I don't get stressed about it. I wear what I want within the guidelines of the company I'm working for at the time.

Only one thing I refuse to wear and that's a tie. Mainly because I haven't worn a tie for years, since an EU directive came in saying you couldn't make employees wear one.

There's also stuff about the tie being a symbol of the employee's subservience to their employer, like a leash thing, but I only trot that out when people mention me not wearing one. Me wearing a tie wouldn't make me any better at doing my job, in fact it would be a hindrance.

Sounds like it's a slow day at Clickbait Distribution Network Inc….. #FirstWorldProblems #GirlyProblems #WhatToWear

Most of the country will have you wear shirt and tie, especially post-Brexit.
We're supposed to, but most of the Engineers just wear polo shirts and slacks, chinos or some weird corduroy cargo pants type stuff, usually with shoes any colour other than black.

I'm supposed to as well, but since lazing around in my bike leathers was frowned upon, I resorted to wearing company branded field kit… which is basically blue polo shirt and cargos, with black leather combat boots (which is the only type of footwear I have owned since I was 13).

Last place I used to work was just a pit of coders wearing mostly jeans/t-shirt. I didn't mind it but did feel slobbish.

I work for a bigger company now, nice shirt, trousers, cufflinks, occasional tie - didn't cost a fortune but I feel like I'm making a good impression, and the only stress I have is if I haven't ironed my shirt the night before.

Dress down Fridays, seems fairly standard.

I dont work in IT, I work in broadcast. Quite rare to have any kind of uniform.

Cusotomer facing - wear a tie. Not facing customers - no tie. Doing manual work - overalls or other equivalent. Self employed - whatever you want so long as it doesn't lose you business.

Or follow company policy if available.

Pointless drama is pointless.

That said I once worked for a company, not IT, who had it passed down from on high via my manager about the length of my hair (when I had hair ffs..). I asked if a similar comment had been passed on to any of the female staff and heard nothing more about it again.

This sounds more like a way for that jobsite just to get their name mentioned.

I only get stressed when I never have to see a client but am expected to dress smart.

Waste of time, money and effort to appease someone else who has to wear a suit.

Only met one company in my career with a dress code for IT day-to-day. With others you are supposed to wear something respectful when going on customer site or presentation, but other than that as long as you don't violate the law nobody cares.

But rly, I refuse to wear ties and suit. Office itself is air conditioned, but in summer you are really hot in that when going to/from work, in winter you freeze. And after sitting 8hrs in a chair your suit looks like chewed up by a cow no matter what.

No dress code pretty much wear what you want within reason, so normally I am in cargo trousers or cargo shorts, and a shirt often summery one like a toned down Hawaiian one or christmas themed ones atm.

I certainly don't worry about what I am going to wear each day, just grab the next shirt out hte wardrobe

Problem with this is “IT” is rather a broad field/description
As someone who works in IT support, I dislike suit&tie or even shirt&tie, it might look smart, until you have to go digging round inside stuff, crawling under desks, going into those often grotty hidden areas most people never see.
And then your nice clean shirt and trousers are filthy, your shoes get scuffed to heck and back and dangling tie can be an issue getting in the way.
Combats/Cargo are good, they have pockets, more than once I've had my hands full of pc&monitor while my pockets are full of relevant cables & mouse.
Combat boots, great :) although they can be a bit clompy.

I'm a senior engineer. I'm wearing a Splatoon/Powerpuff Girls t-shirt.

Biscuit
I dont work in IT, I work in broadcast. Quite rare to have any kind of uniform.

Friend of mine is IT app support for Viacom/MTV. He has to wear a proper suit!

Pob255
Combat boots, great :) although they can be a bit clompy.

Get the 1980s model Boots Combat High, nice and slim, low-profile sole, lightweight leather and soft like slippers but tough like…. well, old boots, really. The mkII ones have a padded tongue, as well.

Wear black (overdyed - it hides the stitching) jeans and black leather trainers with a plain shirt (not tshirt). From a distance you look like a smart exec, but it's comfortable and suitable for crawling under/over desks :)

Ttaskmaster
Get the 1980s model Boots Combat High, nice and slim, low-profile sole, lightweight leather and soft like slippers but tough like…. well, old boots, really. The mkII ones have a padded tongue, as well.

Altama or Wellco US jungle boots are my favourite, they fit my feet so well. unfortunately the US scrapped multiple boots in favour of a single pattern combat boot, so now they are far harder to get cheaply. :(

Ahhhhhh poor IT people having to wear restrictive clothes.

Flibb
Ahhhhhh poor IT people having to wear restrictive clothes.

Haha!

One of our customers is part of a company that services and repairs nuclear reactors. The dive suits they wear are pretty spectacular.

That was my light weight one, used when working with mostly toxic stuff. The heavy weight ones were used with a wide range of solvents, etc. Got out of that business now, just work with exciting gases.

I really don't get the IT companies that force their internal staff to wear suits/shirts/ties etc - it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

At our place the rule is you can wear whatever you like as long as its not offensive, aside from when we have customers invited over in which case “smart casual” is the rule for developers/general IT staff and shirts/suits (no tie) for management. I'm CTO at that company and I spend 99% of my working life in Jeans + T-shirt, as does our CEO and COO. We're not particularly young/trendy or small - just have common sense throughout the company structure. Some of our devs like to wear a suit and thats fine..99% don't.

Especially in a marketplace like IT where jobs are ten a penny and you as a company have to actively try and retain your staff (particularly developers, who can walk into any of 10+ jobs on more money within seconds), I don't see the value in enforcing a smart dresscode..its bonkers imo!

I work for a defense contractor. Our dress code in IT is shirt, trouser and black shoes. Fridays, are of course, dress down Fridays :D When I worked for investment banks, I had to come to work in a suit and tie. I could then leave my blazer on my chair while I walked around all day with the additional tie.

If you must get down and dirty, roll up your sleeves and kneel down on some newspapers.

most of these findings will be similar across a number of types of industry/job. when findings show small figures like 11% of people, it means the vast majority don't have a problem

everyone is going to have to spend money on clothing to wear to work unless you are given a uniform or you do sexcam work

i'd imagine most people don't like jobs where there is a dress code that means they can't just wear what they want, whether it's a tesco uniform or wearing a shirt and tie. ask the same questions to retail workers and you will probably get similar results. some will need to wear uniforms, others will be more vague, likewise catering. it's just another poll that's designed to get some cheap/free publicity for the business that most people skipped over and forgot the name already

Smudger
Only one thing I refuse to wear and that's a tie. Mainly because I haven't worn a tie for years, since an EU directive came in saying you couldn't make employees wear one.

There's also stuff about the tie being a symbol of the employee's subservience to their employer, like a leash thing, but I only trot that out when people mention me not wearing one. Me wearing a tie wouldn't make me any better at doing my job, in fact it would be a hindrance.

You make wearing a tie sound like some form of modern slavery, or as if it's on a par with women who end up with blisters, corns, and bloodied feet from being forced to wear heels all day!

no tie here either :) i've got the company to buy a dozen black shirts (no need to iron ones :D ) and a dozen black trousers with BIG pockets (for the smart phones ;) ) and now all of us the engineers are happy :) :D

I can almost guarantee that the 30 grand figure came from what IT staff spent on clothes in the entirety of their career, not just for the job

my last job was just no ripped jeans sensible clothing perhaps the odd shirt if meeting colleagues / other reps and only once was I asked to wear a tie to something and it wasn't a requirement and was no big deal. Was a good evening actually. Probably no old worn out smelly trainers. Now I remember, no sports team (like Leeds FC for example) tops either.

I think this is the way forward here.

So basically over say 50 years,£30000 is £600/year??

That would buy you two cheapo suits a year from Debenhams,two pairs of smart shoes and a few shirts??

I wonder if the cause of stress is because there is no dress code - forcing a decision?

Personally I always found being under-dressed more embarrassing than being overdressed - where a suit and tie and its easy to dress down if required.

Of course, what is appropriate depends on a particular role - if you are the IT dept gopher, just delivering and plugging in PCs, a lab coat might be appropriate. If you are the IT director, then a suit and tie will be more appropriate when meeting suppliers (or if selling services) meeting clients.

IDK what all the fuss is about, no ones ever commented, unwanted or otherwise, on my choice of mankini. :naughty:

peterb
I wonder if the cause of stress is because there is no dress code - forcing a decision?

Personally I always found being under-dressed more embarrassing than being overdressed - where a suit and tie and its easy to dress down if required.

Of course, what is appropriate depends on a particular role - if you are the IT dept gopher, just delivering and plugging in PCs, a lab coat might be appropriate. If you are the IT director, then a suit and tie will be more appropriate when meeting suppliers (or if selling services) meeting clients.

If you are so worried about what you're actually wearing that you are ironing a shirt and setting up a fancy tie / pants ensemble every day, *just to not have to worry about picking out the wrong T shirt or whatever* you're possibly in the wrong kind of environment. Now I don't dispute that this is not common and probably perfectly normal. But it's still strange that it leaves out a fair bit of self expression in a social work team situation.

What a load of crap! I have worked in 4 companies for the past 17 years and at no point have I had to think about what to wear. Trousers / Suit, shirt, tie. if you are in the DC then wear comfortable wear suitable for the environment / task.

I wear the company shirts and the wife full company uniform, both of us had a word with the tax man to get tax allowance for cleaning said clothing.

Spud1
I really don't get the IT companies that force their internal staff to wear suits/shirts/ties etc - it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

At our place the rule is you can wear whatever you like as long as its not offensive, aside from when we have customers invited over in which case “smart casual” is the rule for developers/general IT staff and shirts/suits (no tie) for management.

At my old place, the boss I had had the view that “smart clothes = smart attitude to work” so insisted we wear tie + shirts. The rest of the company had policy that no tie was required. He tried to overrule an email from the COO at one point… but his backup mantra of ‘dress for the job you want’ fell apart when all of the senior management came in in jeans and tshirts!

The place I work now has a smart casual dress code - I turn up in shirts and smart stuff 1/2 the week just so that I don't get out of practice of wearing shirts (that and might as well use all the ones I had for my previous place!)

Beat stress - ask your supervisor what would be the best workwear and go from there…

Pob255
Altama or Wellco US jungle boots are my favourite

I always found US jungle boot patterns really lacked ankle support…

Spud1
I really don't get the IT companies that force their internal staff to wear suits/shirts/ties etc - it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Because while you may not be customer-facing, customers, shareholders and whatever else might still be around. That's the reason we're supposed to be smart.

Unique
everyone is going to have to spend money on clothing to wear to work unless you are given a uniform or you do sexcam work

Regarding the latter - Is that because your subscribers buy the uniforms for you? Certainly, you ought to have a range of uniforms (cop, doctor, nurse, French maid, etc) in that line of work? :p