Software Programmers Should Never Have Dress Codes
kirkwylie.blogspot.com
kirkwylie.blogspot.com
I think dress codes are idiotic in most cases, but I understand them. This author does not.
Programmers always want their job to be slinging code in a cave somewhere where people slide a pizza and a list of features under a door and pure beautiful code comes out on a regular basis.
It never works that way, however. Programmers are social creatures, like it or not, and that means that all kinds of social stuff is part of working with other people. Things like dress codes, manners, good body hygiene, interviewing, and conflict resolution skills are just as critical as hacking skills.
I don't think dress codes help that much, but I understand why companies have them. I always say that it's the people that is so critical in this work. Everybody wants to focus on the technology, but that's a very, very small part of it.
I think you're right in that soft skills are massively important to working in any large organization, and for any organization where you're developing software for in-house users (like big banks). Communication, conflict resolution, good working habits (like good body hygiene), these are all critical parts of being effective in your job not just as a programmer, but as a member of a software development organization.
I just don't see "what clothes you're wearing" as factoring into that equation.
I would say slacks and a button down shit, with no tie is fine. I think wearing a tie to work is silly at this point, but t-shirts/shorts/flip flops at a place where others are dressed up makes you seems lower on the totem pole.
That said, I work at a startup where everyone wears t-shirts and flip flops, so what do I know?
The best firms that make massive use of software view their programmers as a key member of the team, because they know that they can't do their jobs without them. And some would argue that getting respect DESPITE your attire is the bigger indicator of power.
That being said, "I have to wear a suit because I have to meet with customers; therefore everybody else has to suffer" isn't a particularly compelling argument.
Most likely not representative of places that require a dress code, but an anecdote nonetheless:
My first full-time job after dropping out of college - and moving 600 miles away from friends, family: pretty much every one I knew - was at a small (~100 employee) direct marketing firm building landing pages in a dingy office.
They required slacks and a tie every day except Friday - when The Powers That Be deemed it good for morale to allow us to wear a polo shirt. Everyone was required to follow the code - from the designers building ads to the salespeople cold-calling universities.
It was simple work, and I yearned to be promoted to the actual development group - they got to work in PHP and C++, while I was stuck with plain old HTML, CSS, and a smattering of JavaScript. Until I found out what kind of code was responsible for a majority of the company's revenue. One of their salespeople had apparently picked up a PHP book quite a while ago, and suggested to management that they move away from cardpacks and start generating leads online. He was crafty, and made them sign a document saying the code was owned solely by him. He wrote the software that drove the lead generation platform, and a few months later quit. They hired him back at twice the salary to come in once a week as a consultant to fix bugs.
And bugs a plenty there were. Of course, the three developers in the next pod weren't allowed to touch the Holy Grail of Lead Generation. It was owned by the contractor. There were severe, showstopping bugs cropping up nearly weekly while I was there - bugs that would cause clients to drop us. And that was once I came on board - they'd been using the same PHP file for the previous 7 years or so. And the contractor would always tell us that it was our (the designers) fault for corrupted lead data.
One of the developers in the next pod found a security hole in the server one day, and grabbed a copy of the php file. All 14,000 lines of nested if blocks that it was. Every "bug fix" was simply a switch at the bottom of the file, with one case for each of the accounts that ended up having bugs.
Every time we suggested ways of making the process of getting a campaign out the door faster and more efficient, management would tell us: "OK, if you want it done - come in on the weekend." The CTO couldn't understand what an API was.
I haven't worked at a place that required a tie for any of the employees since then. When it comes to small businesses, at least - from this experience and several of my acquaintances' - if there's a dress code, run very, very far away. It's usually an indicator that you're expected to be a cog in the machine - not a curator of the machine.
(The direct marketing firm was bought out by a competitor about three months after I left, who had even worse lead generation software. It folded six months later).
Many programmers have trouble reconciling the fact that the "real world" doesn't conform to their ideals and actively try to reject it.
Sure, it's a little silly to insist on suits for someone crawling on the floor (I still remember in incident with a skirt, an awkward cable, and a customer tour coming in at the wrong moment). But if you work in an industry where it's the standard, how hard is it to leave a jacket and tie at work in case of meetings? Really...
Do you have any idea how juvenile and tasteless you look in cheap jeans and sneakers? Do you realize how much dramatically better you look with proper shoes and well cut wool pants? To give up that advantage just indicates idiocy to me.
I won't deny that dressing up is a social advantage, but sometimes people care about some things more than strictly getting ahead. It's entirely possible that an individual could place more value on being comforatble than on getting that raise or promotion.
An interview candidate showing up in a T-shirt is a serious black mark, not because I care about how they dress at work, but because they don't care enough about the interview to put on a shirt with buttons and a pair of dress shoes.
If somebody has that level of respect for me, the company, or the whole song-and-dance process, what are they going to be like to work with? What happens when we need them to deal with customers?
Sure, they may be an amazing coder, but a bit of politeness and some social graces make for a better working environment any day.
>Clothes are communication.
Bingo. But what is dress code if not an attempt at killing communication?
So what do you have when you have all employees dressed in slacks and shirts and suits? Isn't it an attempt at supressing communication? An attempt at supressing individuality and instead forcing a corporate culture of obedience, brainwashing, mindless loyalty and mediocrity?
Fuck that! I will not be forced to be dressed in a suit. I might choose to wear a suit if I want to communicate obedience and professionalism. I might choose to wear a turtleneck sweater and jeans. I might choose to wear a ripped tshirt and shorts. I might choose to wear a robe or pajamas. See where I'm going with this?
You are asking for communication yet asking me to lie? You want respect? Fuck respect, fuck professionalism, and fuck all these things that make life sour, dead, and joyless.
You say respect and seriousness. Since when did respect became better than honesty and truthfulness? Since when did "seriousness" became more important that joyful curiousity, aesthetics, and playfulness? Since when banality became better than destructive creativity?
I will die, I know that. And I will not spend my short life dressed up and living like some fucking corporate schmuck wants me to because it's "professional" or "serious".
Yeah, programmers aren't special. I'm not arguing that programmers should be exceptions to dress code. I'm arguing that dress code in itself should be placed on the shelf with slavery, religion, and all those other retarded mores.
Another personality defect is ego assertion and I'll speak in this case of my own experience. I came from Los Alamos and in the early days I was using a machine in New York at 590 Madison Avenue where we merely rented time. I was still dressing in western clothes, big slash pockets, a bolo and all those things. I vaguely noticed that I was not getting as good service as other people. So I set out to measure. You came in and you waited for your turn; I felt I was not getting a fair deal. I said to myself, ``Why? No Vice President at IBM said, `Give Hamming a bad time'. It is the secretaries at the bottom who are doing this. When a slot appears, they'll rush to find someone to slip in, but they go out and find somebody else. Now, why? I haven't mistreated them.'' Answer, I wasn't dressing the way they felt somebody in that situation should. It came down to just that - I wasn't dressing properly. I had to make the decision - was I going to assert my ego and dress the way I wanted to and have it steadily drain my effort from my professional life, or was I going to appear to conform better? I decided I would make an effort to appear to conform properly. The moment I did, I got much better service. And now, as an old colorful character, I get better service than other people.
You should dress according to the expectations of the audience spoken to. If I am going to give an address at the MIT computer center, I dress with a bolo and an old corduroy jacket or something else. I know enough not to let my clothes, my appearance, my manners get in the way of what I care about. An enormous number of scientists feel they must assert their ego and do their thing their way. They have got to be able to do this, that, or the other thing, and they pay a steady price.
Now, living in the inelegant U.S., I am a programmer who works in companies with no dress codes, but chooses to wear bespoke suits, sport jackets, and the occasional tie and/or hanky in the jacket's breast pocket... because I love clothing, grooming and elegant style. I have always loved these things, ever since I was a kid.
I understand that programming and dressing well is a rare combination, and I get flak for it from the men once in a while, but the women like it. Hmmm... I wonder why. ;-)
I also love suits and bespoke clothing (having a custom-tailored shirt makes such a difference), but I understand why a lot of people don't -- it's expensive, and a chore to deal with all the time.
Speaking of which, I need to get my shirts pressed...
Because necktie:shirt::codpiece:pants
My mom is a CPA and she asked me why programmers always wanted to wear jeans and a t-shirt. The only reason I gave to her that made sense to her was that it's a culture thing.
* (assumption that primary job of corporate software developer is to develop software)
* Programmers are not soldiers, so military attitudes to management don't apply
* Big Bank management of software developers is poor
* Dress code correlates with command/control type management structure, which is undesirable, so dress code is therefore an indicator of an undesirable job.
* Due to this correlation, you should never accept a job with a dress code.
I don't like these types of op-ed pieces and yet I still read them. Something's wrong with me.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=744053
One those vices was dressing well. Who would have thought it.
A slob in a suit is still a slob.
In an age of tight money, I would expect that more firms would find this a way to save on employment expenses. Other things being equal, at the margin they'd be able to attract better talent for equal benefits. Or, conversely, they'd be able to attract equal talent while spending slightly less on benefits.
Thus, allowing casual dress can be a money saver for companies, with no real cost to implementing it.
Several posts in this thread assert that "dressing up" is a matter of respect for one's coworkers. I don't see why this is so. Certainly, observing hygiene and grooming habits so as not to be offensive fits into this framework. And certain ritualized situations (weddings, funerals, proms) demand it. But I fail to see how dress fits into the more general case.
Indeed, it seems to me that in what we like to think is a diverse, open-minded, tolerant society, that the real act of respect would be to look deeper at a person than just clothes. It's in the mind of the viewer, not the wearer.
Incidentally, the temptation of being able to wear a suit every day is one of the things that nearly drove me from physics into quant finance.
So, maybe some minimal dress code makes sense and can prevent embarassing situations or situations where other's are made uncomfortable by someone else's clothes (or lack of them).
But, having to wear a suit & tie everyday, or khakis & shirt/polo shirt, no thanks.
I have only worked for Japanese banks, so YMMV, but this seems to be the case even for the foreign guys pulled from overseas institutions, of whom we've got a lot.