
Why T-shirts matter at tech companies - rondevera
http://blog.adamnash.com/2010/11/29/why-t-shirts-matter/
======
nagrom
I work in a university with a bunch of late-20s, early-30s. All of my group
wear, unfailingly, collared shirts and sweaters or sports coats or suits. We
wear those because we like looking, and feeling, like independent adults -
we're not teenagers and don't want to look like them. (Partly, we also don't
want to be confused with students, I guess.)

When the professor bought us t-shirts for one particular project, it felt a
bit like we were being put in our places - "Hey kids!". None of us have worn
them to work. Nor will we; a formal shirt looks and feels better than a
t-shirt, regardless of the quality of the t-shirt.

I think that the "t-shirts stick-it-to-the-man" attitude is pretty sad. No
organization ever felt threatened by a subordinate wearing a t-shirt. Try
wearing a better suit than your boss, try wearing a tailored shirt or better
shoes. Rather than dressing like a rebellious teenager, try dressing like
his/her boss. T-shirts seem like a rather poorly-thought-through immature act
of rebellion to me.

Interestingly, the older guys in the group (40+) all wear (occasionally
stained) t-shirts and claim to be completely uninterested in how they look.
They also spend a lot of time taking the piss out of those of us who wear
smarter clothes, telling us that we don't have to wear them. They also spend
quite a bit of time (somewhat) desperately trying to convince us to dress
down.

The head of the group, the professor, unfailingly wears a formal shirt and
sports coat, of course.

~~~
mryall
Maybe if you live in a cold climate, then wearing a long-sleeved shirt and
trousers won't be a problem. In Sydney, where I work for a company that
permits casual dress, most of engineers show up in shorts, t-shirt and flip-
flops for the whole summer. The formal suits that I see the bankers wearing to
work are neither well suited to our climate, nor essential for the work most
of them do.

When I walk to work in a t-shirt through a city of suits, I mostly think about
how it's the _freedom_ I like. Freedom to wear appropriate clothing, rather
than being tied into wearing something to fit in, or to impress somebody.

~~~
jacques_chester
It's even funnier for those of us living in the tropics (Darwin, in my case).
From where I sit Sydney's summers are pleasantly cool and dry.

"Territory Formal" is a short sleeve shirt and trousers. No jacket, no tie, no
long sleeves. It is just too damn hot and humid.

I can usually spot "southerners" in the CBD: they walk one way up a street
wearing the jacket and tie. They walk the other way, beet read, with the tie
loosened, sleeves rolled up and jacket over their arms.

~~~
nopassrecover
Darwin has a CBD?

------
srean
This brings fun memories. Are Google t-shirts still a sought after commodity
at Googleplex ?

The way the distribution worked was that a small cabinet used to be
replenished by some 50 odd t-shirts at some random time in the week. Those who
wanted a t-shirt (definitely all interns, but not sure if it was limited to
them alone. More on this shortly) ran a manual poll or a select loop on that
cabinet. If the word spread that the cabinet has been replenished there would
a mad rush. It was not that the t-shirts were like no other, but the
artificial scarcity made it fun to get one. We interns definitely fought for
it like a trophy. The more prized ones were the Ts for women. Good gift for
your girlfriend. My personal favorite was the Wienberger T. It was not Googly
enough to attract unwarranted attention.

The vibe the t-sirts created was quite opposite of "here we all wear Google
Ts". It was more like, "I got one and you didn't", a fun competition to humor
each other with.

Soon some Googler figured out that one could set up a webcam to monitor that
cabinet. The ip address of that cam was publicly distributed. I suspect a fair
number of people really wanted these t-shirts because the cam would always
clog up on the traffic, to the point of being almost useless. That's a shame
because someone wrote an application to compare consecutive frames from that
cam so that it will send out a message once it detected a change. Its a bit
tricky, you do not want it to trigger whenever someone walked passed that
cabinet. Particularly so because it was right on the way to the cafeteria. So
one had to average out the frames so that any change that persisted roughly
for the amount of time that is required to stuff the cabinet triggered the
system but not others. A low-pass filter for t-shirt stuffing.

Not sure if anyone wrote a predictive model to figure out when that t-shirt
cabinet will be stuffed. But I would not be surprised if anyone did. The
culture inside seemed just right for these kind of things.

~~~
ithayer
I remember then that they had to put up a sign: "Don't be evil, please take 1"

------
powdahound
Shirts are also great PR, prize rewards, and 'thank you' gifts for users who
run into nasty bugs. We've had a lot of success and fun with our HipChat
shirts. Our tips for others:

    
    
        1. Buy high-quality shirts (American Apparel)
        2. Buy small and women's sizes
        3. Show some attitude, not company boilerplate
        4. Buy from a local shop
        5. Have a few different designs - people love having a choice
        6. Make sure the shop saves the screens (cheaper to re-order in the future)
        7. Quadruple check the spelling and capitalization :)
    

Full post: [http://blog.hipchat.com/2010/08/19/7-tips-for-making-
company...](http://blog.hipchat.com/2010/08/19/7-tips-for-making-company-
shirts-that-people-will-actually-wear/)

~~~
randallsquared
_2\. Buy small and women's sizes_

This one puzzles me a lot. The place I work recently ordered a bunch of shirts
for everyone who wanted one in the dev team. The sizes went up to XL, and
their "XL" was the same size as an "M" in some stores. Fully half the devs in
our shop couldn't fit into the largest size offered.

Here's a tip, as someone who likes wearing t-shirts: buy larger sizes. Someone
who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the reverse is
very much not true.

~~~
imp
> Someone who can wear an "M" can just as easily wear an "L" or "XL", but the
> reverse is very much not true.

It's that thinking that leads to skinny people (like me) having a lot of large
t-shirts that they don't fit into. Just because it can physically go over your
body doesn't mean that it "fits."

~~~
derekdahmer
Agreed, there are always way too many M's, never enough S. Offering a one-
size-too-big shirt is a great way to get someone to take the shirt but never
wear it because it looks sloppy.

------
zach
T-shirts are achievement badges for tech employees, with the interesting
restriction that you can only wear one at a time.

This is why every programmer has about 5-10 times as many t-shirts as years of
work experience.

I would love to see a photo essay about the story told by the "t-shirt
timeline" of a programmer or other tech figure. Definitely more colorful than
a resume.

In fact, that would make a great site. I remember there used to be a great
site cataloging the early shirts of Apple. I would love to use a site where I
can catalog, compare and (yes) show off my tech t-shirt collection without
having to actually wear them daily. Maybe others would want to catalog their
rare rock band shirts. And everyone is curious about the black YC shirt,
right? You could easily monetize with promoted orderable designs. Pleeease,
LazyHN?

~~~
absconditus
Why not focus on actual achievement instead?

~~~
Uhhrrr
Too ephemeral for signaling to other programmers.

------
onan_barbarian
Frankly I'd almost rather wear what Neo wears as a 'slave to the man', if it
was all a matter of symbolism (a hot climate makes suits impractical).

But seriously, celebrating the fact that we dress like 22 year olds might have
a teeny tiny bit to do with the fact that programmers are typically PAID like
22 year olds.

The false consciousness is epic. We'd do a lot better if we put on a suit and
admitted that we're going to a place where we work. We'd do a lot better if we
demonstrated on a regular basis that we have no real problem putting on a suit
and walking out the damn door into a bank if pay or conditions go to shit.
We'd do a lot better if we demonstrated that we think we're going to a place
of work rather than a place to hang out with friends and do 'cool stuff'. We'd
do a lot better if we conveyed regularly to our employers that paying us
properly and treating us well is more important to us than playing stupid
'tribal identification' mind games (this stuff should come organically from
below, not be created by management).

Apparently we're celebrating our individuality and difference on one hand with
our tshirts, while also having 'tribal cohesion' and advertising our company
in our spare time. We're showing how flat our organization is in one way,
while collecting t-shirts as merit badges on the other.

It's all a bit eyerolling. Combine all this with the non-existent standards
for programmer qualification, and the vocal minority of GPL people who claim
that it's actually _immoral_ to be writing closed-source software, and I feel
like I'm working in a field that has a 'anti-guild' (that works in the reverse
direction from a traditional guild, ensuring that its members are paid less
and treated worse than their qualifications should imply).

~~~
jwhite
I'd upvote you twice if I could. Much of management-ese seems to be thinly
disguised attempts to get employees to work harder for the same pay, and
creating loyalty via T-shirts is one of the more transparent ones. I get
really strange looks at work when I tell people I'd prefer to be recognized by
my dress as a smart, qualified, but independent professional, rather than "I
am assimilated to the hive of company X". I also find it strange that in a
capitalist society nobody bats an eye-lid when the Communications Manager
talks about employees "living the brand". I'd better go buy my copy of the
Little Red Book.

------
andrewvc
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
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.

~~~
notJim
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.)

~~~
billybob
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.

------
zachallaun
This is an oddly compelling case for something that I would have written off
as superfluous. I love the little things you learn here on HN.

------
GiraffeNecktie
Witty, off-beat, beautiful, thoughtful t-shirts can be a lift to morale. The
fact that you settled for just slapping the crappy product logo on a t-shirt
with fabric that feels like ass wipe and was probably made by child-labour in
a Latin American dictatorship doesn't motivate me nearly so much.

------
alex_c
_Want the t-shirt from the 2007 company picnic? You had to be there to get
one._

T-shirts as badges, or achievements (as in gaming). Never thought of it that
way.

~~~
aristus
It's probably the greatest motivator, pound-for-pound, that I've come across.

Status signals are important and useful in tribe-sized groups of people, and
they work best when they can't be bought or faked. It doesn't really mater
what form they take.

------
Chrono
I know most here seems to love t-shirt but personally I am a fan of a suit, or
at the very least a nice shirt (Not a cheap one that looks like a tent
please).

I see the points the author of the blog post makes but still, is it so bad to
want to wear 'typical' business wear at a tech company?

Note: I love a witty t-shirt just as much as the next guy, but preferably on
my free time.

~~~
solid
I'm also more comfortable in a tailored suit. Yet I dare not wear one to work,
lest I be accused of pretentiousness or trying to take over the business. It's
an interesting dynamic...

~~~
sp_
I wear collared shirts 365 days a year and as soon as it's warmer again I will
trade my peacoat for a casual sports coat again. I went to work like this in
startups and huge corporations even if it meant I was the only one not wearing
a t-shirt at the office.

The good thing about being a hacker is that you can wear whatever you want. :)

------
icegreentea
T-Shirts work for -everything-. Non-crappy t-shirts (if they're actually witty
even better!) will boost the morale of almost any group. See the group of
grumbling engineering students. Now see them happily putting on and wearing
their purple engineering t-shirts, temporarily forgetting the tortures that
the faculty unleashes on them. They might even -like- the faculty for a while.
If only so they can make sure they'll never -ever- be confused for an arts
student.

------
_becky
"The best analogy I can think of is to put yourself back in time, to when you
were between 8 – 12 years old. Now, think carefully about the things that 8 –
12 year old boys like (at least, the geeky ones)."

Overall I thought this was an interesting article with a surprising amount of
insight into something seemingly insignificant like t-shirts. But, I have to
admit that, as a female founder, I was a bit frustrated by the assumption that
the reader was a male. While it's certainly true that the industry is heavily
male, we shouldn't forget about all the awesome women in tech!

~~~
mediacrisis
While the pronoun isn't inclusive, the sentiment isn't exactly gender
specific. My Barbies raced around on Lego mindstorm cars ;)

------
michaelchisari
I don't like wearing t-shirts with logos on them. Bands, brands, companies,
nothing like that.

~~~
billybob
I _generally_ feel the same way, but will make exceptions for things I really
like. Generally the question for me is "if a conversation started about the
message on my shirt, would it be a good one?" If the shirt conveys "I went to
Spain" or "I am silly" or "I like this band," probably so. If the shirt
conveys "I buy Brand X t-shirts," I can't imagine how that conversation would
be interesting.

~~~
TillE
Depends on the band. Pick the right one, and it can convey a lot about your
personality. I'd strike up a conversation with anyone wearing a K's Choice
t-shirt, because I've been to their shows, and I know their fans are generally
a self-selected group of wonderful, wonderful people who had remained fans
throughout their decade-long hiatus.

It's hard to make similar generalizations about someone wearing a Led Zeppelin
or John Lennon or flavor-of-the-month-superstar shirt, but even that implies a
probable bit of information about their personality.

------
cydonian_monk
Let me work on something really cool without undue interference and I don't
care if you give me a t-shirt, coffee mug, water bottle or anything. Schwag is
nice, but building something useful is better.

------
count_zero
This article reminded me of the employee-only Facebook hoodie, which
(according to some commentors) sold on eBay for over $4k
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/05/join-the-cult-facebook-
hood...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/05/join-the-cult-facebook-hoodie-with-
mysterious-insignia-found-on-ebay/)

------
khandelwal
At a number of places I've worked at, people did _not_ want t-shirts. They
preferred a free meal instead. Mentioning that a t-shirt lasts a lot longer
than a meal had no sway.

~~~
rexf
Providing free gourmet meals (along with snacks, drinks, etc) is a standard
startup perk these days.

Free T-shirts would be in addition to the free meals at funded
startups/companies.

------
jeanhsu
I've been to Palantir a few times for dinner, and almost everyone there wears
Palantir t-shirts. They give out one for each release, and it looks like
they're each themed around an element of the periodic table. The critical part
is that they are nice shirts (American apparel), and really nicely designed.
They also seem to order women's sizes.

------
blhack
Why is this stuff unique to tech companies? MBAs, despite being constantly
accused of it by nerds, aren't idiots. Neither are accountants, neither are
controllers, neither are middle managers.

 _Everybody_ does their best work when they're most comfortable. Why haven't
many traditional companies figured this out yet?

~~~
Locke1689
What your dress code is also sets how you want to look as a company. I would
presume that many investment banks are on the more formal side of dress --
partly because formal clothing tends to cost more and banking is a profession
which wants to see itself as cultured, upper class, and wealthy.

However, I would ask if you have worn a nice tailored suit. It's really very
comfortable. The quality of the material is pretty far above what most casual
wear is made out of. The main cost seems to be in the time getting dressed in
the morning and the extra care needed to not damage your outfit, not
necessarily in comfort.

That said, I personally hold my own style to a little higher standard than
many tech companies (generally long pants, collared shirt, closed-toed shoes).

~~~
jrockway
It kind of depends. I see nice clothes as a way to win customers; if you are
not customer-facing, then you need to wear what lets you do the job most
comfortably. You don't want to be pulled out of the zone because your suit is
too hot.

I wear jeans and a t-shirt and keep a sport jacket in my cube's closet. Then I
can be dressy if it's needed for some reason. (I stole this idea from Larry
David in Curb Your Enthusiasm. :)

------
fryguy
I work at a non-"startup" company, and I really appreciate the t-shirts my
company gives us. When I joined the company, I got a plain white one, and
every so often they sell the "generic" shirts for fairly cheap (at cost I
believe). At some of the company events, there is generally a t-shirt given
out celebrating some special event (shipping a new vehicle), or sometimes a
"funny" shirt that everyone at the event gets. A few years back, they gave out
a shirt that parodied the west coast choppers and orange county choppers. I've
gotten a few comments about how cool my company is that they'd give out those
shirts. The fact that they are really comfortable t-shirts and last a long
time helps too.

This article really hit the nail on the head.

------
iamgoat
The words "high tech" were used 7 times in that article.

------
natemartin
T-shirts were one of the ways that I could tell the culture at Apple was
changing.

When I started interning there, there would be a new T-shirt for every new
project we would ship. The engineers in my group would all where T-shirts from
projects past.

By the time I started full time,and my entire tenure there, the T-shirt
culture was over (at least in hardware). Whenever someone would bring it up,
or request one for the project we were working on, the answer would be "That's
not a priority any more" or "We just don't have the budget for that."

Thankfully the new company I work for has some very cool t-shirts!

------
doron
Tech T-shirts, Like Military patches, are basically gang colors.

~~~
SapphireSun
Gang colors are basically like Tech T-shirts and Military patches. Framing
works both ways :D

------
follower
In a link from the comments of this article I found another article about a
company's t-shirt development process:

    
    
      http://www.myintervals.com/blog/2011/02/01/submersible-dirigible-the-new-intervals-shirt-design/
    

Of most interest was their response when someone in the comments asked for a
t-shirt:

"Yes, we are giving them away. Login to your [...] account and click on the
feature request button at the bottom of the page."

Seems like a good approach.

------
atrevisan
Wrote a post just yesterday about the power of advertising through T-shirts.
Referenced a local restaurant, The Salty Dog Cafe, whose entire identity is
based on a t-shirt. Has worked well for others also.

[http://bfginteractive.com/blog/travel-
tourism/2011/04/06/the...](http://bfginteractive.com/blog/travel-
tourism/2011/04/06/the-power-of-the-t-shirt/)

------
corin_
Majority of these points are also valid for why you often get free tshirts at
events, from small gaming events up to huge expo events.

------
rcavezza
What about target market? Most tech companies are targeted towards the tech
crowd and younger men. How about custom ties for companies targeted towards
businessmen?

The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but still
represents your brand. Does it have to be on the outside? Can a tag in the
back of the tie be enough? I'm just not sure...

~~~
mindcrime
_How about custom ties for companies targeted towards businessmen?_

Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. There are more than enough hideous
looking ties in the world already. Let's not encourage them...

 _The difficult part would be designing a custom tie that looks great, but
still represents your brand._

I don't believe it can be done, but more power to anybody that can pull that
off. :-)

------
gojomo
Anyone want to jump the gun on the author's promised future post, about how to
get great shirts, with recommendations here?

(SFBay vendor recommendations based on personal experience would be especially
valued. Where does YC get its "[make|made] something people want" shirts, and
are they as high-quality as they are high-cachet?)

------
stc043
The article is so True !.Consider even universities, Wearing a Harvard or MIT
T-shirt is like a badge of honor . It identifies you as a member of an
exclusive community .

------
WalterBright
I try wearing a dress shirt now and then, but if the building temperature
isn't lowered a few degrees, I just perspire in them all day. With a t-shirt,
I don't.

------
sv123
I agree, I work at a company where they try to sell us $30 shirts with the
logo on it... Nobody buys and it makes you feel shitty.

------
timc
more comments about t-shirts than most posts! guess they do matter. Blekko may
set a record for free t-shirts. giving them out to anyone who asks
<http://blekko.com/ws/+/blekkogear>

------
farout
I always hated wearing the company T-shirt - I felt like a drone. Also at Sun
they never gave women sizes - 8 years - not once. Tons and tons of night
shirts for me.

Plus the damn logo is right across the chest - yeah that is exactly where I
want people to look when talking to me.

My husband wears his as yardwork clothes especially the long sleeve ones since
they are made of poor material and look crappy after several washings.

At another company the receptionist (a woman) bought extra tight shirts for
the women - all 3 of us decided to throw them away - no way in hell were we
wearing that. It was degrading. Then we were taunted by everyone why we were
not showing company spirit.

If you want to give swag - give something useful like a electrostatic-free
strap. That always comes in handy.

For something to display - how about a baseball hat. Sun gave jean jackets and
other jackets - all too big - can not wear but at least it was different. I
love the PR suggestion - put your benefit statement and then your logo and
your URL.

~~~
farout
here is an idea for all those people who only write across the chest of
t-shirt which make some women uncomfortable wearing.

Why don't you write the company name on the bottom center of the short - and
then everyone can stare at your crotch - this at least will make both sexes
uncomfortable. And if you are guy and did not understand the above, perhaps
you do now. Before anyone gets upset - I am trying to be funny.

~~~
onan_barbarian
That is funny... but it's a valid point.Upper chest (e.g. towards the top edge
of a high-necked shirt), shoulder or arm might be more workable, no?

The worst company t-shirts have two lines of text, one on the upper chest
("FooCo...") (typically on the upper parts of women's breasts) with a second,
smaller font, tag-line of text ("leveraging X for Y") below - so people who
read the text (kind of reflexive) look like they are giving someone a good,
comprehensive ogling. I saw a lot of shirts like that at the last tech
conference I was at...

Add "booth babes" (at a business-to-business oriented show, yet) to the mix
and you've got the perfect environment for making women in tech feel real
comfortable... :-<

------
pitdesi
For us, the PR value is more important than any of these reasons...

FeeFighters wore shirts at SXSW that had "YOU are getting RIPPED OFF on your
credit card processing" on the back

This led to a number of fantastic leads, including some huge companies that we
were able to help.

We also got several requests for shirts including from some notable folks...
we came with extra and sent them out!

------
pitdesi
While this is on the front page - can we ask the question...

What is the best place to get small runs of high-quality shirts printed for
low prices?

~~~
gaius
In your city there will almost certainly be some punk or goth kid with all the
equipment for screen printing who'd be delighted with the business (so long as
you aren't some megacorp). If there is a record store that does vinyl, they'll
know who they are.

------
innes
Me - I can take or leave T-Shirts.

I'm a sucker for beads. Shiny shiny beads that sparkle and shimmer.

------
dengzhi
good article, i wish my company would give out free t-shirts.

