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> Because the T-shirt is a symbol of Silicon Valley technology culture, privilege, and entitlement which I reject. Why is this that solid of a fact to you? If

> Because the T-shirt is a symbol of Silicon Valley technology culture, privilege, and entitlement which I reject. Why is this that solid of a fact to you? If you had to imagine the best way to scale a workforce, and you were worried about artificial barriers, why is not the suit which reeks of gate-keeping? How is it the t-shirt, which just about every young American owns, the culprit of privilege and entitlement? I agree that the signals of money or power is an armor against racial judgments about criminal risk. I just don't agree to sustaining the gate-keeping as the necessary moral price to pay. In fact, if this armor is to be depended on, then its quality depends on the degree of gatekeeping. We are after all saying it is problematic if there isn't a visible symbol to show you're not one of the bad ones. Have you been to an office where the dress culture is divided into two? I find it happens even to startups the size of 30. When the executive business class meets together for lunch or causal conversations between the hours, the concentrated signal of high quality suit is really loud to me. In such mixed dynamics I have found the suit to be the signal of executive power, and the same to be true when the company is large enough for in-house legal. That is why I question why you are so confident that it's the t-shirt that's so elite. 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?

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.

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.