(no subject)

[random-c.livejournal.com]

An earlier comment got me thinking. How much do you find that clothes (and appearance generally) affect how people react to you, and how you react to others at work? I tend to assume that a man in a suit or a woman in 'nice' clothes couldn't plug in their own mouse without written instructions, and would still have to ask you if the purple plug went in the green hole or the purple one. On Monday I had to explain to one girl - who I *think* is going to be supporting my stuff when it's done, though I'm not sure as it seems like 50% of the company is new and not on the confusing diagrams yet - how to map a drive. Three times. Then I just went and did it for her. Then her boss (who is also my spare boss) emailed me to ask for instructions in case he had to do it. He *should* be technical and really has no excuse. Then again he's also spelt his own name wrong on his iTunes share and put an apostrophe in tunes. Suit-wearer. The guy I took over from doesn't wear suits but does wear very trendy things. His documentation makes no sense in places and is full of txtspk. I've tried getting explanations but he seems to not know what he meant any more, if he ever did.
We've got a few girls in testing, and none of them wear 'nice' clothes. It's all jeans and combats and whatnot, no suit trousers. They all seem to know what they're doing. Anything you say that goes over their heads gets a smile-and-nod but when you mention it again, they know. They've gone and read about it. Man In Suit seems to be inverted by the existence of a proper beard - not a neat little goatee sort of thing, a proper big bushy beard. The guys who've been around forever and know all the bizarre command-line switches for things nobody else has used in months have beards and wear suits.
Maybe it's that anyone who puts a lot of effort into how they look at work isn't the sort who puts the required amount of effort into their work to be a techie? Beard and suit seems to imply they can't be bothered with that silly shaving business every day, and that either the wife sorts out the clothes for work, or they've been shopping in the same part of marks and sparks for 20 years and just keep buying the same stuff. There's a definite difference in the *type* of suit.... am I on to something here, or was trappist beer after a long day a mistake? Female techs - do you wear make-up to work? Do you/would you wear a suit (or a skirt even) in a job where it was not required by the dress code? Is it just my imagingation, or does the dress code for an IT dept tend to be more relaxed than that for everyone else?

Comments

[katyism.livejournal.com]

It's hard to say at my workplace because I work at a call center and don't generally see the users I'm supporting. As far as my co-workers here in the center that I do see, it's a mixed bag. The supervisors wear khakis and polo shirts, but generall know more than we do and are around to help us out with difficult calls. My co-workers are all in jeans and whatnot. As far as the female co-workers go, most of them come in looking like they threw a jacket on over their pajamas (me included, most days) and we all know what we're doing. I fear the day I decide to come to work in my pretty long skirt that I've been wanting to wear... I'm afraid I'll forget how to concentrate on my calls and instead be worrying about keeping my legs crossed...

[katyism.livejournal.com]

Oh, as far as the makeup goes... I tried that my first week here. There was so much facepalming and head-desking that my makeup got messed up, so I said fuck it. Same with doing my hair... the constant on/off of the headset just makes it pointless.

[random-c.livejournal.com]

We had a very neat receptionist at the last place I worked... She got round the on and off of the headset by unplugging it from her phone and taking it with her...

[compwizrd.livejournal.com]

definately relaxed for me, tshirt and jeans is acceptable and expected for me, the rest of the office is all business casual.

[jecook]

Considering that my position (I am the sole IT guy for 3 offices and 30+ remote sites in my area) I can be asked to do anything from run cable (a horrid messy afair) to tackling major network outages to a full rebuild of a computer to putting together report type stuff for the exec, I'm usually allowed "some form" of slack.

The place I worked at previously had a "thou shalt wear dockers and polo shirts and that is as casual as you shall be" attitude. the bright red hawaiian print button down shirt I wear was a big hit with my clients, but management told me to never wear it again.

My former boss here, by way of comparison, had a fondness for well worn tie-dyed shirts and jeans. My current boss wears t-shirts and slacks.

[indigo-max.livejournal.com]

The IBM days of a blue suit, tie, and white shirt are definitely gone when it comes to technicians in the field. I've seen the trend change in as little as 7 years. When I started out as a lowly Computer Operator we were all in dress clothes. Including the PC and Network Support staff I worked with. I saw vendors who serviced our printers go from Suit and Tie dress to more business casual (Khaki's and Polo's). Working in an ISP was a culture shock since most of the folks I worked with looked like they had just crawled out of bed and were on their 3 cup of Starbucks. My current job with a Community College district has a very relaxed casual dress policy. The suits are on the upper dweebs, who yes, don't know a rats ass about todays technology (and probably knew very little of yesterdays as well).

Max...

Girly Tech Here...

[fuego.livejournal.com]

I'm also in a call center. I spent most of the summer in skirts..albeit long, flowy, hippie-ish skirts, tank tops and teva-like sandals or flip-flops, interspersed with occasional tshirts, shorts and pull-on sneakers with no socks. Depending on what was clean, and what I felt like. Since the winter's set in, it's mostly jeans and tshirt ype shirts with longer sleeves. The most dressed up I get is velvet jeans and a slightly less tshirty shirt, still with sneakers or platform loafers.

Makeup is sporadic. Sometimes wear it, sometimes don't. But I never do the full-on face. I'm talking eyeliner or some eyeshadow and lipgloss. Nail polish when I'm trying (yet again) to stop biting my nails.

Oh yeah...and I have pink and orange hair. I've had it in purple and blue extensions long enough to sit on.

My office is terribly casual. Office meetings are always fun to just sit there and look at the various people. The dress code was explained to me when I started as "Wear shoes. Don' twear hats, and please don't wear pajamas."

The hats thing is largely ignored. The pajamas thing...i've been curious about testing that one (With like...flannel pajama pants and a tshirt...I suspect that I could make it fly.)

As far as technical knowledge goes...I don't deal with people in my office on that basis enough to categorize anyone. Test is a completely separate depetment, and they do stuff for different company/ies than me. (I do stuff for one company only...and it's end-user stuff)

Re: Girly Tech Here...

[justsomegurl.livejournal.com]

You are making me miss my pink hair! *lol* Dying my hair was one of the first things I did when I got the job at the callcenter I am working in now. I can't afford to dye it again now though. Plus, I'm getting married in May, so I'll be waiting. I can't wait to dye it again!

This has been the first job I've worked at that didn't have a uniform or strict dress code.

I usually wear jeans, but I like to dress up on occasion.

All the techs here dress casual, so I can not say if the way people dress reflects on their knowledge. There is only one employee here that comes close to business dress, and he is not on the phones. He is more of a middle man between the callcenter and the parent company. He basically convinces them that they don't want to outsource, so we can keep our jobs. He dresses up just to kiss butt I think.

[aiglet.livejournal.com]

My first job required "business casual or better" but let me get away with hippie skirts and tevas during the summer, but I was only technical by courtesy. (I was supposed to be customer service, but *someone* had to support the website.)

Since then it's been jeans and t-shirts or sweaters, and if I dress up, people ask me if I have an interview or something.

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

The dress code at the call center I work at is "casual". As my boss put it: "How cool is it that I'm here in sweats today?" The company who we support is of the opinion that as long as it's not obscene or offensive, covers the naughty bits, and is in reasonably good shape, it's fine.

There seems to be a realization that if the people are comfortable, then they will give better service.

And yes, there is at least one higher level PHB-type (not in or directly over our group) who thinks it's a disgrace. And as far as I can tell, he has the tech skills of a wildly flailing protozoan...

On the plus side, the company we support is overruling this fool. Yay!

[greeklady.livejournal.com]

At the bank I worked at helpdesk I was behind a locked door and no one ever saw us. We still had to fricken wear business casual. So yeah I'd dress up and wear a skirt now and again.

Just finished a contract at playstation (man did that rock) and it was jeans, gaming tshirts, and unfortunately some techs you were lucky if they washed their jeans all week. Me I sported jeans, boots, and what ever tshirt was clean that day. Ok what ever clothes were clean that day. Sometimes I curled my hair all girly. But after lugging around equipment between buildings and sweating like a pig, Ponytail it was. I still wear makeup cause, Im a girly girl.

[liquidmercurial.livejournal.com]

Back when I was single (and going out every night) I wore makeup and skirts and always dressed up. Mainly because I wasn't going home after work... On days I didn't go out, I would wear PJs to work (back when it was allowed). After I quit going out all the time, I didn't do the makeup thing...

[dmsalem00.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I've actually got a "beauty ritual"(yes, I'm a guy), and spend at least a half hour in the shower on a regular basis, and at least that much time picking out clothes and grooming myself in the mirror.

Granted, I'm wearing jeans right now, and did at work, but they're very nice jeans, with black suede pull-on shoes, and a button down shirt. I put a LOT of work into looking damn good, and I do it for myself.

The shocker being, I knew more going into my job than most people do after years on the phones. I'm a supervisor where I work. About midway between the casual and formal supervisors, and they know that I know my shit.

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

My office is business casual, business if you're meeting clients. The IT department tends towards the more casual end of business casual -- you see jeans a lot, but generally with polos or button downs. Nothing ratty. I've been known to wear incredibly bare sandals to work, but otherwise, I usually wear heels or loafers. But then, I love heels, so it's no torture.

Fridays are much more casual: jeans and sneakers, some t-shirts (although I usually wear solids myself; the concert tees stay at home.)

But I haven't noticed much of the suit thing. Really, it depends. We have a trainer who I wonder how she keeps her job. She's one of those people who touches a computer and it catches 5 forms of nasty spyware and crashes repeatedly. We have some salesmen who are pretty savvy. One site I supported while a PC tech, the guy in charge was incredibly savvy. He'd call and tell you what the problem seemed to be and 9 times out of ten, he'd managed to properly diagnose it. He could follow directions, too. (The one time I caught him out, he'd forgotten to turn off the firewall he used when traveling. He was very apologetic and embarrassed.) Our General Consul has managed to turn into a pretty good user, too.

So yeah, I dunno. Most folks in my department have a clue, and even if they don't know, they can generally follow directions.

Granted, I've had to ask for help myself a couple of times, but really, it's all relative. My help last week was because I came back from vacation and my computer refused to boot... my first question to the local tech was 'Nobody screwed with my computer, did they?'

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

She-geek, working a helldesk in a place with a rather corporate dress code. Effectively, it's no jeans, no thongs, no sloganned t-shirts, nothing which wouldn't fit in with our Corporate Wardrobe (which runs heavily to suits).

I'm wearing a pair of pull-on crinkle pants (no ironing! Yes!), a jade green v-necked t-shirt, and white flip-flops I've had for the past three to five years now. The bloke sitting in the cube next to me is wearing a tshirt, baggy pants, and laceup shoes which probably resemble sneakers. The majority of the office are in some variation of business shirts and slacks - no suits. Very few ties, come to that. Very few women on the desk, of those who are here, about two of them wear regular, visible makeup (ie makeup which can be seen for makeup). I occasionally bother with lip gloss, but only occasionally, and usually when I'm in the mood for warpaint.

Our manager (who is another who doesn't wear a tie on a regular basis, and very rarely bothers with a suit jacket) doesn't bother with trying to enforce the dress code, possibly on the grounds that if he started sending people home for being improperly dressed, it's doubtful many would bother coming back again. We're public service - sacking us requires a stack of paperwork you can't jump over - so he can't do the summary dismissal route either. If we get prior warning that we're going to receive a divine visitation (ie Upper Manglement) we may wear neat clothes. Or not.

Last Friday of the month is Dress Down Day - jeans are permitted, but that's about the end of it. Officially. Unofficially, we're allowed to slob down a bit.

Re: the skirt/trousers thing - most of the women on this helpdesk tend to wear trousers the majority of the time, but some of them wear skirts on a regular basis. One of these is one of the more tech-savvy people on the desk at the moment.

My new job is one in which the previous occupant wore a suit the majority of the time. I'm going to stick with my current stuff. They aren't paying me any extra for clothes, they get what I've got in the wardrobe at the moment.

[swwinchester.livejournal.com]

It's really all over the place with my careers ... I won't discuss Geek Squad, as thier dress code is SERIOUSLY rigid (to the extent that they issue you your socks) ...

In my NOC job, it was jean shorts, t-shirt, whatever. (The Air Conditioning in 'The Fishtank' was out for the first 4 months I worked there ... in a room with no ventilation, a glass wall, and a 4-1 computer / operator ratio, they KNEW we weren't going to tolerate even Buisness Casual like the rest of the office did. Once the AC was fixed, we were in normal Casual unless there were investors coming around.)

My research job, however, set the entire thing into perspective for me. I worked at Sarnoff Labs. 3/4 of the staff held the title of Doctor, and only a rare few were medical doctorates ...

The following was observed. The real innovators and brains were, depending on era, seen wearing anything from Jeans + T-shirt to button down shirts that looked to be 30 years old. They were either relaxed, or so painfully out of date it wasn't funny. Hair barely kept in line, beards, etc. were all very, very common. The only people who wore suits were invariably management. Techies who are supporting the research - like yours truely - would wear whatever that research group was comfortable with - sometimes button-down shirts and ties, sometimes buisness casual, sometimes T-shirt and jeans. MOST of where I was was cleanroom work, so NO one argued t-shirt and jeans, as it was all hidden under a bunny suit anyways, but sometimes I had to go up to buisness casual, depending on what group I was being thrown to ina given week. The tech support guys were all t-shirt and jeans. Good group, they were.

So there you have it - in geek central, with 3 generations of geeks around me ... yeah. Appearance really DOES seem to have something to do with the clue-o-meter. It's like a switch in the brain - if you have the sense to handle buisness clothing, you lose the sense to hook up a computer. If you have the sense to hook up a computer, you don't know how to tie a necktie.

[thecrazyfinn.livejournal.com]

For us, it varies. The sales guys used to be Business Casual, but are more Business now, as the market tanked. tech Support/Ops is quite casual (I wear a Paintball hoodie and jeans usually), but anyone who may end up meeting a customer on short notice tends to dress Business Casual.

As for competence, we've got sales guys who know who Gandalf was (And I'm not talking about the Wizard) and had actually used their gear, and tech guys who are merely competent (We test HARD in order to get an interview, so you can't get an interview unless you're moderately technical). Of course, we've also had sales guys who were clueless, but there's a surprising amount of technical types in our sales team (Including two ex-Tech Support guys from my department).

[celyste.livejournal.com]

I'm at a call centre, and we're all demanded into business casual through the week, and pretty well whatever on weekends... so long as you don't have the nerve to actually display any skin anywhere. anyone off of the phones will come in in their suits and jackets, though I have to agree, it doesn't seem to help their intelligence level at all.

I wear skirts to work, though I tend to the relaxed full length types (mainly so I can take off my shoes and still have my feet hidden *L* OMG! Dresscode violation!). Definitely no makeup, hand!face happens too often in my dep't.

I agree with the beard comment though. The smartest guys in our dept have full on beards and have been around computers since punch cards. I find that earrings in girls is a telling point... the larger and dangly-er they are the less the girl seems to know about the dept.

Sense of humour (though that's not physical, eh?) also seems to be a telling point. If the rep is confident enough to joke with the customer, they likely know what's happening to the system.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

I think there's a logic to the earrings though... The same way you won't see bracelets on most hardware techs. When you're sticking your head and hands into something the size of a cat flap and rewiring, the last thing you want is jewellery snagging on it :)

Plus large dangly earrings + headset = BAD BAD IDEA

[residentgeek.livejournal.com]

I'm the only tech on my campus, so they pretty much let me get away with whatever I want. "Business casual" I guess is fairly standard - khakis, polo/collared shirt/sweater, and belt most of the time with sneakers. But I've been known to wear jeans and a t-shirt, khakis and t-shirt (often), or even t-shirt and jean shorts before. My supervisor thinks my ThinkGeek (http://www.thinkgeek.com) t-shirts are great. I usually make sure I'm dressed appropriately when I need to go to a staff meeting or something, otherwise, it's whatever I want to wear. I never wear skirts or makeup, in or out of work. I've never seen any of the other female techs do that either. It would be quite a shock to the system :o) We (the female techs) tend to wear the same stuff the male techs do.

The only person I have issues with being stupid wears a stiff shirt, undershirt, and tie every day, so there ya go. The only exception is Mr. GQ (silk shirts and ties) who I can spend hours geeking out with. Of course, all the upper management and division chairs wear strict business wear, and they're usually the most confused of the lot.

[dr-atheist.livejournal.com]

I often turn up in my bike leathers, and if i'm on a night shift, wont bother to change out of them.
Other than that, jeans and t-shirt, maybe a hoodie if it's cold.

[wyrdlinks.livejournal.com]

I'm the only IT guy in the company, but it's been dictated that I am to dress "business casual". I'm allowed to wear jeans if I'm cable pulling or doing stuff like that, but I have to change out of them as soon as I'm done. The other staff are required to be smart (ties for the blokes sort of level).

I'm more comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, but that's a big no-no and the jeans got me a bollocking one day.

In terms of others, I think you've got a generalisation, but a fairly accurate generalisation.

[wyrdlinks.livejournal.com]

And the really annoying thing about it is that all the other staff can be customer facing, but I have 0 interaction with customers. (forgot to add that bit)

[jcaswell.livejournal.com]

Female tech here (only female in a team of four). I tend to wear either jeans or a denim skirt to work, with plain black t-shirts and no makeup. The jeans and skirt are practical (the skirt is very long, and I'm very short), the makeup is laziness. My only consessions to being female are my wedding and engagement rings, a necklace, semi-high heeled boots, and long hair. Although the long hair is pretty much a pre-requisite for all the geeks I know (except the ones I work with)

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

Although he's mainly focused on high school, and believes the fallacy that adults are all grownups, this (http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html) piece explains it pretty well. People who know what they're doing know because they spend a lot of time doing it. People who look good spend a lot of time, well, trying to look good.

[korenwolf.livejournal.com]

Clothes don't define the geek, neither does the title (as my previous one proved, it was almost 'sales' in it's nature which confused the hell out of people trying to out geek me >:)

However spending a few minutes with a person or on the phone can usually give a good impression of the clue level and just how large a bat is needed to get them to understand simple instructions.

[igz00.livejournal.com]

I work at a help desk for my university, all of us except our boss are students. Therefore, we all dress like students and the only real requirment is that we wear our ID badges when we go out on house calls.

I don't wear makeup, I don't even own makeup... but thats kind of my WYSIWYG philosophy. The one other girl that works here (2:25 f:m) wears makeup, but nothing outrageous.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I'm in a call center and we're supposed to have business casual except fridays/weekends but thae last couple months we have been rewarded with dress down day all week.

Having more business casual then casual clothes I tend to dress business casual anyways and do minimal makeup.

[taleya.livejournal.com]

Sweet sweet graveyard shift....at the moment I'm wearing jeans, and a pretty risque tshirt with horizontal zips across my breasts and stomach. Coworkers are wandering around in socked feet (with holes all over socks) and foot long red hair half dyed blue and a full face of "can't be fucked shaving" beard, other is wearing tee and jeans...and a jacket, but that latter is most likely due to riding his motorbike in again.

No one cares what we wear :D

During the day it's "neat casual" (jeans, whatever, no one really gives a flying shit except the Indian staff members, it appears) and on weekends even that loose law flies completely out the window - we've had staff members show up in pyjamas and sneakers, the latter of which they kick off to show massively fluffy bed socks.

Sales and Tech are on the same floor, and seperated by about two meters. You can clearly tell who's whom - sales tend to dress neater and all look like Ravers, the techs are mostly grumpy bastards in jeans and tees :D