Growing up, when I heard “dress for the job you want,” I thought they meant everybody should aspire to wear suits and ties. After all, that’s what the supposedly powerful executives have, right?
Nope. It means that if you don’t want a suit job, don’t wear a suit.
It took me years to realize that I wanted to be surrounded by coworkers I like and respect. People who accept their coworkers for who they are – regardless of clothes, college diploma, car/motorcycle/bike, religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
I’d long figured it out by the time Jeremiah, Kendra, and I started our company, but still, we were a little bit worried about image. Would people really want to hire tattooed database experts? Turns out they do.
Sure, we miss out on gigs where guys are told to wear Rolexes and women told to wear skirts. But then again, those don’t sound like a lot of fun – and we’re all about balancing work with fun.
You don’t have to sell your soul to have a job you love. Come to terms with who you are, and then dress for the job you want. When you attend user groups, do presentations, or just network with job prospects, wear exactly what you want to wear to work. (And if you want to work in a suit, that’s completely okay too! Just know that if you’re not a suit person, there’s still jobs out there for the real you.)
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The link to Burleson craziness is a nice touch.
I will now be enjoying sombrero Wednesdays.
“Sombreros often imply cultural stereotypes” – Love it.
“Often” – but not always. Sometimes it’s just a tribute, like when I wear them on July 4th.
Truth – stranger than fiction.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3251316/University-BANS-sombreros-branded-racist-officials.html
What if I wear a sombrero AND a Rolex?
This is great advice. There are jobs I’ll never get, despite my breadth and depth of experience, because of who I am (a transgender woman with tattoos) – but, honestly, the corporate culture at a company that would choose not to hire me because of one of these factors probably means I wouldn’t want to work at such a place anyway. When I got divorced and started looking for employment again after 12 years as a consultant, I was open and honest about both what I bring to the table technically AND about what I bring to the table in terms of life experiences. Judging from the last 2-1/2 years, that was absolutely the right decision, and I know my current employer values me for both of sets of those things.
Love the link to Burleson. I’ve worked with those guys. So true. Funny thing is how EVERY one of my clients is migrating away from Oracle, usually to MariaDB.
I’m only 40 and I remember working for EDS and being harangued because I took off my suit coat and put it on the back of my chair. and then there was the time I was asked why I was wearing ankle-length socks. “Where are your sock garters?” I thought I was going to be fired because I honestly never heard of sock garters before.
But women had it the worst. The security guards did carry rulers to measure skirt lengths off the knee and did send offenders home for the day. And in the snow they were forced to remove their boots on the sidewalk, bag them, and put on their heels PRIOR to entering the corridor. This was 1996.
And when was the last time you heard about EDS?
Folks are finally realizing “substance over style.”
Seriously, the Burleson Consulting page ought to be on The Onion.