Ed₃

Something I’ve noticed ever since I got a job in town is how differently people about town from other firms react to you based on what you’re wearing to work and the set of assumptions upon which these reactions are based.

Before anybody decides to sprint to my house and give me a seemingly due reality check on human nature and how assumptions and prejudices are unavoidable, let me first state outright that I know these attitudes are inevitable and unavoidable. Hell I’m not even saying this _should_ change I’m just venting about it because I feel like it.

(Incidentally, if you expect this site to contain anything of relevance, merit or editorial quality, please read the first post, which is something of a disclaimer and disavow yourself of any such notions. I write a load of crap, for the craic and that is all, I’m not trying to win the Pulitzer here)

Anyway, now that we have the digression out of the way, on to the point. It seems that there’s a view held by most that if you’re not wearing a suit, or a shirt and tie to work (and most of the time I don’t, it’s hassle) you must surely have a really crap job. You are therefore beneath the man waiting next to you at the traffic lights in his nasty, creased 100 quid suit from Asda or wherever, due to the mere fact that he is wearing a suit and you are not.

This seems to fly in the face of logic to a certain extent. When I used to work in a certain nameless call centre, where my job involved little more than cutting and pasting standard (often incongruous) responses, I was required at all times to adhere to the implacable code of formal business attire. Now that I work in a job I enjoy and I feel challenged at (i.e. I’m not performing a role which could be taken up by a lobotomised chimp) my dress code is somewhat relaxed, so long as I’m not customer facing.

Maybe the next time someone with their sewn shut fake jacket pockets and machine washed easy iron Primark shirt (complete with clip on tie) gives you a distasteful glance for committing the abomination of wearing a pair of jeans and a polo shirt, you’ll remember my post, experience a period of calm in knowing I share your observation and you’ll resist the urge to set the bastard alight.