"Dressing down a culture"

[andycwb]

Those who are familiar with either the movie or the TV series M*A*S*H will perhaps remember that Hawkeye and Pierce could do whatever they wanted because the army couldn't actually punish them much.

I presume you meant Hawkeye and Trapper or BJ. One could argue they proved that if you're good enough at your job, you can get away with turning up at work in your bathrobe!

Over a decade ago, I had a long running disagreement with a manager about dress at work - I generally wore 'tidy' jeans and a collared shirt, and she felt it was inappropriate for me as a manager to be dressed so casually. I maintained that as long as she expected me to be moving computers around and crawling under people's desks with the rest of the team, I wasn't going to ruin expensive clothes. After she left, and my job changed, I did wear smarter clothes to work, to deliberately make the impression that I was no longer the guy who would crawl under your desk to fix your computer!

Now that I work in the finance industry and rarely have to move actual hardware, I tend to be smarter, and pretty much middle of the road for the dress code. I fought the fashion to wear suits without a tie that seems to be increasingly common for a year or two, thinking that if it was smart enough for a suit, it was smart enough for a tie. I do flip back and forth on that depending on the occasion, but am tending to wear the suit without the tie more often. In fact, I'm generally smarter than my boss but not as smart as his (ex-military) boss. But that's how I feel comfortable, both physically in terms of what I'm wearing and socially within the people I work with.

But people do, with the best will in the world, judge by first impressions. Unfortunately, those first impressions are right often enought that they are hard to ignore. Especially when it's someone with a baseball cap on back to front, or their jeans around their knees. I'm going to have you pegged as an idiot before any conversation starts, and I've not been proven wrong yet -- read 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell if you want to understand more about first impressions and why they work. Similarly in a social situation I will generally avoid anyone wearing anything overtly religious, because I know I'm going to have a very different viewpoint from them and will find it difficult to find common ground beyond the weather.

I'm not entirely sure I have a point here, but I'm comparing this thread with my recent post about which shoes to wear. Most of the time my clothing is chosen for it's functional value ("if I'm not shivering, sweating, or exposing myself, it'll do"). But it's nice to make the effort for an occasion - be it a black tie dinner, a family wedding, or just a meal with friends. But I think the fact that it's done for an occasion, rather than every day, makes more of those occasions, and there's no downside to the fact that dress is far more casual than it used to be.

[keith_b]

My thoughts exactly Jim!

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

Out of curiosity... exactly what is offensive about wearing a hat, besides "it's just not what has always been done"?

I know men who wear hats nearly everywhere. (They happen to be the people in the office with the least hair, but whether this is a factor, I couldn't tell you, as I've never thought it my place to ask or care.) They do not interact with me or anyone else any differently than the men who do not wear hats. They are not less intelligent, skilled, hardworking, or respectful. They do not dress any better or any worse than anyone who does not wear a hat (it is a relatively-casual office, but at the times dress-up is needed, they look as good as anyone else). They are not more likely to not flush the toilet, make inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times, not clean up after themselves, leave others to do their work or otherwise not pull their weight, etc. etc. So why are they intolerably offensive just because they have something on their head? And why, then, would it be perfectly okay for me, as a woman, to wear the same hat every day and no one would bat an eyelash?

There is, intrinsically, nothing wrong with wearing a hat. There is, however, everything wrong with not taking that hat off in a restaurant, or when entering a church. It's called manners, plain and simple. Gentlemen understand this, boorish louts don't.

[BBNC]

Is eating fried chicken with the fingers good manners? According to Emily Post it depends upon the circumstances. Some of the best people I know have what many would consider to be bad clothing habits, but I do not judge them based on how they dress. On the other hand, I also know some boorish louts who dress well. Having said that, I agree about removing one's hat in church, restaurants, funerals, weddings and where otherwise appropriate. The saying that "clothes make the man," only applies until the man opens his mouth.

[adempsey10]

And the 'mannners' regarding the removal of a hat are completely arbitrary. It is not a sign of bad manners to not removes one's hat in a restaurant, it's just a sign that the person has a different set of manners, much in the same way we have different religious beliefs....



I grow weary of this attitude some folks have: "If you don't follow these prescribed set of rules that I and my cohort deem to have some importance simply because that's what our parents taught us polite people do than you are a boorish lout" Absolutism at it's worst...

[Father Bill]

Well, I guess I'm an absolutist then. Manners are a set of mutually agreed upon behaviours. Those who have chosen to move in a different direction are merely behaving in an in-your-face rejection of those who still support an older set.

Yes, I'm offended.

[Scout]

When I was in the Army there was a rule in the Officer's Club - "Hat on the bar buys the bar, hat on the head buys the house." Meaning that if you placed your hat on the bar you were expected to buy a round for everyone sitting at the bar and if you wore your hat on your head you would be springing for a round for everyone in the club.

Now that I'm retired, manys the time I wish this rule could be enforced in civilian establishments!

[sailortats]

I have to admit I see a difference between wearing a hat in a bar and wearing one in a restaurant or other indoor site. I prefer to leave my hat on (if on the odd chance I am wearing one) in a bar. I do not want to set it on the bar in case a drink should get spilled and I certainly don't want to hold onto it while having a dram or 2 or 3 or..... I also think of it as being unhygienic to lay my cap on the bar. Can anyone see my point here?

[Liam]

Manners, like language and all other aspects of culture evolve. Each generation stretch the limits of conventions of the previous generations as a right of passage, and the older generation continue to be offended.

As we have multi generations represented here, let's be less offended and also give less offense.

Cheers to all....Bill

[BBNC]

Manners, like language and all other aspects of culture evolve. Each generation stretch the limits of conventions of the previous generations as a right of passage, and the older generation continue to be offended.


As we have multi generations represented here, let's be less offended and also give less offense.

Cheers to all....Bill

Well said, Liam