Conny, in another thread said:
I'm an SE, with all the requisite academic and professional qualifications. Presumably, with that being my profession, you would expect me to turn up on your doorstep to survey your property, for whatever reason, suitably booted and suited?
So, would you think any less of my capabilities and opinions, if I was in jeans, tee-shirt, fleece and walking boots? Would you think more of me if I was booted and suited, but had a really broad Norfolk accent, which made me sound like my train had stopped a hundred yards short of the station? Would you think more of me if I spoke in RP, but dressed very casually? Which one would you think had the required level of respect for you as a client?
Where image comes into it, where do you stop? Say I turn up in a suit and bulled shoes you can see your face in, but in a rusting, extremely tatty ten year old dustbin of car, what would you think then? Or in a new Lexus, Merc or Beemer, say, but dressed in very casual attire? Which person would you say would be more likely to give a creative solution to your problem, who would be unlikely to be hidebound by the numerous rules and regulations that blight our lives and who is probably the most successful at their job?
In fact, it could be any of the variants above: your opinion would be based solely on your own preconceptions and prejudices.
As it so happens, I hate suits. I hate ties. I hate shiny shoes. I had enough of dressing up while in the forces - where I can understand and accept the need for conformity. But, as a civvy, I hate dressing up, unless there's a specific reason for so doing (weddings and funerals...possibly); the capability to do my job to the best of my abilities not being one of them in my book. I don't, in some perverse way, have any less respect for those paying my fees by dressing down. Clothing doesn't come into it in my book: you cut the mustard by what you do, not what you wear.
Having undertaken interviews of both uber-dressed and more casually dressed applicants, my personal view would be and is diametrically opposed to yours: booted and suited to me shows a conformist sheep, incapable of independent thought; casual shows someone who is not afraid to break out the conformist straightjacket, who thinks laterally, who is not afraid to push the envelope and who will most probably be a pain in the ar*e at some point, but generally good at their job. What I would most definitely not think was that the latter had less respect either for me, or my company, by attending so dressed.
There are so many anomolies in founding one's perceptions about people's respect for themselves and others and their ability to carry out their duties based solely on the clothes they wear, the way they speak and the car they drive, that to do so is crass in the extreme.
The only area where I would draw the line would be in matters of grammar, spelling and punctuation. It would be no good to me if someone writing reports for the company issued them littered with grammatical errors, misplaced apostrophe's (sic) and so forth.
So does that make me as prejudiced as you with ties? The report could be 100% correct in its findings, whether or not it was spelt correctly and with commas in the correct place and so forth. Incorrect use of grammar could, of course, affect another person's understanding and interpretation of the meaning of the report; however, beyond that, should grammatical errors *really* matter, innit
? In my book, that's a definite yes, not least as inaccuracies could lead to a misinterpretation of what was intended, with dire consequences. But you couldn't misinterpret the contents of a report that was grammatically correct in every way, which was compiled by someone with the ar*e hanging out of a pair of jeans.
With reference to wearing a suit to Court, there are several options:
Ok, let's go back to Branson, first off. Are you saying you have less respect for him, purely because he is quite casual in his attire?
I'm an SE, with all the requisite academic and professional qualifications. Presumably, with that being my profession, you would expect me to turn up on your doorstep to survey your property, for whatever reason, suitably booted and suited?
So, would you think any less of my capabilities and opinions, if I was in jeans, tee-shirt, fleece and walking boots? Would you think more of me if I was booted and suited, but had a really broad Norfolk accent, which made me sound like my train had stopped a hundred yards short of the station? Would you think more of me if I spoke in RP, but dressed very casually? Which one would you think had the required level of respect for you as a client?
Where image comes into it, where do you stop? Say I turn up in a suit and bulled shoes you can see your face in, but in a rusting, extremely tatty ten year old dustbin of car, what would you think then? Or in a new Lexus, Merc or Beemer, say, but dressed in very casual attire? Which person would you say would be more likely to give a creative solution to your problem, who would be unlikely to be hidebound by the numerous rules and regulations that blight our lives and who is probably the most successful at their job?
In fact, it could be any of the variants above: your opinion would be based solely on your own preconceptions and prejudices.
As it so happens, I hate suits. I hate ties. I hate shiny shoes. I had enough of dressing up while in the forces - where I can understand and accept the need for conformity. But, as a civvy, I hate dressing up, unless there's a specific reason for so doing (weddings and funerals...possibly); the capability to do my job to the best of my abilities not being one of them in my book. I don't, in some perverse way, have any less respect for those paying my fees by dressing down. Clothing doesn't come into it in my book: you cut the mustard by what you do, not what you wear.
Having undertaken interviews of both uber-dressed and more casually dressed applicants, my personal view would be and is diametrically opposed to yours: booted and suited to me shows a conformist sheep, incapable of independent thought; casual shows someone who is not afraid to break out the conformist straightjacket, who thinks laterally, who is not afraid to push the envelope and who will most probably be a pain in the ar*e at some point, but generally good at their job. What I would most definitely not think was that the latter had less respect either for me, or my company, by attending so dressed.
There are so many anomolies in founding one's perceptions about people's respect for themselves and others and their ability to carry out their duties based solely on the clothes they wear, the way they speak and the car they drive, that to do so is crass in the extreme.
The only area where I would draw the line would be in matters of grammar, spelling and punctuation. It would be no good to me if someone writing reports for the company issued them littered with grammatical errors, misplaced apostrophe's (sic) and so forth.
So does that make me as prejudiced as you with ties? The report could be 100% correct in its findings, whether or not it was spelt correctly and with commas in the correct place and so forth. Incorrect use of grammar could, of course, affect another person's understanding and interpretation of the meaning of the report; however, beyond that, should grammatical errors *really* matter, innit
? In my book, that's a definite yes, not least as inaccuracies could lead to a misinterpretation of what was intended, with dire consequences. But you couldn't misinterpret the contents of a report that was grammatically correct in every way, which was compiled by someone with the ar*e hanging out of a pair of jeans.With reference to wearing a suit to Court, there are several options:
- they are attempting to make a public display purporting to effect some (belated) respect for the office of the court in a misguided hope of eliciting a lesser sentence or fine;
they are a sheep, as their solicitor told them to wear one, as it's "the done thing";
Mother dressed them that morning;
their casual stuff was taken off them at the plod shop as exhibits for the case and that's all they've got left to wear until their next thieving spree in Primark.
