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Choose your status game wisely

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Re: Choose your status game wisely

#331

Post by sanderjd »

Daishiman wrote: post #303
sanderjd wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you get started? I've never been able to figure out how to break into wearing nice clothes that mesh well with my age. I have tried the typical fashion-in-a-box things, but the clothes always seem (to me) to skew too young. I don't want to be a well-dressed college kid or entry-level professional...

Find good lookbooks to derive a sense of good fit and what range of styles exist, how you personally like them, and how the fit in different social contexts. The Permanent Style blog has a bunch on this; the Sartorialist has pictures from a very broad range of styles. Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look go…

> Peruse clothing from high-quality shops

How does one know what shops are high-quality? I'm sure price is one place to start, but I doubt that all expensive shops are high quality. How do you tell the difference between the two?

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#332

Post by gaia »

madaxe_again wrote: post #244
bsenftner wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's old money. they have had money in their family so long, it is like the air. They display their status by rejecting conspicuous consumption in all but a few instances. The families tend to be extremely protective. In social settings the conversation can appear like active college professors debating, their educations being really what the spend their time honing.

It’s not just old money that this affects - I’ve noticed that new money, once it achieves a certain degree of security (i.e. enough that you don’t have to work, you won’t lose it or find your needs not met bar some catastrophic world-ending or life-ending circumstance), adopts much the same values. I’ve spent most of my life surrounded by wealth and privilege of various different flavours, and you can practically sme…

This reminds me much of the Dutch society. Although I'm not Dutch, I've lived there twice, and I frequented both old, new and no money circles. What struck me the most among Dutch was how similar a blue collar worker and the president of KLM would look riding a bike down the street.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#333

Post by mr_toad »

chillacy wrote: post #295
tomgp wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DFW concluded that if you don’t choose what to worship it gets chosen for you. What he’s saying is that one should be conscious and deliberate, self aware. Like much of DFW there’s a strong christian undercurrent to ‘this is water’. Far from being an argument against religion and worship the message i take is that the value of religion can be that it focuses one outward, towards community and so on.

DFW claims religion is immune to this effect but to me it seems like another statement to add could be: “worship god and you’ll feel like a sinner”

> worship god and you’ll feel like a sinner

Especially if you pick the wrong God.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#334

Post by skhm »

contradistinct wrote: post #260
trh0awayman wrote: post #195

I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around. I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids). Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ra…

> I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around. This is counter-signalling. "I don't have to dress like a high-status individual, because I'm so high status that my high status is clear either way." It's why somewhat intelligent people use big words, but very intelligent people speak plainly: they are so intelligent their…

Maybe I need to stop using “tautological”, “orthogonal”, etc in my speech… they are so ingrained into me from academic settings but in hindsight and in a professional context there are definitely people politely nodding and either thinking “I’ll look that up later” - or more commonly they’ll know the words just fine and instead it’s “why not just say ‘obvious’ / ‘unrelated’ / etc”.

I like trying to be precise but I think it’s coming at the cost of actual understanding/conveying the wrong status-signal (I don’t want an elitist vibe at work either!)

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#335

Post by klyrs »

darkerside wrote: post #329
klyrs wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money can be used to measure value. If I offer you a billion dollars to chop off your arm and eat it raw, then your response to that offer indicates to me how much you value your health. But, if I'm a trillionaire, that billion dollars represents 0.1% of my total wealth, so the marginal cost to me is negligable. The perceived value of a dollar is proportional to the observer's wealth. Are they related? Sure, but it's…

A flawed definition is superior to the absence of one. You don't think the CEO of Mozilla is providing value? I realize I'm sitting in idealistic terms, and it's to describe a point of view I'm not sure you fully understand. But at this point, I don't think it's that you don't understand it, you just don't care for the framework I'm describing. Perhaps you feel it's not important or useful to your life. I have found…

> A flawed definition is superior to the absence of one.

I wholly disagree. According to the money=value definition, if I sell identical items at two prices, the one with the higher price is the better value. This is patently stupid. And people fall for it in droves, so I think it's dangerously stupid.

> You don't think the CEO of Mozilla is providing value?

In my personal opinion, I think she's driving the ship to ground; I'm fairly convinced that actions by the company under her watch have steeply reduced the value of the company. But, that isn't really what I said previously: I question if she's providing 10x the value of a senior developer -- this is a general question applicable to most executive salaries today. In the money=value paradigm, she's being paid that much and therefore she's obviously that valuable. Which, I hope you see why I think that's laughably foolish.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#336

Post by Daishiman »

sanderjd wrote: post #331
Daishiman wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find good lookbooks to derive a sense of good fit and what range of styles exist, how you personally like them, and how the fit in different social contexts. The Permanent Style blog has a bunch on this; the Sartorialist has pictures from a very broad range of styles. Peruse clothing from high-quality shops and try out a _lot_ of things to get a feel for how clothes fit you and what fabrics you like. Clothing look go…

> Peruse clothing from high-quality shops How does one know what shops are high-quality? I'm sure price is one place to start, but I doubt that all expensive shops are high quality. How do you tell the difference between the two?

Good question. I don't have a general answer; I have a lot of interest in tailoring and formal menswear, where you generally get what you pay for with few exceptions and where you can definitely see the difference in quality of fabrics and fit and finish.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#337

Post by MajorBee »

epgui wrote: post #65
angarg12 wrote: post #59

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those c…

I actually feel pressure to dress down in my role as a SWE: hoodies and jeans seem like the norm, and forget about wearing a suit (lol!) or even a dress shirt. I've found black/grey turtlenecks to be a nice middle ground, and apart from the occasional "one more thing" (Steve Jobs) or Elizabeth Holmes comment, those tend to work well.

This is quite common for women in tech (particularly engineering), I've heard. If you look "too attractive" as a female engineer, you'd more likely not be taken seriously, not to mention attract unwanted attention by being a woman in a male-dominated field.

At the end of the day, every group of people -- all the way from ethno-national levels to your particular niche in industry -- have their social signalling implements, and clothing/appearance happens to be a very common implement.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#338

Post by borroka »

lliamander wrote: post #134
angarg12 wrote: post #59

Not sure how this will sit with the HN crowd, but a couple of years back I got into menswear, and I derive some pleasure from being the "best dressed guy" at the office. Beyond personal opinions on that particular hobby, I can confirm first hand that living at the intersection of two or more personas (e.g. a programmer that dresses well) brings a peculiar sense of joy. I might no have much status in either of those c…

I started into menswear last year and I find it deeply fascinating, but hard to fit into the very casual tech office culture. What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?

I go with a " spezzato", which is pants and blazer of different fabric and/or color. Less formal than a suit and allows for more creativity. Neapolitan blazers look especially good on fit people. If tailored or made to measure, don't forget to unbutton the last button on the sleeve, a top player move. Most, if not all, of my colleagues dress in sweatshirts and ill-fitting jeans. I'm sure some of them see me as "eccentric" or "aloof" or someone who wants to stand out. And they would be right (not aloof though).

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#339

Post by lliamander »

epgui wrote: post #294
8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, i think that's why i failed my first interview or two. dressed down for my last one and got hired no problem

Am I the only person who thinks it’s very plausible that that was indeed a factor, and also that it’s crazy for that to be the case?

My first job out of college had a strict(er) dress code. It also had the lowest average competence of any company I've worked for, by a large margin.

The places that have been the least strict about supposedly "professional" things like dress code, hours worked (etc.) have all been the most professional in terms of quality of work and mutual respect.

From that perspective, dressing more formally can be considered a signal of having the wrong priorities.

That said, while I don't think I would necessarily wear a suit to work, I want to use my dress-code freedom to dress up a bit, in a way that I think looks flattering.

Paradoxically, I would maybe shy away from the suit during the interview, but switch to it once you've been hired and established your credibility.

Re: Choose your status game wisely

#340

Post by lliamander »

borroka wrote: post #338
lliamander wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started into menswear last year and I find it deeply fascinating, but hard to fit into the very casual tech office culture. What's a typical outfit look like for you? Do you have a "uniform"?

I go with a " spezzato", which is pants and blazer of different fabric and/or color. Less formal than a suit and allows for more creativity. Neapolitan blazers look especially good on fit people. If tailored or made to measure, don't forget to unbutton the last button on the sleeve, a top player move. Most, if not all, of my colleagues dress in sweatshirts and ill-fitting jeans. I'm sure some of them see me as "eccen…

Interesting! I still try to keep things fairly casual. If I do some sort of "jacket", it usually a pretty casual sport coat with a crewneck underneath, paired with dark jeans or chinos.
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