Why T-shirts matter at tech companies
blog.adamnash.com
blog.adamnash.com
When the professor bought us t-shirts for one particular project, it felt a bit like we were being put in our places - "Hey kids!". None of us have worn them to work. Nor will we; a formal shirt looks and feels better than a t-shirt, regardless of the quality of the t-shirt.
I think that the "t-shirts stick-it-to-the-man" attitude is pretty sad. No organization ever felt threatened by a subordinate wearing a t-shirt. Try wearing a better suit than your boss, try wearing a tailored shirt or better shoes. Rather than dressing like a rebellious teenager, try dressing like his/her boss. T-shirts seem like a rather poorly-thought-through immature act of rebellion to me.
Interestingly, the older guys in the group (40+) all wear (occasionally stained) t-shirts and claim to be completely uninterested in how they look. They also spend a lot of time taking the piss out of those of us who wear smarter clothes, telling us that we don't have to wear them. They also spend quite a bit of time (somewhat) desperately trying to convince us to dress down.
The head of the group, the professor, unfailingly wears a formal shirt and sports coat, of course.
When I walk to work in a t-shirt through a city of suits, I mostly think about how it's the freedom I like. Freedom to wear appropriate clothing, rather than being tied into wearing something to fit in, or to impress somebody.
"Territory Formal" is a short sleeve shirt and trousers. No jacket, no tie, no long sleeves. It is just too damn hot and humid.
I can usually spot "southerners" in the CBD: they walk one way up a street wearing the jacket and tie. They walk the other way, beet read, with the tie loosened, sleeves rolled up and jacket over their arms.
You absolutely shouldn't wear clothes you don't feel comfortable in. However, wearing a t-shirt because it's an act of rebellion doesn't work for me at all. If you're wearing t-shirts because you want to, then fine.
Wearing smart clothes is not something I do, or my colleagues do, to fit in. I work in a university and often we are the only people (6?) in a department of 200 people under the age of 60 in formal clothes. They feel comfy and they look good. People also find them intimidating, which can be funny.
So long as you dress how you want, that's cool. I just find the idea of wearing free, logo-infested clothes a bit unappealing. I come across an attitude of 'I wear t-shirts because I don't have to wear a suit!' pretty regularly; I find it sad because it's being constrained in your dress by those standards in the opposite way to the suits but not even acknowledging it! Wear what you want!
Looks? Probably. Feels? That's absolutely subjective. I much prefer short sleeved shirts, and having lived most of my life with a warm enough climate to make that a viable clothing option, generally wear them when sensible. I have very few collared shirts that feel as good as a nice-fitting American Apparel T-shirt. Same with shorts, when whether permits.
"I think that the "t-shirts stick-it-to-the-man" attitude is pretty sad."
Why do you think I'm dressing casually at work to stick it to the man? I, and many of my coworkers, dress casual to be as comfortable as possible as work, which has the effect of improving my productivity.
"T-shirts seem like a rather poorly-thought-through immature act of rebellion to me."
And wearing dress clothes to work just to suck up to/impress your boss, even at the cost of comfort, seems like a rather poorly-thought-through custom to me. I have several friends who work at companies which have fairly strict dress code policies, all of whom would gladly switch to more casual wear if allowed.
Fair enough. Generally, though, you only get t-shirts in cotton. It's nice to wear linen, or the nicer cottons that you typically get with formal shirts.
"Why do you think I'm dressing casually at work to stick it to the man? I, and many of my coworkers, dress casual to be as comfortable as possible as work, which has the effect of improving my productivity."
I don't think that everyone does - but a non-negligible subset of people wearing t-shirts to work are doing it because of some misguided attempt to resemble the Big Lebowski.
The point of wearing something smart should not be to suck up to your boss! They're supposed to make you look and feel good. The most important person about this is you - having specific outfits that you associate with work can be a useful psychological trick to get 'in the zone'. If formal clothes are uncomfortable, you're probably wearing the wrong clothes - they either don't fit or are made of inappropriate materials. You need to spend a bit more to get that comfortable fit but once you do, formal clothes become as comfy as pyjamas. Except ties. I hate ties. So I don't wear them often.
PS: There is an old IBM story of a programmer sent home from training for being under dressed. He was wearing reasonably formal attire, but the instructor instructed him to lift his pants leg to demonstrate what your socks looked like if you did not use garters and then sent him home. http://www.pbs.org/nerds/part2.html
The way the distribution worked was that a small cabinet used to be replenished by some 50 odd t-shirts at some random time in the week. Those who wanted a t-shirt (definitely all interns, but not sure if it was limited to them alone. More on this shortly) ran a manual poll or a select loop on that cabinet. If the word spread that the cabinet has been replenished there would a mad rush. It was not that the t-shirts were like no other, but the artificial scarcity made it fun to get one. We interns definitely fought for it like a trophy. The more prized ones were the Ts for women. Good gift for your girlfriend. My personal favorite was the Wienberger T. It was not Googly enough to attract unwarranted attention.
The vibe the t-sirts created was quite opposite of "here we all wear Google Ts". It was more like, "I got one and you didn't", a fun competition to humor each other with.
Soon some Googler figured out that one could set up a webcam to monitor that cabinet. The ip address of that cam was publicly distributed. I suspect a fair number of people really wanted these t-shirts because the cam would always clog up on the traffic, to the point of being almost useless. That's a shame because someone wrote an application to compare consecutive frames from that cam so that it will send out a message once it detected a change. Its a bit tricky, you do not want it to trigger whenever someone walked passed that cabinet. Particularly so because it was right on the way to the cafeteria. So one had to average out the frames so that any change that persisted roughly for the amount of time that is required to stuff the cabinet triggered the system but not others. A low-pass filter for t-shirt stuffing.
Not sure if anyone wrote a predictive model to figure out when that t-shirt cabinet will be stuffed. But I would not be surprised if anyone did. The culture inside seemed just right for these kind of things.
1. Buy high-quality shirts (American Apparel)
2. Buy small and women's sizes
3. Show some attitude, not company boilerplate
4. Buy from a local shop
5. Have a few different designs - people love having a choice
6. Make sure the shop saves the screens (cheaper to re-order in the future)
7. Quadruple check the spelling and capitalization :)
This one puzzles me a lot. The place I work recently ordered a bunch of shirts for everyone who wanted one in the dev team. The sizes went up to XL, and their "XL" was the same size as an "M" in some stores. Fully half the devs in our shop couldn't fit into the largest size offered.
Here's a tip, as someone who likes wearing t-shirts: buy larger sizes. Someone who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the reverse is very much not true.
People used to hearing that line really appreciate when you go the extra mile:
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/1...
It's that thinking that leads to skinny people (like me) having a lot of large t-shirts that they don't fit into. Just because it can physically go over your body doesn't mean that it "fits."
When I see at least some smaller sizes (and I'm not a petite woman), I feel like at they least they were thinking of people like me.
Sure it is physically impossible, but that person will end up looking like a slob. Fit is the most important factor in style, so if you're going to "brand" your employees at least do not force them to swim in the clothing you give them!
Also, if your T-shirt looks good and is really well designed (high quality, maybe fitted, good graphic design and color work) I might actually wear it other places, even though I don't usually wear T-shirts.
I pretty much only wear American Apparel t-shirts, and they don't shrink. I doubt printing your logo on it is going to change that :)
Cotton does shrink in the dryer. Yes, higher quality dryers cause this less, but they all cause shrinking to some degree.
2. If you've got a poor quality tee that doesn't fit, why would I wear it?
2. see above
I never said it would take one wash, it could take 5. I'm just saying giving out a shirt that's larger makes more sense than one that is too small, seeing as how clothing only shrinks once you own it.
So unless you want me to cut up your shirt and turn them into schmattas, give me a small and I will wear it on my body.
Otherwise, donate it to Goodwill.
I agree that people should donate clothes they no longer need or want. I was referencing the documentary about Africa as an example of just how far the benefit of donated clothes can reach.
T-shirts are listed not by inches or cms, which would tell you exactly what you getting.
hence the recent posts of different definitions for different sizes by different mfg. If they listed the actually sizes like they do with most suits. Then you have a reasonable chance of a good fit.
But they are high-quality shirts (even if Dov Charney is a lecher).
It's different if you are buying shirts as schwag. I once worked for a startup where the t-shirts were more popular than the product and the most important sizes were mens and womens size medium.
You'd probably also want some external data as I'm pretty sure people as a whole are getting fatter.
1) Maybe t-shirts sizes themselves are not the same between 1999 and 2008 2) Maybe the average age of the attender has not changed, so there's really no age component 3) Maybe a different demographic is now attending the conference 4) Maybe all Americans are fatter on average and programmers are just part of that trend
If you are buying for employees, it's easy enough to ask employees what their preferred sizes are. We all have a few tradeshow T-shirts at home, so we know how the various sizes of various brands fit us.
Buy some extra; some people will want two, if you have leftovers, mix them in with the next iteration, or leave them on the 'free' shelf in the break room, you know, for when your employees feel like upgrading out of their old copy that has developed holes.
If you are buying for the general public, well, you plan to run out, right? it doesn't really matter if you run out of the big sizes before the little sizes. keep track of what runs out of last and adjust accordingly next time.
If you end up taking home leftovers, mix them in with the next batch of shirts you give away.
This goes double if you're going to a convention. Give a petite girl a men's large and chances are it will never make it over her head once. Be the only booth at the show that gives out fitted women's gear, though, and suddenly you'll find them on every girl in the place.
And I add:
8. Pony up for a not-white shirt.
When I get free t-shirts from work or conferences, they're pretty much reserved for being something to wear when I'm painting or mowing the lawn. One such shirt never even made it out of the office; it's still been neatly folded up at the bottom of a desk drawer since the day they gave it to me a few months ago.
But this is because I have yet to receive a company or conference t-shirt that either properly fits me or has a tasteful or clever design I'd want to be seen wearing in public. If you print two dozen sponsor logos on the back of a free conference t-shirt, I'll probably toss the shirt and wish you spent the t-shirt budget on better booze at the afterparty.
I know I'm not averse to t-shirts in general, since my wife will take any opportunity to give me trouble about how many shirts I've bought from Woot and Threadless...
This is why every programmer has about 5-10 times as many t-shirts as years of work experience.
I would love to see a photo essay about the story told by the "t-shirt timeline" of a programmer or other tech figure. Definitely more colorful than a resume.
In fact, that would make a great site. I remember there used to be a great site cataloging the early shirts of Apple. I would love to use a site where I can catalog, compare and (yes) show off my tech t-shirt collection without having to actually wear them daily. Maybe others would want to catalog their rare rock band shirts. And everyone is curious about the black YC shirt, right? You could easily monetize with promoted orderable designs. Pleeease, LazyHN?
But seriously, celebrating the fact that we dress like 22 year olds might have a teeny tiny bit to do with the fact that programmers are typically PAID like 22 year olds.
The false consciousness is epic. We'd do a lot better if we put on a suit and admitted that we're going to a place where we work. We'd do a lot better if we demonstrated on a regular basis that we have no real problem putting on a suit and walking out the damn door into a bank if pay or conditions go to shit. We'd do a lot better if we demonstrated that we think we're going to a place of work rather than a place to hang out with friends and do 'cool stuff'. We'd do a lot better if we conveyed regularly to our employers that paying us properly and treating us well is more important to us than playing stupid 'tribal identification' mind games (this stuff should come organically from below, not be created by management).
Apparently we're celebrating our individuality and difference on one hand with our tshirts, while also having 'tribal cohesion' and advertising our company in our spare time. We're showing how flat our organization is in one way, while collecting t-shirts as merit badges on the other.
It's all a bit eyerolling. Combine all this with the non-existent standards for programmer qualification, and the vocal minority of GPL people who claim that it's actually _immoral_ to be writing closed-source software, and I feel like I'm working in a field that has a 'anti-guild' (that works in the reverse direction from a traditional guild, ensuring that its members are paid less and treated worse than their qualifications should imply).
I'm not so sure I'm fighting the power while working in my my nice office in a good part of town in an engineering job. The fact that this guy works at linked in, a business built around yuppies networking, makes that assertion even more cringe-worthy.
Not to knock linked in, but they aren't exactly 'rebels'.
On the other hand, sometimes a t-shirt is a t-shirt.
And man, I would never wear a LinkedIn t-shirt. Pinnacle of lame (no offense, LinkedIn people, your product is very useful! But not cool.)
Coolness is mostly about exclusion, I think. Or to put it more nicely, it's about identifying with people you like.
So if a coder can honestly say "I think Brand X is awesome, and those whom I want to impress also think that," he/she might wear a Brand X shirt to a conference. Otherwise, no.
What I found that worked for me, however odd, was the notion of 'work shoes'. I'd wear a pair of 'work shoes' when I was working, and swap them out for sneakers when I was finished working, and it achieved the same effect.
That worked well until I discovered Johnston & Murphy loafers anyway, which turned out to be actually more comfortable than my sneakers, but now I'm pretty much working all the time anyway, so it's .. okay?
On the lower end, you have everything from the skinhead/mod cultures wearing tailored suits and high end polos with work boots, to inner-city kids spending a ton of money on FUBU and Nike, to middle-aged black women wearing extravagant church hats and Italian-Americans wearing flashy chains and jewelry.
On the upper end, you have the Bohemians, trashy hipster fashion, "derelicte", slumming it, and articles like this, about how great it is to get to wear a t-shirt to work (not so great if you're making minimum wage).
The middle classes seem to bounce between the two.
Wearing t-shirts is just one less level of bullshit, and it's cheaper as well, I save my nicer clothes for non-office occasions.
T-shirts as badges, or achievements (as in gaming). Never thought of it that way.
Status signals are important and useful in tribe-sized groups of people, and they work best when they can't be bought or faked. It doesn't really mater what form they take.
I see the points the author of the blog post makes but still, is it so bad to want to wear 'typical' business wear at a tech company?
Note: I love a witty t-shirt just as much as the next guy, but preferably on my free time.
Want to, no. Try to force everyone else to out of some misguided sense of "professionalism", yes.
The good thing about being a hacker is that you can wear whatever you want. :)
Now I work for a financial institution, so a suit is expected.
The US seems to have a much more lax attitude with respect to attire (especially for professionals, a University graduate is expected to look smart here). The "stick it to the man" point the article makes is beyond me.
Overall I thought this was an interesting article with a surprising amount of insight into something seemingly insignificant like t-shirts. But, I have to admit that, as a female founder, I was a bit frustrated by the assumption that the reader was a male. While it's certainly true that the industry is heavily male, we shouldn't forget about all the awesome women in tech!
But, as a guy, I LMAO'd, because it felt so true.
The use oft-shirts as achievement badges is interesting, but I don't like storing things that I don't use.
It's hard to make similar generalizations about someone wearing a Led Zeppelin or John Lennon or flavor-of-the-month-superstar shirt, but even that implies a probable bit of information about their personality.
Free T-shirts would be in addition to the free meals at funded startups/companies.
Everybody does their best work when they're most comfortable. Why haven't many traditional companies figured this out yet?
However, I would ask if you have worn a nice tailored suit. It's really very comfortable. The quality of the material is pretty far above what most casual wear is made out of. The main cost seems to be in the time getting dressed in the morning and the extra care needed to not damage your outfit, not necessarily in comfort.
That said, I personally hold my own style to a little higher standard than many tech companies (generally long pants, collared shirt, closed-toed shoes).
I wear jeans and a t-shirt and keep a sport jacket in my cube's closet. Then I can be dressy if it's needed for some reason. (I stole this idea from Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. :)
This article really hit the nail on the head.
When I started interning there, there would be a new T-shirt for every new project we would ship. The engineers in my group would all where T-shirts from projects past.
By the time I started full time,and my entire tenure there, the T-shirt culture was over (at least in hardware). Whenever someone would bring it up, or request one for the project we were working on, the answer would be "That's not a priority any more" or "We just don't have the budget for that."
Thankfully the new company I work for has some very cool t-shirts!
http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2011/02/01/submersible-dirigible-the-new-intervals-shirt-design/
"Yes, we are giving them away. Login to your [...] account and click on the feature request button at the bottom of the page."
Seems like a good approach.
http://bfginteractive.com/blog/travel-tourism/2011/04/06/the...
The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but still represents your brand. Does it have to be on the outside? Can a tag in the back of the tie be enough? I'm just not sure...
Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. There are more than enough hideous looking ties in the world already. Let's not encourage them...
The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but still represents your brand.
I don't believe it can be done, but more power to anybody that can pull that off. :-)
(SFBay vendor recommendations based on personal experience would be especially valued. Where does YC get its "[make|made] something people want" shirts, and are they as high-quality as they are high-cachet?)
Plus the damn logo is right across the chest - yeah that is exactly where I want people to look when talking to me.
My husband wears his as yardwork clothes especially the long sleeve ones since they are made of poor material and look crappy after several washings.
At another company the receptionist (a woman) bought extra tight shirts for the women - all 3 of us decided to throw them away - no way in hell were we wearing that. It was degrading. Then we were taunted by everyone why we were not showing company spirit.
If you want to give swag - give something useful like a electrostatic-free strap. That always comes in handy.
For something to display - how about a baseball hat. Sun gave jean jackets and other jackets - all too big - can not wear but at least it was different. I love the PR suggestion - put your benefit statement and then your logo and your URL.
Oh god. do you know someone who will print my logo on a ESD wriststrap? that would be /perfect/ for my company.
If you can find a vendor I'll send you one once I have 'em printed!
Why don't you write the company name on the bottom center of the short - and then everyone can stare at your crotch - this at least will make both sexes uncomfortable. And if you are guy and did not understand the above, perhaps you do now. Before anyone gets upset - I am trying to be funny.
The worst company t-shirts have two lines of text, one on the upper chest ("FooCo...") (typically on the upper parts of women's breasts) with a second, smaller font, tag-line of text ("leveraging X for Y") below - so people who read the text (kind of reflexive) look like they are giving someone a good, comprehensive ogling. I saw a lot of shirts like that at the last tech conference I was at...
Add "booth babes" (at a business-to-business oriented show, yet) to the mix and you've got the perfect environment for making women in tech feel real comfortable... :-<
FeeFighters wore shirts at SXSW that had "YOU are getting RIPPED OFF on your credit card processing" on the back
This led to a number of fantastic leads, including some huge companies that we were able to help.
We also got several requests for shirts including from some notable folks... we came with extra and sent them out!
What is the best place to get small runs of high-quality shirts printed for low prices?
I'm a sucker for beads. Shiny shiny beads that sparkle and shimmer.