DMD v2.066.0-rc1

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Monday, 11 August 2014 at 16:29:10 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> On 8/9/2014 10:57 AM, Dicebot wrote:
>> actually avoided learning anything out of the default comfort 
>> zone and
>> called that _professional attitude_.
>
> People have some truly bizarre ideas about what constitutes 
> professionalism. At a previous job I had, at one particular 
> developer's meeting with one of the brass (it was a weekly 
> meeting that primarily served to make this particular 
> manager/co-owner feel like she was being useful - not that she 
> ever was - by sticking her fingers where they didn't belong), 
> by pure chance all the developers happened to be wearing shirts 
> with collars. The manager made a big point about how happy she 
> was to see that because (paraphrasing here) "shirt collars are 
> professional".
>
> Yea, forget competence, skill, ability, work ethic, 
> demeanor...no, apparently "professionalism" involves..."shirt 
> collars". Idiot.
>
> That's not the only example of clothing-based naivety I've seen 
> among people who *should* know better: It's truly disturbing 
> how many businesspeople can be trivially fooled into thinking 
> any old random con artist is a trustworthy professional, simply 
> by the con artist walking into any dept store and buying a suit 
> to wear. "Oh, I see he's wearing a suit. That means he must be 
> very professional!"
>
> People are morons.

The sad reality is that your physical appearance - including your 
clothing - can have a big impact on how people perceive you, so 
in many situations, wearing nicer clothing can have a definite 
impact. This is particularly true when dealing with stuff like 
sales where you're constantly having to deal with new people. 
That's not to say that clothing makes the man, but impressions 
like that can matter, even if it seems like they shouldn't. So, 
it makes a lot of sense for some folks to wear nicer clothes - or 
"professional" clothes - as part of their job. However, for 
engineers, it's ridiculous. We shouldn't normally be interacting 
with anyone where it would matter. So, attire like t-shirt and 
jeans should be fine. Our clothing should have little impact on 
our job. And in most cases, if an engineering manager is pushing 
for that sort of thing, I think that it's a very bad sign.

- Jonathan M Davis