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Comment by easytiger | Hacker News Reader

I mean there is a difference between having fun and conducting yourself in a professional manner where appropriate.

With the increase in adoption of certain technologies (node etc) I have noticed a relationship with the people employed to work with them and their poor level of professionalism in the workplace with regard to their work and how they deal with other people (in the UK) and even how they dress. Similar age groups in other areas don't display these traits.

A number of these people work as contractors as well, so at least it was easy to get rid of them.

Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens

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> [..] and even how they dress.

While there are many points in your post that I agree with, we really should stop worrying about how people dress.

If it's a developer sitting behind a computer screen all day long with zero customer contact whatsoever, he really shouldn't be forced to wear a certain dress code just to satisfy someone's standard of professionalism. Such feelings are in similar spirit as "woman should not wear trousers" a few decades ago - there is just no rationale behind it other than conditioning by society.

> conditioning by society.

There is a limit. I'm sure you have one too if you really think about it. Is it tattoos all over the face? What about sandals? Or shorts? Or going bare-feet around the office.

I don't know... It's about people giving me money for work. I don't feel like I can go to work dressed like any given Sunday.

> I don't feel like I can go to work dressed like any given Sunday.

And why not? As you said: they are giving us money... for work. Not for playing dressing up.

If they expect otherwise, they should be clear about it up front and give a good reason to give up on that freedom while we work for them.

> And why not?

To me (and of course, it's a personal opinion) it shows that someone cares. It's like when you do your resume, you want it clean and presentable, without typos, to show that you care.

We all like good user interfaces and experiences in our programs. To me, the look is like the presentation layer of our own UX. Is it required for our work? Most of the times it is not, because our work depends on the logic layers, but it doesn't hurt to have a nice presentation layer.

And I'm not telling about going to work in a D&G suit.

EDIT: and I'm not telling that I would discriminate or think right away that someone doesn't care! I don't do that. My attitude about good looking is mono-directional; from me towards others.

Well, to me, people care by showing up on time.

They care by solving problems.

They care by being there when the team needs them.

They care by being honest, authentic and candid.

They care by making things simpler and smoother for themselves and those around them.

They care by striving to avoid office politics and back stabbing.

They care by being the team mate we all wish we had and strive to be.

They care making our common working space a place we are all eager to come to in the morning.

And I would pick a reliable, self-aware, well-rounded, face tattooed, green haired and barefoot colleague that's comfortable in their own skin any day, over any well-dressed, high maintenance, drama king / queen.

What's interesting though, is that even knowing, and thinking that, I couldn't help but be spontaneously biased towards he or she who made the so-called effort of dressing to look the part. And that's a problem.

Also, I am nowhere near being that ideal team mate. More like a work in progress >.<'

> biased towards he or she who made the so-called effort of dressing to look the part

Anecdote: my wife is a psychologist. They are taught to observe how a patient presents him/herself at an appointment. Is her/him presentable? What about personal hygiene? Does he/she take care of him/herself? These are characteristics that say a lot, and should be taken into account when meeting someone. There is a difference between taking care of oneself and trying to appear like something else by wearing branded clothes, or to appear like something else by dressing like a 60's hippie (or whatever).

> And I would pick a reliable, self-aware, well-rounded, face tattooed, green haired and barefoot colleague

Me too. But the first 3 are characteristics you wouldn't know for a while. In the meantime you have to work the hiring with what you see. Unfortunately, it's like that.

I also believe that the worst and most dangerous people in the world walk around in expensive suits, behave correctly in public and never say a bad word.

Tattoos, someone's skin color or moles on people's facing at work doesn't bother me. Someone complaining about it would.

Sandals/shorts/barefeet? It's winter here but in those brief moments of summer please do that. Wearing a three piece suit means you won't be able to work as hard during the heat wave.

Its an interesting discussion no doubt. Sometimes easier to have a "dress code/standard" in an office as it sets an (externalised) baseline.

I think the key thing is balance, not everyone is comfortable to wear a 3-piece suit but also few people are comfortable working with people who ave poor hygiene (e.g. dont shower after the lunchtime gym)

I think as long as someone is clean and presentable (context dependent) then there shouldnt be an issue.

> It's about people giving me money for work.

Work is the key word here. Is you work is about dressing yourself up? Then why makes it about this?

Do what you are paid for, working.

In addition to the first reply to your post, you may find it strange but having dress codes actually help promote diversity in workplaces.

How?

It helps focus the culture on the business over other social queues and aspects, it removes the anxiety that different social groups will have with that workplace.

https://hackernoon.com/for-inclusive-culture-maybe-less-is-m...

> social queues

FYI, the word you're thinking of is "cue", not "queue".

Ah yes, I thought it was wrong when I typed it, thanks for the prompt.

It's the same argument people have for uniforms in school. It seems logical I just wish there were some studies that confirmed the results, though it seems hard to quantify.

If that makes the office more diverse, than the real issue is in the hiring bias, not in how you dress. For sure if you only hire people like you, which can happen both in a business environment or a social one, you will have an office less diverse, that's by definition.

I disagree entirely that we can't be social with people different as us. I also disagree that business shouldn't be social, but that's mostly an opinion.

I'm not saying I want memes everywhere, but since I'm spending 1/3 of my life at work I'd rather it be a good time.

> Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens

I think the seriousness (almost angry tone) in certain communities also is a disservice to attract new members. If I make my first PR in some project, it's easy too feel attacked when the reply is a negative one, albeit strictly professional. If it however has a more light-hearted tone and a bit more sandwiched fun-serious-fun one feels more welcome.

Contrasting an opinion you don't like with the other extreme is usually called a strawman and is not a good way to argue.

As others have said, I too am not against a light-hearted tone. But when you have a legitimate problem that might be blocking you from doing your work and your only source of information is a GitHub issue then it should go without saying that the information should be dense and compressed and it should absolutely lack memes, yes.

The serious tone is a huge draw to the LKML and that way of working. They really do care about not having left-pad type meltdowns. They really do care about being able to find information easily, even years after the fact.

There's a big difference between shooting the shit in your private communications and cluttering up places where people are looking for solutions.

I work badly with people that pronounce professionalism as a form of conduct too much to be honest. That said, my professional conduct on the technical side is always to vendor that shit if the project is of a nature that allows doing so (mostly restricted to proprietary software). Even for builds. There are harsh disadvantages with doing that if maintenance is disregarded, but these are problems you can tackle yourself instead of being dependent on third party tools working.

The sheer numbers of users of NPM says that this can happen from time to time and the stability they are providing is nothing other than exceptional.

Otherwise professional conduct mainly comes down to creating an atmosphere of noncommittal distance to deal with difficult personalities. I think being subjected to it for too long should disintegrate any personality, because it is completely unnatural. Hard to imagine people longing for more of that.

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