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Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#11

Post by Cardeck1 »

jmilinion wrote: post #9
lutusp wrote: post #2

> For the old timers here, what was is it like in the suit and tie culture of the past? There's a bit more to it than that. There's the East/West coast factor to consider. East coast companies are much more likely to require/expect a suit and tie than a Silicon Valley company. At some East coast companies, even the janitors wear a suit and tie. I'm not making this up -- I've worked at several such companies where it…

>This way of looking at it unfortunately suffers from self-reference. Someone who won't meet the dress code won't be looked on as a "really great candidate", so the exercise is undermined at the outset. Even if that person is well known for being the best of the best? Even if their everyone knows that other companies out there would love to grab them because they are that good?

The best of the best will always be the exception to any rule in any industry.But the best of the best doesn't care if he gets fired because he will always come on top.So you are asking the wrong question.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#12

Post by thejteam »

One time an interviewer pointed out my lack of a tie. Funny thing was I was dressed up. Suit, nice pants, nice shoes. Everything but a tie. This particular place was really into ties.

Don't know if that was the reason I didn't get the job. I think I was the most junior person they interviewed, although one of the interviewers said that I did better on the technical part than a lot of people more senior than me.

This was an "inside the beltway"(DC) company, and in that area I have subsequently learned that once you go inside the beltway, you wear ties. At least if the job is government contracting related.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#13

Post by cafard »

I think that anyone not in a law firm or financial services would find it hard to remember those days.

An acquaintance, probably 70 by now, worked in IBM sales when he was first out of the Navy. He said that a fellow salesman shocked the office by coming to work in a blue rather than white shirt. (He didn't mention any deaths from the shock, so I assume the guy still had suit and tie.) And Gerald Weinberg has written of a slightly earlier period that at IBM you demonstrated that you were a genius by growing a beard and not getting fired.

I did once work for a place where men where expected to wear ties when going to customer sites. (You might also have squeeze in behind a refrigerator-sized minicomputers.) My boss grumbled a bit when one of our better techs skipped the tie on the grounds of limited range of motion, having recently had shoulder surgery. But there were no consequences.

Oh, and from the truly distant past: I worked with a man whose father-in-law had worked at FBI headquarters. The older man told of J. Edgar Hoover one day stopping in the hall, looking over at an agent in an unusually-colored suit (I think green) and say "That's an odd-colored suit for an agent to wear.) The guy was gone from headquarters the next day, I suppose shipped to Butte, Montana.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#14

Post by TheCoelacanth »

yungty wrote: post #3

Why do you people hate suits so much? What's wrong with wearing fine clothes and looking sharp? People say they're uncomfortable, but if your suit is uncomfortable you've just chosen the wrong suit. Same with your shirts. And if your tie is uncomfortable, learn to tie a knot better. People who say we should do away with the suit are arguing to do away with centuries of evolution in professional men's attire. It's lik…

I agree that a properly chosen suit can be comfortable and I don't mind wearing one on occasion, but I wouldn't want to wear one every day. Suits are far more expensive to buy and maintain than other clothes and they take a lot more work to maintain as well.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#15

Post by anywherenotes »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #8
yungty wrote: post #3

Why do you people hate suits so much? What's wrong with wearing fine clothes and looking sharp? People say they're uncomfortable, but if your suit is uncomfortable you've just chosen the wrong suit. Same with your shirts. And if your tie is uncomfortable, learn to tie a knot better. People who say we should do away with the suit are arguing to do away with centuries of evolution in professional men's attire. It's lik…

If suits weren't inherently less comfortable, we'd see them worn in the grocery store and up the hiking trail. They're not durable, they're hard to clean and mend, and they're expensive and hard to replace (since "the wrong suit" is all I can find up the street). If they didn't manipulate people into overlooking merit when making decisions, they would have long since been forgotten.

basically today's suits are like 18'th century powdered wigs.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#16

Post by 6d0debc071 »

yungty wrote: post #6
6d0debc071 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you people hate suits so much? What's wrong with wearing fine clothes and looking sharp? I don't think they make you look sharp. They're a uniform, stick a suit on and you're just another person dressed in grey or black. It doesn't exactly do anything interesting with the eye. Now, granted, there are various cuts of suit, and different pockets, ways of making them roll the shoulders to make you look broader…

A suit doesn't make you look subservient - a t-shirt saying Hollister or Linux or some other corporate entity does.

> A suit doesn't make you look subservient

To me, they have that connotation. Fashion doesn't tend to be that regular outside of close-knit groups, and even within those groups there are differences that those within can pick up on. You might think that Amish all dress alike, but they really don't. Similarly all suits look more or less alike to me, despite the fact that I'm sure if I spent a lot of time looking at suits I'd start to notice more refined differences.

To have such a narrow variation as suits tend to constitute, among a group of fairly diverse individuals... that implies to me that there's a power effectively forcing that distribution on the group.

> a t-shirt saying Hollister or Linux or some other corporate entity does.

I don't see the relevance, no-one has to wear those things so the connotation of subservience isn't there. I suppose coming off the point of the fella above this fork you could view it as submission to a group norm, but I think the connotation's different there - less about overtly oppressive dominance.

In any case, I don't wear that sort of thing - don't like writing on my clothes, if someone's advertising with my body I want to be paid for it. Prefer patterns and pictures and nice rich colours.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#17

Post by 6d0debc071 »

lutusp wrote: post #7
6d0debc071 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you people hate suits so much? What's wrong with wearing fine clothes and looking sharp? I don't think they make you look sharp. They're a uniform, stick a suit on and you're just another person dressed in grey or black. It doesn't exactly do anything interesting with the eye. Now, granted, there are various cuts of suit, and different pockets, ways of making them roll the shoulders to make you look broader…

> It's not clear what desirable function suits serve. It marks you as a team player, sort of like a sports uniform. I say it that way intentionally to show how a suit can be interpreted in both positive and negative ways. Wearing a suit means you belong to the group that wears suits. Belonging can be overrated, but it seems many want to belong to the suit-wearing, six-figure-income clique.

Ah, good point. I didn't think of that :)

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#18

Post by pasbesoin »

This doesn't directly answer your question, but I will say that if you are in an organization where "formal attire" is (re)introduced as a means to "improve the professionalism of the organization", it is time to start looking for another job.

1) It doesn't solve anything. (Despite some anecdotal or loose correlation between being "dressed up" and feeling "more professional".)

2) The type of people who promulgate such policies tend to think "they know what's right" and to be very much about control (in a top-down sense). One way or another, it's about manipulation (in some cases, even expecting to reduce headcount through resulting attrition). It is also, as often as not, "putting lipstick on the pig" before selling the organization in one fashion or another.

Just one jaded employee's perspective. But, you have been warned.

P.S. I'll add that I understand, even if I personally dislike, the role and effect of attire in some specific roles. What I'm talking about is a blanket policy that does not take employee roles into account at all.

From the male perspective:

If you're a back office person with no customer interface, or perhaps worse, a techie who has to go crawling around the floor after cables and such, being uncomfortable in and having to prematurely wear out an expensive suit is not very considerate treatment.

I'm suddenly reminded, too, of working around moving parts and having to wear a ready-made noose around my neck (neck tie). Throwing the tie over your shoulder is not very safe, and tucking it into your shirt is awkward and uncomfortable and can quickly soil the tie. A tie clip can help somewhat, but it still leaves bits out front that might get snagged if you lean in too close.

P.P.S. Ok, you hit one of my "buttons" and I perhaps too quickly responded. Looking again at this, I now want to ask you, why are you asking this? Do you face a particular situation? Or is this one of those "fishing" questions that seem to be becoming more prevalent on HN (to my personal dissatisfaction, for one).

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#19

Post by pasbesoin »

jmilinion wrote: post #9
lutusp wrote: post #2

> For the old timers here, what was is it like in the suit and tie culture of the past? There's a bit more to it than that. There's the East/West coast factor to consider. East coast companies are much more likely to require/expect a suit and tie than a Silicon Valley company. At some East coast companies, even the janitors wear a suit and tie. I'm not making this up -- I've worked at several such companies where it…

>This way of looking at it unfortunately suffers from self-reference. Someone who won't meet the dress code won't be looked on as a "really great candidate", so the exercise is undermined at the outset. Even if that person is well known for being the best of the best? Even if their everyone knows that other companies out there would love to grab them because they are that good?

Yes. There are companies, and management structures, that are much more about conformity than excellence.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone been fired for not wearing a suit and tie?

#20

Post by pasbesoin »

lutusp wrote: post #7
6d0debc071 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you people hate suits so much? What's wrong with wearing fine clothes and looking sharp? I don't think they make you look sharp. They're a uniform, stick a suit on and you're just another person dressed in grey or black. It doesn't exactly do anything interesting with the eye. Now, granted, there are various cuts of suit, and different pockets, ways of making them roll the shoulders to make you look broader…

> It's not clear what desirable function suits serve. It marks you as a team player, sort of like a sports uniform. I say it that way intentionally to show how a suit can be interpreted in both positive and negative ways. Wearing a suit means you belong to the group that wears suits. Belonging can be overrated, but it seems many want to belong to the suit-wearing, six-figure-income clique.

AKA "signalling". And it can and does go beyond "a suit" to include "the right suit / tailoring / etc".

Wearing "the wrong suit" can be about as bad as wearing no suit, from this perspective.

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