Blame Alasdair

[hirez]

I have just been tangentially reminded of an odd interlude from the other month.

We'd assembled for a post-crem cuppa and a fondle of Cousin Paul's Saab 95, when small brother's pater-in-law goes off on one about how much he can't stand those scruffy buggers in IT departments and what makes them so bloody special that they don't have to wear suits, eh?

I wasn't entirely lost for words, and was about to explain, with the actions, exactly how little of the Internet would work sans scruffy buggers, when one of S-B's offspring did something adorable and we were all saved the consequences.

I dunno. I look at it as my reward for being a hardcore spod long before it was fashionable.

Comments

[easterbunny.livejournal.com]

I am desperately trying to make inroads with the notion that aspirational science types wear beaded alice bands. Now that I have one, I shall not rest until I have an ARMY OF CLONES.

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

Sounds like small brother's pater-in-law suffers from foot in mouth syndrome. (Not to be mistake with the dreaded hoof and mouth that ruined my trip to Ireland a few years back.)

[nalsa.livejournal.com]

"It's so people know we aren't management."

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Good call.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I would counter with what makes executive types so special that they *do* have to wear suits.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

It's the talisman of belonging for a particularly odd cargo-cult. Much like Thinkgeek shirts or goggles with glued-on clock parts.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

"Because you can never trust a man in a suit"

[hirez.livejournal.com]

This is also true. Or rather, if you are going to site to deliver bad news (or you're a useless cock of a marketroid/conslutant, in which case the bad news is more or less delivering itself) then bunging on a suit makes the villagers less likely to drive you out with torches and pitchforks.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

But vice-versa if you're in-house senior management or directorship. Full-on suits scare the staff, particularly if you're not someone who normally wears one. On the odd occasions tht I am actually required to wear a proper matching suit (visiting the IT director of the Bank of England was the last notable one), I've always had worried comments from the team. Nobody's ever been informed of their redundancy by someone in an armless t-shirt and lace-up leather trews.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely.

I have been known to go to work in a suit just to put the wind up people.

(Unless they're working in a comic shop or Games Workshop, I guess. Or a metal band.)

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I have been known to go to work in a suit just to put the wind up people.

I've done that. In my position, the only time you wear a suit is to go for interviews when the people I supported were really pissing me off, I showed up in a suit and took a two-hour lunch break. The only logical conclusion is that I went to an interview. Cue being nice to me, for a while at least.

[jendama.livejournal.com]

Well done! I do this too, just to mix things up and make them wonder.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I've seen it happen with a shredder, and I got my hair caught in a 5.25" floppy drive the one time, but not (yet) a case fan. I live in hope.

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Scruffy/outlandish clothing isn't fashionable nowadays, which leads to the strange experience of having the new intake of PFYs seeming to be much more smartly-dressed than the senior techs & worked-their-way-there managers.

At 38 I'm not really angry or cool enough to have anything to say worth writing on a T-shirt. In any case the use of swear words would simply cause too many questions from a daughter learning to read.

The priority for dress-code amongst my fellow middle-aged peers seems to be ease of child-bourne stain removal, or affordability of a cache of similar wardrobe items in case of a write-once-remove-never stain. I have half a dozen near-identical plain t-shirts and bulk-bought M&S shirts & slacks, any of which can be worn in any combination, and swapped over at the last minute. What is particularly odd is the way in which I have one baby whose sick is particularly gloutinous and adhesive, and yet her twin brother produces a much more watery and easily-removable product.

[echo-echo.livejournal.com]

It's a modern day form of magic. They (the suits) don't know how the computers work. IT people do.

IT people have far weighter things to think about than the abstract, and incorrect, concept of competence being equated to the wearing of a suit.

Should said suits object to the magickal sporting of ceremonial attire perhaps the IT people will no longer perform their arcane practises to make said computers work.

Best practice is to leave them alone. They do have the ability to make a computer not work with just enough regularity to drive you mad.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

I like suits.

More pockets.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Suits != uniform.

I rather care for a good suit. Sometimes I wish I'd remembered to get a bespoke suit when I had the spare cash for something like that.

However, I'm also (somewhat obviously) not entirely one for paying attention to dress-codes. Or rather, I pay attention to them, but act on different ones. Or, um, donkey. Yes.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I rather care for a good suit

Quite. My criteria for wearing a suit are that they have to pay me enough to wear a good one. Otherwise, I'll stick to scruffy public-sector wear.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Excuse ME! My public sector wear is not remotely scruffy.

OK apart from today, where I'm dressed like...er...tech support.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

Suit = something that gives me a far better shape than I actually have. And something that makes me look more sleek, streamlined and professional - so I feel more sleek, streamlined and professional.

[quercus.livejournal.com]

A chap should always have his suits made for him, even if it's just yer man out the back of Private Eye.

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Well, one wouldn't want to be the sort of fellow who has to buy his own furniture.

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

That's what cargo trews are for.