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TFA seems to think wearing t-shirts helps you keep the man down which is weird. I'm not so sure I'm fighting the power while working in my my nice office in a

TFA seems to think wearing t-shirts helps you keep the man down which is weird. I'm not so sure I'm fighting the power while working in my my nice office in a good part of town in an engineering job. The fact that this guy works at linked in, a business built around yuppies networking, makes that assertion even more cringe-worthy. Not to knock linked in, but they aren't exactly 'rebels'.

ezy 16y ago
In fact, I've found company t-shirts to be a little too "Stepford employee" for my tastes. It's part of a dangerous train of thought where you assume the goals of the company you work for are the same as your goals, or your personal goals must be completely aligned with the company's. Very dangerous thinking for salaried employees, IMO. On the other hand, sometimes a t-shirt is a t-shirt.
- mdiamond 16y ago
  Agreed, it's almost like a uniform. The next step is asking employees if they want to add some company "flair."
- notJim 16y ago
  I wouldn't want to wear the t-shirt of the company I work for (even though I like said company), because it feels too "rah-rah-rah, we're so great!" to me. But I love to wear t-shirts of vendors and platforms that are awesome (GitHub, for example, or Twilio, if I used Twilio.) And man, I would never wear a LinkedIn t-shirt. Pinnacle of lame (no offense, LinkedIn people, your product is very useful! But not cool.)
  - jbooth 16y ago
    The data science and scale involved are pretty cool. I'm not at LinkedIn but they've done some really cool stuff there: http://sna-projects.com/sna/ http://sna-projects.com/sna/
  - billybob 16y ago
    Yes, a LinkedIn shirt would be lame, because everyone uses that service, and (in my perception) people who talk about leveraging synergy were on it before geeks were. So it's neither a cool group nor an exclusive one. Whereas a Github t-shirt says, to other coders, "I am a coder who works with open source." And to non-coders, it means nothing. Coolness is mostly about exclusion, I think. Or to put it more nicely, it's about identifying with people you like. So if a coder can honestly say "I think Brand X is awesome, and those whom I want to impress also think that," he/she might wear a Brand X shirt to a conference. Otherwise, no.
gaius 16y ago
Actually, I miss wearing "work clothes", I like changing out of shirt and tie into jeans and t-shirt when I got home, it drew a line under the working day. Now it all blends into one (including working after hours...)
- adrianN 16y ago
  You can still switch to sweatpants when you come home. They're also more comfortable than jeans!
  - Splines 16y ago
    There's a cringe-worthy limit to how far you can carry this.
- bmelton 16y ago
  I used to feel this way for a long time actually. I had to have something to demarcate 'work time' from 'home time'. What I found that worked for me, however odd, was the notion of 'work shoes'. I'd wear a pair of 'work shoes' when I was working, and swap them out for sneakers when I was finished working, and it achieved the same effect. That worked well until I discovered Johnston & Murphy loafers anyway, which turned out to be actually more comfortable than my sneakers, but now I'm pretty much working all the time anyway, so it's .. okay?
trotsky 16y ago
My take on the subject when reading was "If you think wearing a T-shirt is a bit of an FU to the man, you're almost assuredly already the man"
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  One thing I've noticed is that the upper classes live in a world where dressing down is an act of rebellion, and the lower classes live in a world where dressing up is similarly defiant. On the lower end, you have everything from the skinhead/mod cultures wearing tailored suits and high end polos with work boots, to inner-city kids spending a ton of money on FUBU and Nike, to middle-aged black women wearing extravagant church hats and Italian-Americans wearing flashy chains and jewelry. On the upper end, you have the Bohemians, trashy hipster fashion, "derelicte", slumming it, and articles like this, about how great it is to get to wear a t-shirt to work (not so great if you're making minimum wage). The middle classes seem to bounce between the two.
  - andrewvc 16y ago
    My take on it. We're programmers, and when I code I could give fuck-all as to how I look. And I say this as a person who enjoys dressing up and buying nice clothes. Wearing t-shirts is just one less level of bullshit, and it's cheaper as well, I save my nicer clothes for non-office occasions.

ezy 16y ago

In fact, I've found company t-shirts to be a little too "Stepford employee" for my tastes. It's part of a dangerous train of thought where you assume the goals of the company you work for are the same as your goals, or your personal goals must be completely aligned with the company's. Very dangerous thinking for salaried employees, IMO. On the other hand, sometimes a t-shirt is a t-shirt.

mdiamond 16y ago
Agreed, it's almost like a uniform. The next step is asking employees if they want to add some company "flair."
notJim 16y ago
I wouldn't want to wear the t-shirt of the company I work for (even though I like said company), because it feels too "rah-rah-rah, we're so great!" to me. But I love to wear t-shirts of vendors and platforms that are awesome (GitHub, for example, or Twilio, if I used Twilio.) And man, I would never wear a LinkedIn t-shirt. Pinnacle of lame (no offense, LinkedIn people, your product is very useful! But not cool.)
- jbooth 16y ago
  The data science and scale involved are pretty cool. I'm not at LinkedIn but they've done some really cool stuff there: http://sna-projects.com/sna/ http://sna-projects.com/sna/
- billybob 16y ago
  Yes, a LinkedIn shirt would be lame, because everyone uses that service, and (in my perception) people who talk about leveraging synergy were on it before geeks were. So it's neither a cool group nor an exclusive one. Whereas a Github t-shirt says, to other coders, "I am a coder who works with open source." And to non-coders, it means nothing. Coolness is mostly about exclusion, I think. Or to put it more nicely, it's about identifying with people you like. So if a coder can honestly say "I think Brand X is awesome, and those whom I want to impress also think that," he/she might wear a Brand X shirt to a conference. Otherwise, no.

gaius 16y ago

Actually, I miss wearing "work clothes", I like changing out of shirt and tie into jeans and t-shirt when I got home, it drew a line under the working day. Now it all blends into one (including working after hours...)

adrianN 16y ago
You can still switch to sweatpants when you come home. They're also more comfortable than jeans!
- Splines 16y ago
  There's a cringe-worthy limit to how far you can carry this.
bmelton 16y ago
I used to feel this way for a long time actually. I had to have something to demarcate 'work time' from 'home time'. What I found that worked for me, however odd, was the notion of 'work shoes'. I'd wear a pair of 'work shoes' when I was working, and swap them out for sneakers when I was finished working, and it achieved the same effect. That worked well until I discovered Johnston & Murphy loafers anyway, which turned out to be actually more comfortable than my sneakers, but now I'm pretty much working all the time anyway, so it's .. okay?

trotsky 16y ago

My take on the subject when reading was "If you think wearing a T-shirt is a bit of an FU to the man, you're almost assuredly already the man"

michaelchisari 16y ago
One thing I've noticed is that the upper classes live in a world where dressing down is an act of rebellion, and the lower classes live in a world where dressing up is similarly defiant. On the lower end, you have everything from the skinhead/mod cultures wearing tailored suits and high end polos with work boots, to inner-city kids spending a ton of money on FUBU and Nike, to middle-aged black women wearing extravagant church hats and Italian-Americans wearing flashy chains and jewelry. On the upper end, you have the Bohemians, trashy hipster fashion, "derelicte", slumming it, and articles like this, about how great it is to get to wear a t-shirt to work (not so great if you're making minimum wage). The middle classes seem to bounce between the two.
- andrewvc 16y ago
  My take on it. We're programmers, and when I code I could give fuck-all as to how I look. And I say this as a person who enjoys dressing up and buying nice clothes. Wearing t-shirts is just one less level of bullshit, and it's cheaper as well, I save my nicer clothes for non-office occasions.