4 ms·

Maybe wearing a beat-up t-shirt that says "Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies. " would help establish the OP as an engineer.

Killah911 14y ago
That's why I prefer to be an engineer, so I don't have to F#@$ing dress up like anybody! "Dress up like an engineer", WTF is that supposed to be? Am I the only person who is dumbfounded by this? We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done... The only time I ever "dress up" is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch.
- claudius 14y ago
  Monocles and pocket watches are cool (just like bow ties).
- stephencanon 14y ago
  Seriously. Engineers don't (shouldn’t) need to dress like anything to have their skills recognized. Like dressing like a hipster? Great. Enjoy wearing bespoke suits? Great. Look like a Abercrombie model? Great. Hoodies? Great. If you’re competent and honest and work hard, I respect your chops. I don’t care how you dress.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  And therein is the paradox. James Gosling tells a great story about having a visiting professor come in to give a talk, the grad students hosted him for dinner the night before. The professor casually remarked that he was sad he had left his plaid shirt at home. Every grad student was wearing a plaid shirt. It was a completely unconscious thing, but when pointed out very obvious. James tends to wear t-shirts these days with inside jokes on them :-) When I was working at Google the cafes provided a great place to watch people. Here was a large sample of silicon valley engineers. And looking at the way they chose to wear was fascinating. From really carefully put together outfits, to random sets of things, to carefully selected to appear random but not actually be random. An amazing spectrum. What I concluded is that if you make no conscious choice at all, your random selection will be biased toward what your eye has seen on others. That leads to a homogeneity in appearance which is both unintentional and obvious when you look for it. The interesting people for me were the ones who looked like they were part of the random crowd except they didn't have the sort of random mistakes that came with true randomness. Either by design or a natural fashion talent I don't know. But interesting anyway.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  > "WTF is that supposed to be?" A de facto norm that arises out of any subculture. When you have enough people all hanging around each other all the time, all kinds of things develop, including fashion. > "We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done..." > "is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch" So... you balk at being judged on your fashion choices, but you're more than willing to judge others for their fashion choices? These two sentences refute each other.
  - Killah911 14y ago
    Monocle & a pocket watch aren't exactly fashion choices. I was hinting at "dress codes" as being more reflective of the 18th-early 19th century thinking and not quite so relevant in the 21st century and the Information Age. I was trying to be succinct.
    - potatolicious 14y ago
      Those two concepts aren't as separate as you want them to be. At the end of the day you're still suggesting a link between a mode of thinking and a mode of dress - while at the same time objecting to that link being drawn for yourself. You can't make a post complaining about people stereotyping engineers, while stereotyping "business types" in the same sentence.
      - Killah911 14y ago
        Congrats, you win!
- lmm 14y ago
  It's a more efficient social protocol - rather than having to ask everyone what their interests are at the start, and abandon 80% of conversations, you dress in a way that indicates what you're interested in, and then can quickly identify the like-minded people you want to talk to. I thought engineers were all about efficiency.
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    The Knuth quote regarding premature optimization is rarely so apt.
    - lmm 14y ago
      Being able to spend less time talking to the people I don't want to (and more time talking to the people I do) would probably be the single greatest improvement to my life. It's not at all premature to expend a bit of effort on it.
      - stephencanon 14y ago
        Two things: first, learning how to talk to people with whom you don't have much in common is remarkably valuable. Second, even if you don't care, making that decision on the basis of how someone is dressed is superficial in the extreme.

Killah911 14y ago

That's why I prefer to be an engineer, so I don't have to F#@$ing dress up like anybody! "Dress up like an engineer", WTF is that supposed to be? Am I the only person who is dumbfounded by this? We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done... The only time I ever "dress up" is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch.

claudius 14y ago
Monocles and pocket watches are cool (just like bow ties).
stephencanon 14y ago
Seriously. Engineers don't (shouldn’t) need to dress like anything to have their skills recognized. Like dressing like a hipster? Great. Enjoy wearing bespoke suits? Great. Look like a Abercrombie model? Great. Hoodies? Great. If you’re competent and honest and work hard, I respect your chops. I don’t care how you dress.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
And therein is the paradox. James Gosling tells a great story about having a visiting professor come in to give a talk, the grad students hosted him for dinner the night before. The professor casually remarked that he was sad he had left his plaid shirt at home. Every grad student was wearing a plaid shirt. It was a completely unconscious thing, but when pointed out very obvious. James tends to wear t-shirts these days with inside jokes on them :-) When I was working at Google the cafes provided a great place to watch people. Here was a large sample of silicon valley engineers. And looking at the way they chose to wear was fascinating. From really carefully put together outfits, to random sets of things, to carefully selected to appear random but not actually be random. An amazing spectrum. What I concluded is that if you make no conscious choice at all, your random selection will be biased toward what your eye has seen on others. That leads to a homogeneity in appearance which is both unintentional and obvious when you look for it. The interesting people for me were the ones who looked like they were part of the random crowd except they didn't have the sort of random mistakes that came with true randomness. Either by design or a natural fashion talent I don't know. But interesting anyway.
potatolicious 14y ago
> "WTF is that supposed to be?" A de facto norm that arises out of any subculture. When you have enough people all hanging around each other all the time, all kinds of things develop, including fashion. > "We're all about judging worth based on who someone is and what they've done..." > "is when I have to deal with certain business types who are perfectly comfortable with a monocle & a pocket watch" So... you balk at being judged on your fashion choices, but you're more than willing to judge others for their fashion choices? These two sentences refute each other.
- Killah911 14y ago
  Monocle & a pocket watch aren't exactly fashion choices. I was hinting at "dress codes" as being more reflective of the 18th-early 19th century thinking and not quite so relevant in the 21st century and the Information Age. I was trying to be succinct.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    Those two concepts aren't as separate as you want them to be. At the end of the day you're still suggesting a link between a mode of thinking and a mode of dress - while at the same time objecting to that link being drawn for yourself. You can't make a post complaining about people stereotyping engineers, while stereotyping "business types" in the same sentence.
    - Killah911 14y ago
      Congrats, you win!
lmm 14y ago
It's a more efficient social protocol - rather than having to ask everyone what their interests are at the start, and abandon 80% of conversations, you dress in a way that indicates what you're interested in, and then can quickly identify the like-minded people you want to talk to. I thought engineers were all about efficiency.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  The Knuth quote regarding premature optimization is rarely so apt.
  - lmm 14y ago
    Being able to spend less time talking to the people I don't want to (and more time talking to the people I do) would probably be the single greatest improvement to my life. It's not at all premature to expend a bit of effort on it.
    - stephencanon 14y ago
      Two things: first, learning how to talk to people with whom you don't have much in common is remarkably valuable. Second, even if you don't care, making that decision on the basis of how someone is dressed is superficial in the extreme.