
Does tech discriminate against suits? - gregorymfoster
https://medium.com/@gregorymfoster/does-tech-discriminate-against-suits-2b3462f43d78#.r5k7wzxc8
======
gloves
It's funny - IMHO the Hoodie Uniform was developed because people didn't seem
to care about fashion or the clothes they were wearing - the stereotypical
devs. I can also see how this has come full circle now though, as I think to
my own office and if anyone did come in a suit, they would stick out like a
sore thumb.

On one level, it seems to be a shame - suits do show a kind of respect or
reverence for the place of work. On another, I think suits have their place,
but as work places aim to make their offices more people friendly (some would
say to keep them in the office longer) people's attires will naturally mold to
fit the environment. Perhaps the dying out of the suit is something of a
reflection of modern work practices and should be just seen as another item of
clothing someone chooses to wear, without the significance of it being 'smart'
or 'formal'.

~~~
linkregister
It seems the way to wear dress clothes in the startup/tech environment is not
to wear a simple two-piece suit. The folks in my office that get away with
business attire wear more stylish items such as vests paired with unmatching
slacks, coupled with a bold-print shirt. These kinds of looks look way more
difficult to create than going to Brooks Brothers and asking for two suits.

One legitimate reason why I would expect suit-wearers to be challenged is the
fear of formal wear being required in the office.

~~~
dragonwriter
> One legitimate reason why I would expect suit-wearers to be challenged is
> the fear of formal wear being required in the office.

Business suits are business wear, not formal wear, which is a whole different
category of clothing. Formal wear being required in the office would be a very
odd thing, indeed.

~~~
zyxley
> Formal wear being required in the office would be a very odd thing, indeed.

"I know it's inconvenient sometimes, but you would not believe how cheap it
was to rent out this extra space from the local symphony orchestra."

------
geebee
Funny how things circle and change, and sometimes, like political parties, end
up flipping completely over a generation or two.

I suppose the original reason tech rebelled against the suit was because a
suit represented conformity, an aggressively enforced dress code. Now, I
suppose you could say that tech aggressively enforces a casual dress code, to
the point where wearing a suit becomes an act non-conformity. I'm not joking
here, the blog post is absolutely right, wearing a suit may seem mildly
eccentric in a tech company. I see various people (including coworkers)
wearing suits, and there is a counter-culture element to it. Suits are worn in
different forms at the Dickens fair, by jazz and ska musicians (and people in
the audience), and by other counter-cultural types (there was a guy who worked
at Peet's coffee who always wore a suit and bowler hat).

SF is a place where this is particularly mixed up, since SF was probably the
most east coast-ish of west coast cities where it came to wearing suits as
part of the old dress code, and there are still a few more conservative
industries here (banking, law) where suits are work as part of the older
formal work culture than a new countercultural trend.

As for me? I like suits, I think they look great. I have never been required
to wear a suit to work, so I never really associated them with conformity (I
wore them mainly at weddings and a very few parties, so I have positive
connotations). Like Greg Foster (author of the post), people would give me a
strange look if I wore a suit to the office, but now that I think about it,
there actually is one guy who wears a suit to the office every day...

~~~
Kalium
Personal anecdote time! My uncle is general counsel at a fairly conservative
finance firm in FiDi. So he hits both banking and law. He once told me that
it's due to tech culture informality that he doesn't have to wear a tie every
day anymore.

------
scrumper
Being a meekly frustrated warrior like many modern men, I sometimes imagine
the process of putting a suit on in the morning as akin to donning chain mail
and plate armor before a battle. Certainly it helps me get in the right frame
of mind for the day, and when I get home the kids know I'll need to swap it
for 'play clothes' before I'll roll around on the floor with them. I've worn a
suit everywhere I've worked, even in casual companies on client-free days. It
helps to enforce a separation between work and home which is, for me, a
critical part of work/life balance.

Edited to add: you've already noticed the positive attention it's got you from
senior management. This will only continue. And, until you can afford the real
thing, I can wholeheartedly recommend having custom suits made by one of the
visiting Hong Kong tailors which stop through every major city. They're
inexpensive and the fit will be significantly better than off-the-peg. They
won't last years but you'll get to pick every detail, and you can have a lot
of fun with lining fabrics if you're not in consulting or law.

~~~
Kalium
With the advent of Indochino, Proper Suit, Black Lapel, Dragon Inside, and
more it's possible to get the Hong Kong tailor experience without having to
find one of those scheduled to stop near you. Indochino and Proper Suit have
storefronts in SF.

~~~
scrumper
Ah true but part of the fun for OP will be having a smiling gentleman fondle
his inside leg in an anonymous hotel suite. No app can reproduce that.

~~~
Kalium
For that, there's always Craigslist!

Slightly more seriously, the Indochino storefront has you covered on that
front.

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rm_-rf_slash
I think the problem is that most developers tend to be the nerdy types who
didn't care much for fashion as a kid, or have the money in college to look
good. Now they're in the workforce and they feel validated for dressing like
shit: hoodies and pajamas are cute every once in a while but seriously, grow
up and dress yourself like you're gonna get laid one of these days.

The way I see it, if you code, chances are you've got some coin. Find a look
that matches your personality and stick to it. Plaid? Go for it. All black?
Can't hurt. Vest and tie? Lookin' good. It doesn't have to be perfect, just
wear what works. And for the love of God, even if you wear college clothes for
the rest of your life, invest in a decent pair of shoes.

Ironically, the root of a lot of hacker culture is non-conformity. Jeans and a
hoodie are a conformist statement if everyone else does it, whether you like
it or not. And ask yourself why comfy clothing that can be slept in is
promoted in work environments that prefer you to always be at the office.

My rule of thumb: dress the way you'd like to be seen by someone you want
hiring or sleeping with you.

~~~
cballard
> Vest and tie? Lookin' good.

No, this really looks genuinely terrible. Never wear a tie without a jacket.

[http://putthison.com/post/29635680290/q-and-answer-when-
can-...](http://putthison.com/post/29635680290/q-and-answer-when-can-i-wear-a-
tie-without-a)

> The answer is pretty much “I work at a cell phone store.”

(vest without jacket is just as bad, except it's "I'm a waiter")

~~~
dragonwriter
> (vest without jacket is just as bad, except it's "I'm a waiter")

Pretty much only if it is a _black_ vest with black pants and black tie and
black or white shirt.

~~~
cballard
Think of it like this, an order of formality:

\- Jacket \- Tie \- Vest

Each is a step up in formality, and should not be done without the previous,
unless you're Nick Wooster, and you're not.

~~~
tjr
I've seen people wearing a tie with no jacket; they did not work at a cell
phone store, nor did I think that they looked like they did. I've seen people
wearing vests (with or without ties) without jackets; they were not waiters,
nor did I think that they looked like they were.

I'm not sure if these alleged rules you speak of are codified somewhere, but
given the context of the conversation (people around me are wearing hoodies
and pajamas while I'm wearing a suit), I find it hard to imagine any
combination of jackets, ties, and vests being truly inappropriate...

~~~
dllthomas
If you try something out, and think you look great, and find that others
agree, then bin any given rule. But most people, most of the time, are most
likely to look best following most rules.

Personally, I don't like the look or feel of a tie with no jacket, or a suit
with no tie.

------
nickpsecurity
Nice write-up. Reminds me of the Steve Jobs portrayal on the excellent Pirates
of Silicon Valley movie. Jobs and the other rebels mocked the "IBM types" in
suits. Got nowhere in business world as "suits" dominated financing.
Eventually, Jobs changes his appearance to look like a suit outwardly while
inwardly being a rebel. Once successful, he reverts a bit to go back to
rebellious appearance when inside of Apple while mocking IBM types and suits
once again. While one suit with great poker skills, esp bluffing, straight up
took his stuff and made a fortune off it working with other suits. That was
Gates.

All in all, just goes to show that what a person could do was always more
important than what they wore. Even worse, people often dress to deceive:
pushing an image intended to influence observer for wearer's selfish benefit.
Also called "dress for success." So, I have a bias where I watch out for that
kind of thing. Interesting enough, Silicon Valley does the same thing with
_their_ dress styles aiming to fit in. Gets to the point that it's almost a
survival strategy where people often wear expected stuff to avoid getting
filtered out due to appearance.

Props to Greg for simply wearing what he liked and letting his actions speak
louder than his words. He and Jonathan have nice suits, too. Reminds me I need
to buy another one as I rarely wear a suit and occasionally like how it
looks/feels. I'll be sure to get whatever style everyone else isn't wearing to
satisfy the rebel in me. :)

------
tikhonj
To answer the question: maybe, somewhat? There's a pretty big difference
between that and an actual dress code though, which is far worse. Wearing a
suit at a tech company might draw a few weird glances or comments, but it
won't get you fired outright. Wearing casual clothes at a bank will.

The fact that the culture isn't absolutely, consistently accepting is
unfortunate, but it's much better than what came before.

I'm sure a bias exists, but it's subtle. It's the sort of thing that if you
_expect_ , you'll _see more_.

> _They smile when the quirky and brilliant hacker wears pajamas and
> rollerblades to the office, but when they meet the coder in a suit, their
> polite expressions falter for a second._

Polite expressions faltering? That's the sort of thing you'll find if you're
looking for it, whether it's there or not. A person wearing pajamas would have
a larger effect in absolute terms; the difference is relative: a tech company
would be more accepting of pajamas _than you 'd expect_ and less so of suits.

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cballard
> As long as I can remember my father would work 12 hours a day, 6 days a
> week, wearing a suit to the office. I’ve always wanted to follow his
> example.

What!? This is not something to be admired!

~~~
btbuildem
How is that different from a stereotypical startup work week?

~~~
dllthomas
... the suit?

------
btbuildem
I like to wear my suit to work a few times per year, just on random days. I've
been approached by higher ups more than once with the question "Are you
interviewing somewhere else?" First time I got a kick out of it, but after
reflecting decided that it was a good way to send a subtle message now and
then.

~~~
Kalium
I wear a suit every Friday. People definitely notice. It helps that I sit
directly along the path between the entrance and the main work area in the
main SF office.

(And several coworkers probably suspect who I am. Hi!)

It's prompted a fair number of wisecracks, but people seemed to have warmed to
the idea that implicit dress codes don't need to be strict.

~~~
beachstartup
that's a neat trick. probably comes in handy for friday happy hour.

~~~
Kalium
It probably would, if I was clever enough to go to any of those.

. . .

Maybe I should.

~~~
beachstartup
you're already dressed for it and work in sf, you might as well stop in for a
drink and strike up some conversations.

~~~
Kalium
TODO: Figure out where to go for Friday happy hour.

------
maldusiecle
A photo caption from the article: "Silicon Valley vs Mad Men — who would you
rather be?"

But Mad Men is a show largely about its characters' bad behavior--their casual
bigotry, crass money-grubbing, etc. If you're wearing a suit because you want
to be Don Draper, you're not just a poor interpreter of television; you're
probably a pretty poor excuse for a person.

I don't have anything against suits, per se. I'd point out that there are a
lot of points on the spectrum between full-casual and a suit, though. I tend
to wear business casual; comfortable, flattering, not too expensive. But it
feels pretty grotesque to complain that you're being discriminated against for
choosing to wear expensive, tailored clothing, especially when there are
people really suffering discrimination because of their gender or the color of
their skin.

~~~
klipt
Maybe the grim lesson is that a crass bigot in a suit gets better treatment
than a decent person in casual.

------
shalmanese
This post reminds me of the 42Floors blog post from a while ago:

Another quick story before I really dive into this blog post. We had a
gentleman over to interview for one of our account executive positions at
42Floors. He had strong experience leasing SF office space: great resume,
great cover letter, did well in our initial phone screen.

When he walked in the door, we could hear the clacking of his shoes on our
hardwood floor. He was dressed impeccably in a suit that probably cost more
than my first car and was carrying one of those leathery-thingys that seemed
to exist only for the purpose of being carried during interviews.

I stole a glance to a few of the people from my team who had looked up when he
walked in. I could sense the disappointment.

We’re all happily wearing blue jeans and sneakers. It’s not that we’re so
petty or strict about the dress code that we are going to disqualify him for
not following an unwritten rule, but we know empirically that people who come
in dressed in suits rarely work out well for our team.

He was failing the go-out-for-a-beer test and he didn’t even know it.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140618142018/http://blog.42floors.com/interviewing-
at-a-startup/)

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reagle
It probably isn't read as a "Red Sneakers Effect" and so it doesn't serve you
in the eyes of peers---even if idiosyncratic.

[http://reagle.org/joseph/2015/merit/merit.html#geek-
superior...](http://reagle.org/joseph/2015/merit/merit.html#geek-superiority)

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tomjen3
The company I work for is extremely casual, but there are couple who wear
suits to work every day (though sans tie) and nobody much care. That said if
wear a suit at a conference then my first guess is not that you are a
programmer, unless you do something else to highlight that you code for a
living.

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vinceguidry
I've noticed it's less about the suit and more about the tie. If I wear a suit
without a tie to work, I get some compliments, but when I wear a tie, with or
without a suit, the CEO will start joking that I'm going to a job interview
later on.

A suit is just clothes. A tie is a statement.

~~~
dllthomas
I have yet to wear a suit to work, aside from my interview. I have twice worn
a tie. No one noticed.

------
perlgeek
My personal experience is that tech folks tend to forget about clothing very
quickly if you're actually competent.

If you go around throwing buzzwords everywhere, tech people make fun of you.
If you also wear a suit while throwing around buzzwords, well, all the more
fun.

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yarrel
Hello privilege assertion.

~~~
scrumper
Is that a kind of privilege escalation?

~~~
JorgeGT
Yes, of the social engineering class. Really dangerous if you substitute the
suit with a hard hat and a paperclip - access is granted to virtually all
physical infrastructure.

~~~
teddyh
(I think you mean a clipboard, not a paperclip.)

~~~
JorgeGT
Yes, thanks! Although a paperclip is also a powerful tool when you need to
open a computer without having a screwdriver available :P

