managers of all sorts hang on for dear life since they are unemployable elsewhere.
The company may have been founded in a garage, but it didn't stay there. What was HP like when it got out of garage? Did HP really have a reputation for people dressing like slobs? I'd suspect that people generally dressed ok and didn't need to be told how to dress for work.
Perhaps they're also looking for ways to annoy enough people into quitting so that they don't have the pay out any severance when the next round of layoffs starts. This seems like something that would push a few people over the edge, though I suspect it might be some of their better workers. Then again, the current suit only cares long enough to hit some bonuses based on poorly chosen metrics in order to cash out with a golden parachute while the company collapses.
Normally you reserve good attire when there is client contact. Having formal attire for technician and engineer when there is no client contact is contra productive, you force people into a certain fashion which they might be uncomfortable with, for no good reason. That is a sure sign a hierarchy has lost sight of what is essential , and instead concentrate on rules which makes no sense , as to show they are doing "something". I expect no good future strategy from them from now onward.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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Picture this at a management meeting:
"Our stock is at an all-time low, profits are down, moral is gone, all our good engineers have left. What are we gonna do?"
"I know! We'll ban casual dress, that'll solve the issues."
(Boss) "That's brilliant! Raises for everyone!"
__
Something like that perhaps? H and P must be spinning in their graves...
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
At least partially silly but I do understand some of the banned items like baseball caps (or any other head wear like hoodies) as they are totally impolite to be worn indoors.
You obviously are prejudiced against middle-aged guys with hair plugs. Don't be intolerant! Remember, "Plugs are People Too".
#DeleteChrome
Expect more of this as automation and offshoring eliminates more so-called (and often already non-productive) white collar jobs. Employers will place more and more conditions on those remaining.
What I miss is a ban on dark glasses while speaking with someone.
I will use my clear glasses, as soon as you turn down the light (how you are going to do that if we are outside, I do not care). However, if it is too bright for me, I will use my dark glasses rather than have a headache (which can then only be cured by drinking ibuprofen and sitting in a really dark room for half an hour).
Dress codes make a slight amount of sense when the company has a requirement that many employees must wear uniforms. It's not fair to say, "you people who stand in front of customers all day must wear a blue shirt, green tie, and khaki pants" but then say, "you people are in the main office, so you're exempt from dressing like a dork." Some of the line workers resent it. Management can then decide if they want to settle the matter by subjecting everyone to a dress code.
Of course HP doesn't require line workers to wear uniforms, so that's not the case here. This is just another stupid and capricious management decision by a company that's become famous over the last decade for having the most incompetent management of any (formerly) major corporation. HP's executives have been so bad it's easy to imagine an evil Michael Dell offered HP's board of directors one hundred million dollars -each- to sabotage HP into oblivion. (Hey, it makes a lot more sense than any other reason for imposing a dress code on engineers.)
John
as long as shorts are banned
At my company, we require shorts and tank tops during the summer months. If you violate the dress code by wearing long pants or sleeves, then you are not allowed to complain about the AC temperature setting. It is currently set to 78F (26C).
"Beating will continue until morale improves."
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
WTF is "business casual" anyway?
Collared shirt. Long pants that are not jeans or cargo. Shoes that are not sandals or athletic (running, tennis, hiking, etc.) shoes. Socks.
I would wager that what happened was some executive who thinks he or she is too high and mighty to do something like... notify anybody AT ALL that they're bringing important people through... decided to talk up how professional and awesome their employees are and then bring them through, only to catch the overweight bearded guy wearing sandals in the middle of eating a messy burger. Of course the problem is that the guy was wearing sandals!
I've witnessed this multiple times. One executive told me about how he never knows in advance when investors are coming through. I asked if they just walk up and down our street and randomly poke their head into our place. The answer to that question was a suggestion that I should update my resume.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
With fertilizer like that, I'm sure their lawns are looking great in spite of the drought. On a scale of 1 to 10 on the shittitude meter, that's probably like a 12 or 13.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Do you only wear tshirts? Sounds like you are the redneck then. They'd wear normal shirts, you know like polo shirts and button down shirts. If an outfit is so casual you wouldn't wear it to a bar, why should you wear it to work? Even going to a dive bar, I wear pants not shorts, and a button down not a tshirt. Something like a plaid button down is very casual yet appropriate.
On the ladies side i would not want to know which of JCPenny Macys or Victorias Secret is used for their Underthings (unless i was perhaps buying for one of them).
And on the mens side there are some very nice Polos sold at ThinkGeek.
Heck as long as they are not including things like Women MUST be wearing a skirt (or dress with a skirt) with a hem no shorter than knee length then i would say sure go for it.
I'd probably wear a nice, not short skirt because that would be against the rules, but a nice mid length skirt.
I'd argue that the above comment might rank as one of the most insightful observations about this situation that a layperson could reasonably expect to make.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I work for HP E, in the old SABRE building that they just spent millions on re-doing. It's a constant 68 in there, many people have to wear hoodies, wrap themselves in blankets, etc.
At least partially silly but I do understand some of the banned items like baseball caps (or any other head wear like hoodies) as they are totally impolite to be worn indoors.
I often do a lot of CAD work, usually a bunch of squiggly crap on a black background. Overhead fluorescent lights in my field of view really bug me when I am in in the midst of that type of work. I often wear a baseball cap to block the light that is right above the corner of my cube. I also often come in on weekends where I can turn off the overhead lights in my area and also have very few distractions when I really need to be immersed.
I think it much more likely that they are wanting to trim some fat off of their employment expenses, and doing this is a quick and easy way to get some people to voluntarily quit without looking too conspicuously like constructive dismissal.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Thin hair and light skin. My head burns easily and I just wear mine out of habit a lot so that I am rarely without it. I often take it off indoors, but I always show up to work with one, and have an additional sun hat for when I go outside at lunch for a walk. Hats are useful as more than a fashion statement.
Hipsters wearing knit winter hats in the middle of the blazing summer are just dumb however.
First off the article linked was poorly written. It is only their professional services arm that has these new restrictions. R&D does not. Secondly who cares? I prefer business casual over some of the other forms of outfits that you can wear. Yes I can wear sneakers (trainers) and they might be very comfortable, but I buy an $80 pair of shoes, wear them every day, and they last 5 years. That is not all that expensive. Khaki's are lighter than Denim Jeans .. so I prefer them. Hey, less ball sweat. $40 a pair (you need five). I have light button down shirts that I wear over my under shirt and have never had a problem of being hot, or feeling constrained. Again, spend $40 on each shirt and you will only have to replace them if you get fat (or skinny) or after like 5 years. So lets see. $500 for 5 years worth of NICE clothes you can wear anywhere (church, wedding, christmas dinner, etc.) and you are more comfortable than when you wear jeans and a polo.
Of course this is all subjective. My current job allows people to wear jeans instead of Khaki's. I told my boss that I will never wear jeans, but if he lets me wear shorts that will be a different story. I would prefer to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but it is work. Seriously. If you are customer facing, it is not hard to look nice and professional. If you are a back room guy - Who cares.
For those of you following along at home, they've corrected "sportsware" to "sportswear" in the summary. I guess someone does read the snarky comments.
New from HP R&D? Agilent was split off years ago. The Corvalis Group is distant history.
They're probably working on designing Printer Driver installers that only fit on a double layer DVD.
I bought a new printer last week. HP wasn't even a consideration. I bought the best printer at the store which ended up being a Brother.
Mark-T: As a long-term consultant to HP (pre-Carly), I have to say yours is the as insightful as the post you reference. Well done!
Almost all the posters around our building are people in three piece suits. Some people wear track suit pants to work. However, we're not R&D, and no customers ever come to our site. Well, our "customers" are big airlines, and the building itself is on airport property, so those "customers" are always close by. But you need multiple badges and PIN codes to actually get into the Enterprise Command Center. It's also always super cold in there, so no one wears shorts.
But what no one here notices is that this is all about the coming sell-off of HPE. They poured millions into our building, and we never have customers come in there. Enforcing this dress code is another sign. The fact that Whitman will get $91 million if we're acquired is a HUGE RED FLAG. However, this might not be a bad thing if it's not IBM or some other "we outsource everyone" company. We're homing like EMC, maybe even SABRE.
That way you can't tell who's incompetent by just looking at who's dressed up anymore.
My experience dressing down at a business meeting:
I was one of three technical persons presenting to the customer. I didn't go first, so there was no initialization bias. Everyone was in business casual, but me; I was wearing khaki pants, but I was also wearing my "turtle" Hawaiian shirt I had picked up in St. Croix on recent vacation. Anytime the customers had a technical question, even when someone else was presenting, they asked it, and then looked at me to answer the question.
Dressing down at a business meeting means one of two things:
(1) They are the customer in the room; if you are there for a customer meeting, and it's not technical, then the person dressed down is the actual customer. Forget the guys in the suits, they are not the customer. They will ask questions, but the answers will ultimately be judged by the decision maker. The person who looks like they just stepped off the golf course or off the windsurfer? She or he is the decision maker. This is emphasized if the meeting doesn't start until they arrive.
(2) They are the technical talent; they don't dress up, because they don't have to. If you want a technical question answered, they are the person who will give you the answer that's going to stick. If they follow up someones else's answer with a "Well...", you'd better listen.
We all have our uniforms.
P.S.: Highly technical fields require that you forget everything but the intellectual problem in front of you; you can't do that to the same depth, if your collar is constrictive, or you can't otherwise ignore your physicality. It's the clothing equivalent of working in an Open Plan Office: the distractions detract from the work product.
Some companies spend fortunes in R&D, create a bunch of cool stuff, and... never turn any of it into actual products, usually due to stupid management. Maybe that's the case here?
Circumcision is child abuse.
Short skirts and low cut dresses? Freakin' sweet!
Wearing a headpiece indoors is excusable only if your head looks really bad - from injury or disease.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
You got to pry the ESD slippers from my cold dead feet before I wear anything but them indoors.
At least I can use ESD safe footwear as an excuse for wearing slippers.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm afraid you are correct. HP used to be a very good company. I competed and then supplied them for over 40 years of my professional life. They did some very good Stuff. But Meg was given a pile of crap from the likes of Carly. The bonus for managers that turned it all into permission to be abusive and arrogant. The staff, some of whom, I really respected have left. (Some AHoles have left too.. but that is another issue.)
Acts like these will annoy the good people as much as the so=so people. .. but on a 20% vs. 80%.. the hit on the top line of 20% will be massive. The management within HP is NOT good enough to manage through the constant downsizing, redirection, and ambiguity that an HP employee has to now manage his professional life by. Because as Meg and Carly have shown.. they are just human capital that has no balance sheet impact when it is destroyed.
Wearing a headpiece indoors is excusable only if your head looks really bad - from injury or disease.
Slippery slope here. What about yarmulkes? What about Sikhs wearing turbans? What about women wearing hijab, niqab,or burkas?
You don't have to tell us, we can smell your company through our displays.
Maybe I've worked with the military too much, but the moment I walk in a door, any hat that I'm wearing instantly comes off. The one and only exception to this is if I'm working in a warehouse or similar environment, where a hard hat makes sense and/or is required.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Soon? Seriously, when they stopped making lab gear, it was Game Over.
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Depends on the area of the US. In Colorado hoodies are basically the winter uniform in this state. Anytime it starts to get below 55 the hoodies start coming out. I have yet to see one person at my office that gives a crap that half the people are wearing them either.
Of course no one really sits there with their hoodie up, it just so happens most warmer clothing people around here have are hoodies. Its not just an age thing either, we have 50 year old guys wearing them
Jeans (as long as they aren't ripped or stained) are considered OK for Business Casual now. Have been for a few years.
I work for HP in RnD; I haven't gotten this memo. Reading the fine article and giving some of my (anonymous) experience however....
1) This seems to apply to only the services organization. That is, the digested remains of EDS. That arm of the company was bought originally because it had serious problems and hence could be acquired cheap and then fixed up. This is just yet another step in fixing it up (although, dress code doesn't seem that important; perhaps there are some serious professionalism issues in some parts?). There's also (I see reported in the news) yet more layoffs coming in that division; the rest of the company yawns when that is announced.
Per dress codes....
2) We had an "important visitor" this week.... so I dressed up a bit. I made sure that I had a clean pair of jeans, and wore a button-down dress shirt. With the buttons undone, my sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and I'm not 100% sure my tennis shoes didn't have holes, but I didn't wear the falling-apart pair. It was hot this week so I slacked on the dress shirt for some of the days, but I made sure it was a solid-color t-shirt without any logo or graphics. Not one fuck was given about how I dressed; I calibrated my dress to the level of importance, and it was fine.
3) There was only 1 case I know of regarding someone getting flack for under-dressing. One co-worker was told in the peer-review (and I was one of the people who told him this) that you should make sure that your t-shirt doesn't have massive holes when you know you're going to present in front of C-suite executives. We didn't say that t-shirts were verboten... just to please make sure that they're not in tatters. He bought a few polo shirts and a chucked the most "holiest" of his previous ones, and everything continued on just fine.
3) Previously my manager would regularly come in to work dressed much more shabbily than me. Seeing him wander around barefoot (not just sandals, but flat-out barefoot) in raggy shorts with a tie-died t-shirt wasn't uncommon. You could always tell if there was a customer visit, though; he'd be sporting khakis and a polo then. If he looked like a beach-bum, you knew that there weren't any customers around.
4) One day my manager got promoted to director level, and his biggest complaint was that he had to buy a suit. That is, although for day-to-day anything went, if we were meeting a customer, everyone knew we had to dress the part. A director had to wear a suit to certain meetings; so he sucked it up and got one. One of the other directors didn't like dressing up so much, but kept a suit in his cube just in case--he could have a t-shirt and jeans on most of the time, and if needed it took him 10 minutes to slip into the more formal clothes.
EDS (aka HP Services) has issues; the rest of the company is sensible. Show up in inappropriate clothes for the task at hand, and you'll get a polite suggestion that maybe you should up your wardrobe. Show up dressed like a homeless person when there aren't any big-wigs around, and nobody really cares.
Would it help if we shaved, and do you only hate male knees? What about unshaven female calves?
While we're at it can we enforce a strict BMI rule at the work place? I've never seen a fat person I prefer not to see.
Oh also brunets; Everyone should be blonde and blue eyed.
It's totally fair. The line workers are representing the employer to the customers. The people at the main office aren't. There's literally no reason for them to be held to the same dress code as the line workers.
Well, technically we do have a dress code. You are required to wear pants. Or skirts if you prefer. And it is mandatory to wear it in such a way that it covers your genitals and buttocks. You are encouraged to wear something covering your torso. It would be nice if this had at least something that could resemble sleeves, however short they may be. And shoes would be encouraged but more out of comfort than necessity.
It is a bit more strict if you're in direct contact with the customer, granted. And no, we're not some hip little start up. We're a medium sized bank with a few centuries of tradition behind it and a rather conservative customer stock. But we're IT security. We don't get into contact with the customer. Why the fuck should we give a shit how someone dresses as long as it's clean and doesn't show me some part of his/her anatomy that should better stay concealed?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround...
The clothes that are sold at Fred Meyer, but you never buy because they're more expensive and less comfortable/useful.
Yeah you've worked in the military too much.
This makes me laugh.
Years ago, I worked for a company in Mesa, Arizona. It's damned hot in that area, especially in the summer.
When the company tackled the thorny issue of dress codes, they wanted a unisex dress code--no double standards. The dress code ended up being, "You must be covered from shoulders to a little above the knee in clothing of good repair." Open toed shoes were okay, but no flip-flops.
That was it. No ripped jeans. No tube tops or spaghetti straps.
That said, there were some people who could just not handle hairy men's legs and, I'm told, argued vehemently against men wearing shorts. The head of HR basically said that whatever standards are there for women should also be there for men. If you want to wear skirts, you need to let men show their legs, too.
There were two other interesting things they did. One, they hung a sign in the lobby that said "This company supports a casual dress code." So you wouldn't wonder why people were wandering around in shorts. The other rule was that there were times--maybe once or twice a year--when it might be necessary to, shall we say, "dress to impress." When this happened, you would be notified by your manager--and it was up to your manager to do this and verify that you got the message--more than 24 hours before this would happen. If you were not notified and showed up dressed unimpressively, your manager was the one who caught the heat.
I learned two important lessons from one of my former bosses concerning dressing:
First: If you meet with a group of people, the least well dressed person is the one you're looking out for. It's either the tech or the decision maker. And both of them are important to you. The decision maker for obvious reasons, and the tech because he'll be the one asking the important questions and his reaction to your answers is also the important one, because he will later translate your answer to the managers. They can nod, ahh and ohh all they want to your answer, they don't understand it. It's the tech that will understand it and what he later conveys to his managers is what makes or breaks your contract. So that is the one person you need to convince.
And second, never trust a tech in a suit. Never. If you're in a customer meeting with someone who is allegedly a tech and he comes in dressed up like a manager, there's two possible reasons: First, he's not a tech but a sales goon who has been briefed by their tech, and he has been sent 'cause they fear their tech would tell us more truth about the product than they want him to. Or he is a tech and was forced to dress up to distract from the product being not able to stand on its own. If something needs a dolled up clown to sell it, it's not worth buying it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can wear a knee length skirt even if you're a man, but a pair of knee length shorts is against the rules. That will never make sense to me how obviously sexist that is yet HR sees no issue with it.
I understand the point with sun hats, I sometimes wear one myself. But besides the extreme weather, I hate wearing hats and hoodies. Most people here seem to favour comfort over businesslike style, and I understand that to mean something relatively loose and light. A baseball cap just doesn't fit into that kind of equation for comfort. Besides, a cap that doesn't cover your ears is useless for some of the basic things a hat should provide, i.e. protection from the sun and staying warm in the winter.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Depending on the industry, black jeans (in good condition) are acceptable, but blue may not be.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Leather shoes are uncomfortable unless they are the $400 kind or kind that become unwearable after 50 miles.
You need to learn to shop for shoes. I got a pair of Bass slip-on dress shoes for $60. Had them for about a year now, and they are still super comfortable and have no problems with the soles or anything else (like some of the other cheap brands I bought did).
Our office does that too. I moved the remote temp/humidity sensor monitor for the UPS system into my office for a month in the summer. My desktop reach 125F one weekend, 130F+ two weekends and over 140F the hottest weekend. Everything with an electrolytic cap has had failure rates increase 2-400% due to the heat.
First of all, this fourth "wonder of the world" CEO needs to disassociate the name "HP" and "Hewlett-Packard" from the company. It's an insult to its founders.
R&D is typically closed doors to the public and should be for I.P. purposes.
If all the remains of HP has to tout in their R&D lab is how the engineers dress, that means there isn't much of substance to demonstrate the "wow effect" to outsiders. That says a lot about HP.
HP has undergone 16 years of cost cutting (and counting) and their product quality shows the effects of that short term goal (so managers can get their bonuses).
I will not buy another HP product. Frankly, their quality has become abysmal.
My place of work not only does this, but they shut off the heat/AC at 6pm, then turn it back on at about 6:30am, and off all the time on the weekends. They ignore the fact that some offices get to over 100F on the weekends due to East/West facing windows.
Where I used to work, I had a west facing window. In the summer, the AC could never keep up , so it would be 72 when I came in, but by quitting time it would be 85 in there.
It was worse in certain days in the spring and fall where it was reasonably warm outside in the afternoons, but they were still running the furnace. The furnace couldn't keep up either, so in the morning, it would be 55 degrees in the office, but by quitting time, it would be 85, because the furnace finally caught up and overcompensated.
I finally stopped complaining and just put a large thermostat on the wall so that people could actually see the temperature. It never got fixed, but I don't work there anymore, so let the next guy deal with it.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Remember back in the early '90s when women got to wear shorts to work by calling them skorts? It used to annoy me that I had to wear a dress shirt, tie, slacks and dress shoes while the women got to wear skorts, whatever top they wanted and comfortable shoes.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
well, apparently that POV is shared by someone in charge so...
So the person in charge should refrain from wearing ballcaps indoors.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Wearing a headpiece indoors is excusable only if your head looks really bad - from injury or disease.
That's your opinion. I don't wear a hat, and will not wear a hat, but I have no problem with guys at work wearing hats.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I meant to say it's seen as unfair by the line workers.
John
Siemens in Cheshire, Ct. did something like that.Once a year as the weather turned cold the warm air inside, still thick with water from the summer, would lose its water to the windows, and pools of water would end up on the windowsills. Anyone ignorant of the phenomenon (me) who left work documentation or books on the windowsills got important stuff damaged.
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Steel-toed boots and hard hat. People with crushed feet and dented skulls have problems performing well on construction sites.
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A T-shirt is a short-sleeved collarless shirt with an unadjustable opening to put your head through, made of a thin, soft knitted material (usually cotton). If it's sleeveless or long-sleeved, it's not a T-shirt. If the shirt opens in back or in front, or if the neck opening buttons up, it's not a T-shirt. If it has a collar, it's not a T-shirt. If it's made of flannel, leather, shiny plastic or chain mail, it's not a T-shirt. If it's woven, not knitted, it's not a T-shirt. That leaves a lot of possibilities beyond T-shirt and bare-chested.
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While sweltering at an outdoor summer wedding wearing a jacket, pants and socks (!) I ended up in a conversation with a woman wearing some kind of sheer silk dress and sandals about how men don't understand the social pressure on women to appear a certain way. I told her I would love to wear what she was. She gave me this strange look and excused herself.
68 F is when long pants become marginally acceptable, but still not socks or long sleeves.
No, none of that is really true. You are just using selective bias to reinforce your own choices.
There are brilliant people in suits and in T-shirts. Trying to discern which is which by their attire is a losing battle.
Personally, I am a technologist who tries to maintain a professional appearance. I usually wear slacks and button down shirts. Why? Because traditionally people signal the importance of the task by what they wear. I might head to the gym in sweats, but I'm not going to wear them to a funeral or a wedding.
The fact that I dress up for those events demonstrates that I care enough to put in some effort. Wearing some dirty, stained rags that I picked up off the floor indicates that I put no care, effort, or thought into an event that is tremendously important to others.
Now, I realize that many techs dress down almost as a uniform to differentiate themselves from others. So, I pretty much give them a pass, but I'm never impressed by it.
Here are a couple of guys in suits who I'm sure you think are clueless because they are wearing suits. I'm sure someone explained all that complicated technology stuff to them before the event. Too bad they couldn't find some competent techs to figure out why those people died.
http://www.geoffwilkins.net/im...
I don't think I ever showed up for a job wearing gym clothes. But jeans and comfortable short-sleeve polo type shirts, or even t-shirts in the summer months, and tennis-shoes? Definitely!
At one of my previous jobs, they hired a new woman in the H.R. department, and all of a sudden she decided she was going to enforce new dress codes. The word was, I.T. and software developers would no longer be allowed to wear jeans. Thankfully, our best Java developer was an ex-hippie who viewed this as an opportunity to get the whole team together and fight for a cause again. Within about a month, H.R. retracted the policy change, agreeing that jeans in "presentable condition" were part of an acceptable business casual dress code for the company.
Truthfully, I can't speak for the software devs. But as one of the support specialists - the ability to wear jeans and t-shirts was a huge benefit, as we were expected to crawl around on the floor to connect or disconnect cables and had to go out to an industrial shop floor regularly to swap out nasty, grimy old equipment or service it. It just didn't make sense to wear clothing you'd have to pay to get dry cleaned, or even khaki pants that would get torn too easily.
Even at my current job, I consider it a big perk of the job that they're pretty casual with the dress code. I don't own a lot of more formal clothing, so I'd have to lay out a lot of money to build my wardrobe of that stuff up again. And I'd pretty much never wear it except for the job requiring it -- so in that sense, I may as well be buying my own uniforms or something.
I will say, there are always people out there who don't seem to have any sense of what's appropriate to wear into a workplace. Especially in some of the help-desk environments I've seen, you've got people dressing like they're going out to a nightclub instead of to do technical support. And no, I don't think it's professional to wear beat up, raggedy clothes either. If you work I.T., I think t-shirts with advertising logos related to your industry are perfectly acceptable. (If you have that Microsoft, Intel Inside, Apple or HP promotional t-shirt - great.) But one advertising your favorite alcoholic beverage? Probably best to leave that at home.
It' funny (but it's slashdot after all) how a comment ends up being exaggerated with wild misinterpretations such as "hate", "fainting", ... almost like in a Bernd episode:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=...
Funny also how so many people don't realize that men wearing shorts are simply considered as in poor taste - in most of the world (but don't talk about that on /. -- the world outside anglophone countries may be too complex a concept to consider).
Not to mention the even funnier idea that would have an average pair of shorts being any better for warm weather than summer/light cotton calanques-style pants.
For that matter? I'd venture to say that even for client facing employees, dress code/attire has too much emphasis placed on it in many cases.
For a long time, I knew a lot of really good, bright people in I.T. who avoided or distrusted any salesperson approaching them in a suit and tie. They knew that you could basically pull any warm body off the street, dress them up like that, and put them out there to try to sell you something. The people with real knowledge about the products or services were more likely not to be forced to go through all of that.
I know myself, I'd mainly be concerned that someone I interact with as a potential business partner looks like they have it together. Don't show up with clothes with holes and tears in them, or clothes that fit really poorly. But beyond that? Trust me.... I don't waste any time looking to see if you have designer brand shoes on, or care if your shirt buttons down vs. pulls over.
I've found that you can look fairly professional just by wearing clothing as simple as a solid black t-shirt and a pair of black jeans. (It has sort of a modern "I'm a techie." look to it, as long as what you wear is in good, clean condition and fits you properly.)
It's NOT a thing in the US. The only reason it's even in the news is because it's an idiotic decision by a formerly-proud tech company circling the drain. Nice of you to show your prejudices, though. Always educational when Europeans look down on Americans, it's not like it hasn't been happening for over 200 years.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Wait, I thought dress was a relic from a previous age, one that didn't matter in today's modern world. Now suddenly it has all sorts of important information to convey? Wow, that goes against the entire article.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
i'm very multicultural and stuff, but niqabs are just horrible. every time i see a niqab in the US I have an extreme emotional reaction.
HP publicly states it doesn't discriminate on the basis of gender identity.
So... guys need to wear heels that aren't too high and skirts that aren't too short (or blouses that aren't too low cut).
Problem solved!
It's not exaggerated at all. You said it yourself you don't like the looks of men's legs, and you want shorts banned.
YOU are imposing YOUR will on others because of what YOU don't like to see.
Also wearing shorts is not considered poor taste in much of the world, and even if it is how is it any different to skirts? Where is the skirt hate? Why aren't female knees ugly?
The reality is the only "taste" here we are talking about is YOUR taste. You don't want it interpreted as such? Then stop spreading your hate of men's calves by using the theme of wanting shorts banned.
The commuter train drivers in Stockholm had a problem with an apparently discriminating dress code. But then someone discovered that the dress code was actually gender neutral and only listed the allowed garments, so many of the men started wearing skirts instead of the banned shorts. That scared the management straight, and they soon allowed shorts.
This is not restricted to military. I was raised (given the basic instructions on what to do where) in 1980s and then at home and in elementary school the rules were simple:
- Man wearing hat indoors is not considered a gentleman. In classroom wearing hat was prohibited. Normally one should take hat off instantly when going indoors.
- You don't eat with hat on. Even outdoors when you are primarily eating (sitting down).
- You never, ever wear a hat to a place of worship. You also respect rules of the religion regarding clothing when visiting a church / temple of not your own religion.
- When raising a flag or singing a national anthem you take off your hat. You do this out of courtesy even when abroad and a foreign flag is raised / anthem is sung in event you are participating in.
68 and hoodies? Bunch of wussies. Sounds like you people dont have what it takes, get out of the way for those that do.
IBM have got a job for you as a media librarian in their tape storage and backup centre. Formal dress code is black trousers, dress shoes and a shirt. They supply the shirt - you wash it. You'll love the job - bugger all to do.
When you've burnt off those 200lbs of bravado they'll drag your goose-pimpled skinny carcass out, strip off your company shirt and give it to the next blubbery fool.
The reason for me to ask whether it is STILL an issue is that I spent some time working in the US and they were quite strict with work dress code, something I was by no means used to from the European work places I have been to.
That plus the fact that I was the only one who considered it odd that people have to dress up when there is no way they could possibly come into contact with customers leads me to the conclusion that it was back then the norm in the US.
And hence me wondering whether it still is the norm.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is a difference, and I do sincerely hope you know it, between dirty, stained rags and informal attire. Believe it or not, it's possible to wash jeans and t-shirts so they not only look but also smell nice.
As for your picture, you might notice that this is from a very different time. That's like complaining about the fashion of the 70s and questioning the sexual preference of the guys.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My first thought, when I read the summary, was of my co-workers, all male, wearing short skirts or low-cut dresses. I may have to gouge out my eyes.
My personal experience is that absent clear enforced rules, deportment degrades over time to unacceptable levels, at which point management institutes unpalatable rules. If you have freedom in deportment, enjoy it but be sensible.
linquendum tondere
I notice a couple of the guys in that photo are puffing on cigarettes. It's hard to imagine today, but the guys at NASA mission control probably had ashes all over the equipment.
My first job was working in a TV studio, and it was not uncommon for the director and technical director (the guy switching and fading between cameras) to have cigarettes dangling from their lips. (By the way, this was on the Bozo show), and I would regularly see Cookie the Clown having a smoke too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You really need to get out more. There's a lot more people out there than your friends, and they don't dress the way you do. I wear a buttoned shirt every weekday, and so does everybody I work with.
What about them? Headgear indoors is bad form.
Claim some religious exemption for your headgear and don't be surprised if I claim religious exemption for my lack of trousers.
Yeah, jeans aren't acceptable here. I combine a proper shirt with black jeans and competence, and get away with it.
The last one is the only one I've ever heard of, though the third one makes sense.
There is a difference, and I do sincerely hope you know it, between dirty, stained rags and informal attire. Believe it or not, it's possible to wash jeans and t-shirts so they not only look but also smell nice.
As for your picture, you might notice that this is from a very different time. That's like complaining about the fashion of the 70s and questioning the sexual preference of the guys.
I have to agree.
One of the "You Have Arrived" indicators for success for a technical person in Silicon Valley is not having to wash your T-Shirts unless you want to keep them, because you are getting, on average, a new T-Shirt every day or so. It's a lot less that way these days, but you could, if you are sought after technically, go an entire month without doing laundry, and wear one to two T-shirts a day, with little effort to solicit shirts.
I had an intern in a button-down collar, at Google, engage me in the following conversation:
Intern: "Who's the old guy in the T-shirt"
Me: "Vint Cerf"
Intern: "Is he the token really old guy? Why do they keep him around?"
Me: "He invents things. He's a Distinguished Engineer."
Intern: (not hearing the Caps) "Like what?"
Me: "The Internet."
Intern: "Yeah, but what on the internet?"
Me: "That's it. He invented the Internet."
Intern: "You're shitting me!"
Me: "Someone had to. Do you really need me to explain who Vint Cerf is? Because if that's true, I'm willing to do the job, but you should probably 'us' it."
Intern: "What's 'us it' mean?"
Me "Google it."
Frankly I expected defibrillators would be involved at that point, but he recovered.
He moved to machine learning after that, but I think the lesson improved him.
Seriously, I can not take you anywhere.
As long as I can continue to wear my cod piece, I'm fine with it.
(1) Do it under layers and layers and layers and layers. And have a cod.
I've gone the opposite extreme. As a lead tester for a video game company, I sometimes had to come in on Sundays. But I also go to church in the morning. I came into the office in my suit and tie. The supervisor on duty would often do a double take when they saw me, as I often wore shorts and T-shirts during the week.
The message could actually be this: "Hey guys, we're forcing you to wear suits because... err... how should we put this... because you'll need them in a short while, when you go job hunting anyway. We're doing you a favour, while not telling you that we're about to start layoffs. You're welcome."
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor
But my religion requires me to wear nerd shirts. Do not say then you cannot employ people of my religion or you will get a discrimination lawsuit.
But as one of the support specialists - the ability to wear jeans and t-shirts was a huge benefit, as we were expected to crawl around on the floor to connect or disconnect cables and had to go out to an industrial shop floor regularly to swap out nasty, grimy old equipment or service it.
I did PC refresh project where I did a lot of crawling around underneath cubicle desks. Jeans made the boys downstairs hot and uncomfortable (i.e., sweaty balls). I switched to khaki and the problem went away. Then again, I'm old enough to wear what I call my old man's pants (my father wore khaki while working in construction). The only time I wear blue jeans at work is when I haven't picked up my dry cleaning for the week.
https://youtu.be/zYjlZVNFjiI?t...
Serenity now, insanity later.
So, when Americans go to Europe for 2 weeks and draw mistaken conclusions from their experiences it means they're idiots, but you do the reverse and it's valid? WTF? And it IS considered stupid in America, lots of companies don't have these policies. I'm starting to get the idea that Europeans aren't nearly as smart and superior as they are constantly claiming to be.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
that you are using their computer without permission, son?
Folks, It could be worse. Heck, the only time we had "business casual" day, was Friday. Denim and t-shirts was only allowed on weekends. Well, H/P better open up their wallets. Dry cleaning and new clothes costs money.
If you like dress codes, you'll love Booz, Allen, Hamilton. Freshly pressed suits, at all times. If you're lucky, you might be allowed to take your jacket off after hours.
http://www.indeed.com/forum/cm...
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
When you read that HP was "a company founded in a garage by a pair of engineers ", that means that they took off their ties when they got home from their day jobs.
After all, this was before the 60's... 8-)
Honestly I've never heard of "headgear indoors is bad form". I do see that rule online referenced as a dying tradition that applied mostly to men (note the hijab, niqab, and burqas mostly don't apply to men).
I've heard it's bad form when at a theater (because it can obstruct the view of people behind you -- which is a legitimate reason to ask turban-wearers to be conscientious about where they sit), and when you're eating (for some reason).
Meanwhile, not wearing any bottom-covering is unacceptable almost everywhere but your own home and a few choice exceptions.
A turban just isn't a big deal, and it's certainly not rude. I don't know why anybody gets worked up over it. Except, again, when it matters (hardhats for safety, theater-like situations when it blocks your view, etc.).
I started working for the government about a year ago (Australia).
Previously I was a standard full stack contracting web developer, and while the allure of lower pay was dangled in front of me, it was the fixed work hours and no crunch that sold me, but I digress.
Before working here I was jeans and t-shirts 99% of the time, and business casual (that I upped to suit and tie) on occasional client interactions, where appropriate. No worries.
I was told (after starting, there's no official dress code) that my boss's boss wanted me to dress business casual, without any actual reason given.
Since then, I've purchased a dozen van heusen 'iron-free' business shirts, and a couple of pairs of chinos, which I cycle around, washing machine + clothes dryer + no iron.
So now I am constantly looking like a hobo. Wrinkled shirts and pants every day, cause I can't be arsed ironing.
Jeans and t-shirts don't hold wrinkles... and are much more comfortable, and save me from looking like a hobo, but at least my boss's boss is happy now.
p.s. Fridays we're allowed jeans (but still collared shirts) and Fridays are just as productive as any other day, just a hell of a lot more relaxed (in my experience, Fridays are usually less productive, all other things being equal)
tl;dr: It's weird how what you wear matters more to some bosses than your job performance.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
While cost is a factor, it isn't the only one. What about those of us who have a) a significant walking portion of our commute and/or b) women who are required to wear heels (while not often an outright requirement, a lot of pressure is often on women to wear them) and then you need to carry an extra pair of sneakers with you every day. One more thing to forget/remember/carry/juggle/distract from your day.
(And while I understand a lot of women who choose to wear high heels for dressing up will commonly carry sneakers/whatever with them by their own choice, I don't think going to work falls into the same arena, and should at least be your own choice)
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.
Again, the Bass shoes that I bought have really strong soles, and are super comfortable. I spent 6 months in these shoes walking around a hospital or standing at a work station fixing it. The hospital was one of the huge medical centers, and it was like a half mile (or more) to just get to the other side of the building, and I was consistently walking everywhere. While it may not be a very long distance like some people's commute, I did put a ton of wear on the shoes and they are still going strong.
I see... so why should one have to wear anything at all?
If I were to decide to go to work wearing just my hat and a pair of sneakers, why shouldn't I be allowed to do so?
Is showing one's behind or one's front bad taste? Or why else is it banned?
Who decided that --as outer garment-- shorts and XXL T-shirts are OK at work, but tight speedos are not OK at work?
Why are man allowed to run on the street in shorts only, barechested, but women aren't?
(at least that's what I've observed in most anglophone countries... other places around the world seem to have other, quite varying, rules)
I think you both might be confused.
It's very regional in the US. Business casual is very common for non-customer-facing positions in much of the US Northeast and the adjoining areas of Canada. The Pacific Coast is noticeably more relaxed.
Ahh, I picked up a pair of rockports that are the most comfortable dress shoes I've ever had, weren't toooo expensive, and last forever. But they're not sneakers, and never will be. :)
Then again, I had a cold office for a while that I kept a pair of ugg boots in, and changed at work for the day, some days I'd wear sneakers into work, change in the elevator to dress shoes, and change 5 min later into ugg boots, and in reverse at the end of the day
But I'd rather just wear one comfortable pair of shoes all day long.
"lt;dr" is the correct response to most of my posts.