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I don't see that at all. Lawyers in general dress better than most other professions except finance. I've worked in hospitals and never saw the doctors dressing

by vacri 11y ago

I don't see that at all. Lawyers in general dress better than most other professions except finance. I've worked in hospitals and never saw the doctors dressing as well as lawyers[1] - some consultants do, but far from the majority doctors. Friends of mine are in architecture, and I don't see that there either. Same with engineering in general - neat casual seems much more par for the course. Academics also don't often fit the bill. In contrast, the 'neckbeard and star wars t-shirt' is something I've never personally seen working in tech. Neckbeard, yes. I've worked in one waterfall shop and four agile shops, and liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time (zero t-shirts there) - the 'sci-fi geek visible at 100 yards' is a trope, a stereotype. The techies I've worked with have been overwhelmingly male (only one female developer in all that time) and about half of them were family men. That's something the 'computer professional' stereotype actively opposes, instead painting people that are into computers as social losers who can't get a girl. IT is more accepting of shabbiness in dress than other professions, but I simply don't see the sloganed t-shirt as being the actual standard attire of computer professionals. Instead it seems more to be a shorthand stereotype, just like a white coat and stethoscope signals 'doctor' in the collective mind. [1] I do have bias here - when I say 'lawyers', I mean ones in business. I haven't had interaction with lawyers dealing in personal matters. I imagine they dress to suit.

tptacek 11y ago
I think you're making observations from a biased selection of lawyers. BigLaw corporate lawyers wear suits and ties. But most lawyers aren't that, and most of them wear business casual just like everybody else. Meanwhile: if you select down to consulting software developers, particularly those working at major (500+ headcount) firms selling to Fortune 500 companies, you're going to find that they don't dress like the stereotypical software developer either. Those consultants are the CS equivalent of BigLaw lawyers.
- vacri 11y ago
  I don't think "I've ... liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time" marries up well with "if you select down to consulting software developers". :) The biggest headcount of a company I've worked in tech with is 60, most of whom were not in IT. The other tech companies are all 10-20 people, including part-timers. Only one company I worked for sold to Fortune 500 - ironically this one had the shabbiest dress of all. Three of those companies had lawyers - they all dressed in suit-with-optional-tie. As did their visitors (visitors rarely optioned out of the tie) and the lawyers I'd talk to from other companies (admittedly a rare occurrence). Apart from the medical sales at the waterfall place and finance staff, I rarely see a suit jacket in the neat casual dress of other staff (IT or otherwise). I realise this is all anecdata, but at the same time, the 'neckbeard and t-shirt' idiom is a grossly incorrect stereotype.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    This particular argument is just not interesting to me. I disagree with you: I think lawyers dress like pretty much all the rest of the accountants, salespeople, marketing managers, and project managers that make up the modern workforce. I think that if there's any profession that does have an informally enforced and idiosyncratic dress code, it's the programmers, with their surreptitious warnings to preferred job candidates not to wear a suit to the interview. I respect that you've had a different set of experiences and drawn different conclusions, but respectfully: I think I'm just going to be hard to convince otherwise on these points, and having a message board slapfight over which jobs wear more ties --- I can visualize myself trying to Google my way to a survey answer to this question now --- shudder --- just seems like a terrible use of our time.
    - vacri 11y ago
      I'm happy to agree to disagree, though we both agree that IT is more tolerant of shabbiness. I do think that your definition of 'professional' is too narrow - 'professionals' are more than finance, sales, and middle-managers. I guess my point was primarily that the stereotype of developers doesn't seem to match up with the actuality of developers. I just get verbose and waffley at times. And yes, this isn't a debate that should send either of us a-searching :)

by vacri 11y ago

tptacek 11y ago

I think you're making observations from a biased selection of lawyers. BigLaw corporate lawyers wear suits and ties. But most lawyers aren't that, and most of them wear business casual just like everybody else. Meanwhile: if you select down to consulting software developers, particularly those working at major (500+ headcount) firms selling to Fortune 500 companies, you're going to find that they don't dress like the stereotypical software developer either. Those consultants are the CS equivalent of BigLaw lawyers.

vacri 11y ago
I don't think "I've ... liaised with techies in enterprise from time to time" marries up well with "if you select down to consulting software developers". :) The biggest headcount of a company I've worked in tech with is 60, most of whom were not in IT. The other tech companies are all 10-20 people, including part-timers. Only one company I worked for sold to Fortune 500 - ironically this one had the shabbiest dress of all. Three of those companies had lawyers - they all dressed in suit-with-optional-tie. As did their visitors (visitors rarely optioned out of the tie) and the lawyers I'd talk to from other companies (admittedly a rare occurrence). Apart from the medical sales at the waterfall place and finance staff, I rarely see a suit jacket in the neat casual dress of other staff (IT or otherwise). I realise this is all anecdata, but at the same time, the 'neckbeard and t-shirt' idiom is a grossly incorrect stereotype.
- tptacek 11y ago
  This particular argument is just not interesting to me. I disagree with you: I think lawyers dress like pretty much all the rest of the accountants, salespeople, marketing managers, and project managers that make up the modern workforce. I think that if there's any profession that does have an informally enforced and idiosyncratic dress code, it's the programmers, with their surreptitious warnings to preferred job candidates not to wear a suit to the interview. I respect that you've had a different set of experiences and drawn different conclusions, but respectfully: I think I'm just going to be hard to convince otherwise on these points, and having a message board slapfight over which jobs wear more ties --- I can visualize myself trying to Google my way to a survey answer to this question now --- shudder --- just seems like a terrible use of our time.
  - vacri 11y ago
    I'm happy to agree to disagree, though we both agree that IT is more tolerant of shabbiness. I do think that your definition of 'professional' is too narrow - 'professionals' are more than finance, sales, and middle-managers. I guess my point was primarily that the stereotype of developers doesn't seem to match up with the actuality of developers. I just get verbose and waffley at times. And yes, this isn't a debate that should send either of us a-searching :)