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0 pointsbasisword3y ago0 comments

I think work is just like everything else in this regard. Providing you have standard white collar job, as things continue to improve and get better, we just find new things to complain about. e.g. parent poster complaining about 'business casual' when it wasn't that long ago business casual was a nice step down from having to wear a suit. The workplace continuously adjusts but so do our expectations.

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jihadjihad3y ago

It's always weird to watch Office Space and see the guys all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that for a typical software job.

michaelcampbell3y ago

I worked in a Wall St. firm in the 90's and wore suit and tie every day, even though my job was neither customer facing nor even in New York.

I quickly realized I didn't mind it at all once I found correctly fitting shirts. If you consider a tie to be too constricting, you have the wrong shirt.

Even as borderline OCD (self diagnosed, so likely wrong), I never found particular clothes to be a hinderance to me typing (I'm a software dev), and I'm one of those guys that can't stand tags in t-shirts and rip them out. I think 90% of the angst over "comfortable" clothes is a learned cultural thing, and overblown. IMO.

hansworst3y ago

I don’t think it’s really about the clothes being uncomfortable, but just the idea of being forced to wear certain kinds of clothes

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MockObject3y ago

Agreed. For someone whose experience of suits is the ill-fitting obligation for the occasional wedding or funeral, it will be shocking and unbelievable to read that a custom cut dress shirt is more comfortable than a t-shirt, and suit pants, soft and silk lined, more comfortable than jeans.

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JumpCrisscross3y ago

> It's always weird to watch Office Space and see the guys all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that for a typical software job

I believe this changed in the early 2000s. The dot-com crash reset Silicon Valley. And the Enron scandal reduced corporate America's pull on it. (Steve Jobs wasn't an icon when business casual began taking its hold.)

[1] https://high-tech-guide.com/article/how-did-steve-jobs-help-...

brycewray3y ago

In my case, it ended in 1994. The company where I worked at the time already had casual Fridays. Business casual, mind you; it was quite some years later before I got to see the whole jeans-and-sneakers casual Friday thing. During the summer of 1994, they went to business-casual-every-day. Then, as a morale booster (probably, as I look at it now, because the execs knew a 40% layoff was months away), the management decided at the end of summer to let us stick with that. The only time I wore a tie to work after that was on a day when I was going to have to leave early to go to a funeral.

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ChrisMarshallNY3y ago

I did that for the greater part of my early career.

I think that banks in Manhattan may still have shirt-and-tie for engineers.

corrral3y ago

A lot of what people complain about in white-collar offices have been problems people've complained about effectively since such offices started to become common (the 1950s). Including how little actual work is required for most companies to function, and how much of "working" is just presenteeism.

And actually, some things have gotten worse. I think requirements for natural light used to be much stricter in older buildings (that's where you get all those u-shaped ones) so you were more likely to be near a window, for instance.

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jihadjihad3y ago

It's always weird to watch Office Space and see the guys all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that for a typical software job.

michaelcampbell3y ago

I worked in a Wall St. firm in the 90's and wore suit and tie every day, even though my job was neither customer facing nor even in New York.

I quickly realized I didn't mind it at all once I found correctly fitting shirts. If you consider a tie to be too constricting, you have the wrong shirt.

hansworst3y ago

I don’t think it’s really about the clothes being uncomfortable, but just the idea of being forced to wear certain kinds of clothes

3 more replies

MockObject3y ago

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JumpCrisscross3y ago

> It's always weird to watch Office Space and see the guys all wearing ties. I can't imagine having to do that for a typical software job

[1] https://high-tech-guide.com/article/how-did-steve-jobs-help-...

brycewray3y ago

1 more reply

ChrisMarshallNY3y ago

I did that for the greater part of my early career.

I think that banks in Manhattan may still have shirt-and-tie for engineers.

corrral3y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse