Tuesday, June 12, 2007

"How to Dress for Success" or "Why I Hate You, Mr. Formal Business Man"

Photo was taken from this site.

I'm sure you've all heard how it's important to "dress successful if you want to be successful." Or "dress for the job you want, not the one you've got." Or "never wear black shoes with a brown belt." Or "pink is the new black."

Let me begin by saying that unfortunately, in our current society, all of the above statements are true. People have even done extensive research to prove this point (evidence here: Dress to Impress). I'm not going to sit here and try to tell you that it isn't true.

What I am going to tell you is that I hate this fact. I have never been comfortable in formal attire and that will probably never change. Take a look at those two guys in the picture above. Nobody is ever that happy in a suit.

The worst thing about this "appropriate business attire" is that people who work in virtual dungeons and never have contact with other humans are still expected to wear this hideous garb. We've given up comfort because some moron decided that you are more professional if you are wearing six layers of clothing and constantly sweating on your upper lip.

Well, I'm sick of it. I should be comfortable at work. You should be too. You want to know why so many people want to start their own business? It's not for the money. It's the idea that you can wake up in the morning and head to work in a mumu and nobody can tell you you're not professional.

I'm ready for a revolution! I'm too lazy to start it myself, but hopefully you aren't! If you don't get fired first, then I'll be right behind you! Vive la Revolucion!



As a bonus, we could also save the planet. See this story.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to work for a company whose initials just happen to correspond with Every Day Sucks. You could come in at night in street clothes if you were working on a system problem. If you did not have the problem fixed by the time 8am rolled around, you had to go home and change into your suit again.

That job was worse than going to Catholic School.

Arthur said...

Jerry- That's the kind of absolute ridiculousness I'm talking about. That's absurd. I honestly don't get it.

Brian said...

What great timing for this post! We just had to start wearing ties to work last week after two wonderful years of khakis and polos (which should've been two years of jeans and polos, but we won't go there). Lest you forget, I am an IT professional. Not a financial analyst or a used car salesman, but an IT professional.

Commence Le Revolucion!

Chris said...

Sometimes I wish I could wear a suit to work. I'm confined to button ups and dress pants, no tie even.

I hate it.

I would like to either wear street clothes, or suits, not this in-between garbage.

Oh, and why must I look 5x better than the sh!#y office building, and cheap desk I sit at? Do clients -EVER- see me? Does my boss dress in anything other than golf clothes?

Simply because the two sales people I work with (of the 12 total people in the office) who go meet clients on a regular basis would get jealous of me in my flips-flops, jean shorts, and dbz t-shirt with a hole in the sleeve.

Oh, and supposedly if you dress for work, you will be more apt to work at work. If you dress in street clothes, you will be more apt to do crap like "blog" at work. It's supposed to put you in a "work" mind-set.

Take a look at my blog, and the many blogs i have commented on today to see how well that worked...

I think the whole thing back-fires because you get so used to wearing work clothes (I spend about 80% of my waking time in them) that they become your street clothes, and your street clothes become special.

I find that I actually work more on casual fridays in sandals, shorts, and a tee, because I'm actually then wearing "special" clothing, which puts me in a different mind-set or something (either that, or I am panickingly trying to do all the work I should have been doing the rest of the week). It's weird.

Arthur said...

Chris- I think you bring up an awesome point. There is no way that an employee should have to dress better than the building he works in. That should be like a man-law or something.

And I've never worked more or less based on my apparel. That's just ridiculous.