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Kelly, I hope you read this. There is, historically, a significant divide between hackers and suits. A classic example is the Jargon File's entry on "suit": ht
by MostAwesomeDude 15y ago
Kelly, I hope you read this.
There is, historically, a significant divide between hackers and suits. A classic example is the Jargon File's entry on "suit": http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/suit.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/suit.html . Whether or not you subscribe to the hacker philosophy, it would be good to understand that many of the people odious to hackers, such as marketroids and PHBs, wear suits regularly, and hacker dislike of their clothing is ingrained.
"You’ve got nothing to lose, save for some 'geek cred.'" For some of us, this amounts to a betrayal of culture. It's not about looking nice -- I own a tuxedo and wear it when appropriate (opera, weddings, etc.) but I would not wear a suit to work. I am not a suit. I'm a hacker. I write code. I eat crappy pseudo-Chinese with all the spice, get 44Oz drinks at the Circle K because they run out of 64Oz cups, grok more programming languages than spoken languages, and I am not a suit.
I'm not offended, but I just want to impress on you that this idea is far older than either of us and, as such, deserves at least some recognition on par with the idea that hackers should dress in more professional or formal clothing on a regular basis.
- tptacek 15y agoIt is probably not a good idea to eat lots of crappy pseudo-Chinese and drink 44oz Circle K drinks just to signal your nerdiness. T-shirts and ripped jeans aren't slowly killing you.
- MostAwesomeDude 15y agoI was going with things which are a part of my life. I don't eat these things because hackers eat these things, I eat these things because I like them. Incidentally, lots of hackers eat these things too. :3 I could have mentioned things like my beard, glasses, and hair longer than any female coworker, but I felt that that might be antagonistic or countering the point I was trying to make about fashion. Incidentally, I hate jeans. I wear lots of cargo pants and keep them carefully patched up, mostly because my mom's a seamstress and I get obsessive-compulsive about things.
- tptacek 15y agoPlease stop drinking 44oz sodas from Circle K. They're harming you.
- MostAwesomeDude 15y agoIt's Gatorade these days; I've been cutting back on my caffeine steadily for the past few years. I can't quite make the switch to tea like my coworkers. I don't like tea. :c
- omgsean 15y agoGatorade is just as bad. This is going to come off as judgemental but I'm saying it out of concern: if you can grok a lot of programming languages you can DEFINITELY grok nutrition.
- natesm 15y agoI like jeans and t-shirts are pretty cool (although I like button-downs sans tie better), but I also run 3+ miles daily, eat a lot of salads, and drink tap water and milk almost exclusively. I'm not sure why being unhealthy is an appealing part of "hacker culture".
- slantyyz 15y agoMust be my age talking, but if someone is paying me to work, I dress up. My policy is to dress at the same level of my clients, but I never dress below a dress shirt and dress pants. If you have two people in front of you with equally good talent and good attitude, but with one dressed down and the other dressed up, who are you going to give your money to? Personally, I'm going to hire the guy who took the extra effort to dress up.
- orangecat 15y agoPersonally, I'm going to hire the guy who took the extra effort to dress up. And as I said above, my instinct would be to hire the guy who doesn't look like he's overcompensating. But I recognize that such a superficial judgment either way is a foolish bias.
- slantyyz 15y agoDressing up is overcompensating? Wow. I don't consider it superficial. Someone who takes the effort to spend a few extra minutes iron an outfit and make himself (or herself) look a little more professional might actually be the type to do the same with his/her work output too.
- nupark2 15y agoIf you have two people in front of you with equally good talent and good attitude ... Outside of people that are equally mediocre, this literally never happens.