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Jan. 13th, 2005 12:08 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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techrecoveryAn 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?
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?
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