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klodolph 7y ago
> Why is this that solid of a fact to you? It’s not. > That is why I question why you are so confident that it's the t-shirt that's so elite. I don’t say that, at least not in that sense. > In such mixed dynamics, you're never going to find it's the programmers who wear suits and the executive class look like young teenagers in hoodies. Who has the power here? This conversation loses too much insight when we flatten things down into a single more power / less power dimension. I will say that the programmers I see wearing T-shirts are earning $100k+, and they can work remotely, have a flexible schedule, and often ditch meetings which they don’t feel like attending. They go to a café and order coffee from a barista who wears a uniform and may not dye their hair an “unnatural” color, who earns $25k and doesn’t learn their work schedule until the last minute. The suit, at least, if you wear it every day, can communicate “this is kind of uncomfortable and ridiculous, and as soon as permissible, I will take it off.” I can understand why some people would see it as a conceit, at the same time, to the people who must wear suits, it is generally annoying or inconvenient more than anything else. > In such mixed dynamics, you're never going to find it's the programmers who wear suits and the executive class look like young teenagers in hoodies. Who has the power here? “Never” is certainly too strong an assertion here, I’m going to interpret it as hyperbole because there are plenty of exceptions. Some alternative comparisons that are very informative are to compare different departments within an institution. In tech companies, take a tour of where the developers sit, the QA department (if it’s not contracted out!), customer support, sales, marketing, communications, and HR. There are also strong regional differences at play here. West coast casual attire is fairly unusual even compared to other parts of the US. So I’ve come to have a pretty dark opinion of the T-shirt dress code. To me, it symbolizes the entitlement of the west-coast tech elite.