Comment by nagrom | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nagrom | Hacker News Reader

I work in a university with a bunch of late-20s, early-30s. All of my group wear, unfailingly, collared shirts and sweaters or sports coats or suits. We wear those because we like looking, and feeling, like independent adults - we're not teenagers and don't want to look like them. (Partly, we also don't want to be confused with students, I guess.)

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.

"Nor will we; a formal shirt looks and feels better than a t-shirt, regardless of the quality of the t-shirt."

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.

"Looks? Probably. Feels? That's absolutely subjective."

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.

Your view of formal clothing is still rather casual. I work in a professional setting where I always need to ware a tie and often need full suit. Both of them reduce my level of physical comfort and I would much rather avoid them. However, as a company we are among the more casual in our field and there is plenty of levels of formal above us.

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

http://boingboing.net/2010/12/16/ubss-43-page-dress-c.html

Maybe if you live in a cold climate, then wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers won't be a problem. In Sydney, where I work for a company that permits casual dress, most of engineers show up in shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops for the whole summer. The formal suits that I see the bankers wearing to work are neither well suited to our climate, nor essential for the work most of them do.

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.

Especially in hot weather I actually prefer short-sleeved shirts to t-shirts. The tightly woven, thin fabric of a shirt does not stick as much to the body as a t-shirt. Though I have to admit, that I have never been to Australia in summer. And a suit would definitely be out of the question for me as well during the hot season. :)

"Australian summer" is a very broad term, given the size of the continent. I'm in the tropics, for example, and let me tell you: everything sticks when it's > 30C and > 70% humidity. You could make a shirt out of teflon and it would stick.

It's even funnier for those of us living in the tropics (Darwin, in my case). From where I sit Sydney's summers are pleasantly cool and dry.

"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.

Darwin has a CBD?

Fair enough, although in that case I would wear linen trousers and a short-sleeved linen shirt. That combo works in Spain, Italy and North Africa in summer. Short-sleeved linen shirts feel really cool in hot weather, really nice.

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!

Geez, what university are you at? In my previous job (a Univ), we all wore t-shirts. If someone showed up in a collared shirt (or a suit), it was because they were interviewing somewhere.

If you wear T-shirts, that's a sign that you think the game is too crappy to be even worth noticing. That's why it's rebellious. Wearing a nicer suit might show up your boss, sure, but you're still playing the status game.

As long as you look good pulling cable and crawling between server racks.

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