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Monday, 24 February 2003 |
Where I work, nearly everyone dresses casually. That's "corporate casual", which Dilbert described as something like unfashionable meets unprofessional -- you know, no t-shirts, denim, etc. And when occasionally a group of suits come in for a meeting they stand out like dog's, er um a sore thumb.It's kinda interesting what a suit does -- it hides the body so all you really see is someone's head. And when they're all fat, saggy-chinned, grey-haired old buggers with shiny, shaved faces and identical haircuts, there's not a lot of individuality in evidence.I decided a while back that I'd worn a suit and tie for the last time. Apart from the rampant eczema I suffer due to wearing woollen trousers in summer heat, I don't want to be one of "them" ever again. Yeah, a suit offers a fair degree of presence; I can't argue that. But it dehumanises: the person wearing it becomes secondary to the suit itself. It's a costume, fancy dress. Have you ever worked in a place where people do dress formally, then one day they all come in wearing normal clothes? Suddenly people have personality; their faces are younger and more alive, reflecting the brighter colours of their clothes.Suits are supposed to be more professional, and I agree. But I don't mean that in an entirely positive way. Professional means hiding one's humanity, behaving in a strange, so-called-proper way, instead of the way we really are. We use odd language, camouflage our personality and feelings. We can tell people they don't have a job any more, but we still have a job. The suit is the uniform that lets us do that. And professional people hiding behind suits do bad things too: they lie and cheat and act disloyally and assume unwarranted airs of importance. And they do it on a sometimes-huge scale and bugger up the lives of thousands or millions of people. No, I'm not being a simple-minded commie. I'm ranting and generalising quite deliberately. My point is, that once used to hiding behind the suit to be that artificial thing called professional, it's a shorter journey to acting untruthful, uncaring, without human integrity.I really don't want to be associated with any of that again. And I don't want to hafta hide my personality and voice away in the name of this thing called professionalism. No more, no more, no more.
10:12:30 PM
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© Copyright 2003 Andrew Barnett.
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