How do you dress for work?

first the underwear, next the shirt, pants, socks, shoes etc.

Ok,OK - depends upon the organisation and corporate image. Turn up in business shirt and tie and see what the rest are wearing first. If you constantly turn up looking neat, it may encourage others to do the same. Anway it looks more professional.

Most importantly wear what you are comfortable wearing.

I do know two people who work nude, one does all their work by remote from home, the other works in a nudist holiday resort in France. They get a lot more for their money as they NEVER have to buy work clothes.

I rarely deal with customers face to face.

We wear Jeans and dress hirts or "golf" shirts (no tee shirts).

but we are a small , family owned company.

As a senior technician specialist, it all depends on what customer I'm going to see and the time of the year. If I'm going to a customers home, I'm expected to wear dress slacks and a tie, even in the hot summer. If I'm heade to the oil refinery, then I usually wear jeans and a dress shirt but no tie. I do not have a clothing allowance, so no one can dictate what I HAVE to wear, just quidelines of what NOT to wear. If I have to go to a corporate headquarters, dress slacks, a tie and a sharp sport coat is expected, but that can vary depending on the work expected of me. If I have to climb up on a roof to check out a satilite dish, replace an LNA or realign the dish, then it's jeans and a polo shirt (the company does provide polo shirts with company logo) are the norm. I've had a few close encounters with ties and line printers that just love loose clothing. But when the day ends, all bets are off, on hot days you'll see me in traffic headed home with no shirt at all.

mini skirts and combat boots.

Unless it's casual friday, then I stick with my fuzzy pajamas.

I know it sounds cheesy, but I honestly think it is true.

I worked at a company with no dress code and I saw all kinds of problems. We had a graphic artist who would wear flip-flops, shorts, and a cut off shirt to work...what is that!!??

Business casual should be the norm and the suit should be worn when you are front facing.

As long as the jeans are not excessively faded, scuffed, or threadbare. Company polo shirts are provided, but are not mandatory.

But then we don't know what we might be crawling over, under, around, or through when we respond to a call.

Edit: type, post, proofread

Quickly.

First, joke or no joke the dress code of the organization dictates how I dress. Personally, I would be more comfortable in my sweats and t-shirt, but that isn't professional and I deal with business partners.

Currently, I wear suits. If I were male it would be the 3 piece suit with a tie. Since I am female, I don't have the tie or vest. I do have the blazer, shirt, and pants. No skirts. It is the one thing I won't wear except to an interview and usually not even then if I know enough about the company to get away without wearing a skirt. Doesn't suit me. :)

I believe in being professional, since I don't have to lift or move equipment, there is no reason not to look my best.

My first IT job was with a governent agency and had to wear a slacks and a tie - you were a professional and were expected to dress like one. I moved on to a telco data processing in Tampa, and the same applied. However, being in the south, it grew into business casual. Today, I'm in another government job and the code is - there is no code, dress appropriately. But that is too laxed. I personally dress business casual, but do believe that organization, public or private, do need dress standards writtend down; ie - nothing less than nicer jeans, no tank tops, no sandals, no 'crappy' dress.

Pretty much the rule of thumb IMHO

However, we do get casual fridays and semi-regularly we support a charity where we make a donation and receive a casual monday.

However, casual doesn't mean ripped jeans, shorts & sandals, sweat pants, baseball caps, beach wear etc... casual fridays does allow for wearing jeans but they must be in newer/good condition and not faded or stained like you've been doing garden work or painting the house.

Monday thru thursday you're expected to dress for an office setting. The dress code at our place of work used to be more strict but we're no longer required to wear jacket & ties anymore. Dress shirts & dress pants and a decent pair of shoes gets a passing grade for men, women are expected to follow suit with their own dress code requirements (dresses, skirts, pant suits, etc.). It's not rocket science, if you are a professional and work in an office environment you need to look like a professional, look like you care about yourself and the company you work for, if by chance you came in contact with a customer would your appearance leave a good impression or not? Nobody is required to wear a 3pc suit or a tuxedo but you obviously have to look presentable.

When you start slacking with your appearance, what else is slacking? If you don't care about how you look, chances are (yes there are exceptions) you don't care about how you perform and that isn't professional.

Just how it is in my neck of the woods, how about at your workplace?

this has been a challenge for me. I have worked at places that expect women to be in Suits or skirts and heels, and the nature of my job makes that uncomfortable and or straight up dangerous at times. I never know when I'm going to wind up under a desk, crawling through someplace dusty and dirty, lifting heavy objects, unloading a delivery, etc, etc.

It behooves me to be dressed in comfortable clothing that moves, as well as flat-soled shoes. I have had jobs where there where there were remarks, but once I explained my POV, they stopped.

For now, while my preferred gear for business casual is one step more formal then jeans, and an untucked shirt (to cover the backside when I'm under a desk), I've learned the joys of stretchy knit pants, and more formal blouses.

I have one co-worker now that always wears heels and skirts and spends her time "looking cute". Granted it would be perfect is she's someone's admin secretary, but it makes her absolutely useless as an IT Tech, because when it comes down to it - I can't ask her to help me move a UPS, and she relies on the men in our department to get anything physical done for her. And I resent that. I take pride in being able to pull my own weight.

Not only is there good and bad in all positions, but the cloths don't determine which you will get.

I once worked at a place where the best dressed was also the worse employee/person to deal with. Professionally and personally. The dressed to the "9s" but when they opened their mouth you felt like you needed a shower and then some.

On the other hand there was a guy there with hair down to his butt, dressed in ripped jeans and old dirty t-shirts. Yet he was the nicest person you would ever get the chance to work with. He used to wait for me to leave at night and walk me to my car cause we were not in a very safe area. He didn't have to do that, but he did it. He did it for a lot of people who were afraid at night.

He would take on extra work and always have something nice to say.

So, dress isn't the answer, personality and inter-personal skills is.

...somehow feel uncomfortable with crumpled clothes. I iron the clothes for the family each morning, as wife prepares the lunch for us for the day :-)

As a consultant (programmer), with each new project I start with [b]business casuals[/b]and then slowly adapt to the dress culture in the group that I am working. There have been projects where people wore jeans everyday. I have never worked in a project where I was required to wear a tie.

Which means slacks and a blouse. But, on days I know I'll be crawling around working on hardware, I wear jeans and a long tunic.

Previous job, I wore whatever I wanted. Mostly this meant jeans and nice shirt, but somedays I ended up helping biologists move 500 fish around, and dressed appropriately.

until we got the new director, who is very appearance-focused. Some of our techs working in the schools had been dressing for comfort and practicality - shorts and light t-shirts (some of the buildings don't have much air conditioning, and they have to move equipment around). Unfortunately, one young guy doesn't have the sense to see where the line should be drawn, and he just happens to be the one who works in this building, where the administrators are. He went up to the superintendent's office to work on his computer, and bent over in his saggy cargo shorts and showed them his big white moon. He also wears open sandals with no socks and shows off his gross feet to everyone. The superintendent's secretary complained to the director, and we ALL got hollered at about "dress code."

We're a school district. To me, we should be dressing somewhere close to the way the teachers dress, if we're working in classrooms (and they're required to dress in business casual or better), and the way the administrators dress when we're in this building. We're allowed to wear denim on Fridays, and all our dress codes get more slack in summer, when school's not in session. But some of the younger folks don't seem to know where to draw the line. Just because you can wear jeans and a t-shirt in summer, that doesn't necessarily mean that shorts and a tank top, or t-shirts with band logos and flip-flops, are okay.

I pretty much always have a jacket with me - partly because I work in the server rooms that are air-conditioned (read: COLD), and partly because that'll dress up even jeans and a t-shirt. And every time I try to wear a skirt or dress to work, that is invariably the day a server fails, so I end up sitting on the server room floor over a 60 degree air vent, pulling a server apart while my skirt blows up and my butt freezes. Ditto trying to wear a decent suit or pair of slacks - I always end up moving equipment if I try to wear really nice clothes. So my work wardrobe is heavy on the Dockers-type pants and business-casual tops, with the addition of a blazer when I need to dress it up a bit.

Oh, and I never wear heels to anything. Never learned to walk in them, and don't see the point of wearing something that cripples you.

the company shirts then. :-)

I was always told to dress the position where you want to be. For example, if you want to be a manager then dress as management dresses. (Unless your a guy and management wears dresses. Then dressing in dresses may not be a good idea. But if you are a female then dressing in dresses is perfectly acceptable.)

Now, I am happy where I am. So I dress in business casual.

I would just use the dress code as your reference. If someone challenges your attire, you can't really use the excuse that everyone else breaks the dress code, too.

Fortunately, we have never had a dress code here at TR, so I am typing this in shorts and sandals.

I have always felt that employees who don't interact with customers should be able to dress however they are most comfortable.

Today I'm in a black t-shirt with long army green cargo shorts and a pair of black airwalk sneakers. That's because my sandals (not flip-flops, but sandals none the less) broke. The boss did draw the line at my ozzy osbourne and night of the living dead t-shirts, but other than that, there's no problem; with my clothes, or with my hair that's halfway to my waist, or with my goatee that's getting just as long. And that's good, because if there was, I wouldn't be here long. I own 2 golf shirts, 2 button-down shirts, one tie, one pair of slacks, and no nice shoes anymore. Just the thought of wearing any of it on a regular basis makes me uncomfortable. Professional attire would not lead to professional actions for me, it would lead to decreased productivity, because I'd be miserable, and spending most of my time on monster.com. You have to decide if you're hiring people for their mind or their looks, and then you have to come to terms with the fact that if one of those attributes is exceptional, you can't worry too much about the other.

My dress code requires business attire, unfortunately most outfits of that sort require dry cleaning which can really add up. Since I could end up crawling under a desk or taking apart a REALLY dirty system, I will only purchase clothes that are washable. It may be more difficult to find acceptable clothing but no one is going to pay me to take my clothes to the cleaners.

My standard outfit is dress slacks (washable), and a nice top, maybe a sweater. I will wear skirts occasionally. If I am required to attend a meeting, then the good stuff comes out.

Actually I dress however I feel I need to each day. If I am not going to be out meeting clients or goig out for lunch somewhere nice, I will turn up in shorts and a t-shirt with the golf clubs in teh trunk for a midday break.

Other casual days I will wear the standard 'IT' uniform, khakis with gratuitous bendor logo on it (vendor wear, keeps IT alive).

On many other days dress pants, open shirt, sometimes a tie.

Other days it's full black & whites.

Dressing for success doesn't mean you need to overdress, in most cases overdressing is worse than underdressing. I find there's no problem as long as you make sure you are always dressed appropriately for teh occasion, I always keep a full suit and tie with a pair of shoes and matching socks in my office for emergencies.

Very few people will fault you for over-dressing for work. That's the rule I always used - start with a suit and tie and work your way down if you can/want to. Much better impressions than showing up in jeans and a t-shirt and having to work your way up to biz casual.

Personally I wear an Oxford and nice pants (not jeans). Had a boss that once told me that how you dress can have a pretty big impact on where you'll go (perception by those who can help you move around).

I guess part of my problem is that I've never been fortunate enough to have a job where I could be certain that either I wouldn't around under desks, or that the temperature would be controlled. I've been in office that got down to 58, and am currently in one that averages 78-82. I think I'll call my dressing choices silent protests, too. ;)

Heck, I knew what I meant! ;)

I wore white dungarees with the company shirt one day just to show them how stupid the policy was. They liked the look and considered the idea of requiring such a combination until the bright boy in Accounting (small company) pointed out that a) if they required us to wear such pants, they were required to provide them or a clothing allowance; and b) the pants wouldn't stay white for very long unless they were professionally laundered, which would also have to be at company expense.

The idea died the rapid death it deserved, but they still didn't let up on the blue jeans. :(

when i worked in a factory doing tech support i wore jeans and a polo, now that i'm in a hospital doing tech support i dress in nice pants and a button up shirt or a polo. when i was in the factory i was constantly on the dirty shop floor and would of ruined my clothes if i was wearing what i wear now... it all depends on the environment and management expectations

boss on vacation...all my reports done now...hehe...I sound like caveman...haha

Not really, because any manager can take action based on things seen as "offensive" to other employees and a complaint has been filed, so long as all employees are made to read policy and procedure and sign documents stating they have read and understand and agree to conform to them.

So long as a complaint was filed by (an)other employee(s), it's not discrimination by the manager...it's enforcement of policy you've agreed to adhere to in writing.

There are legal ways to do everything, even if it's wrong...unfortunately.

Last summer, and the one before, I worked with a few other students doing network maintenance and upgrades for a fairly large (eight buildings scattered around a little town) school district. My little team wore tennis shoes, jeans (definitely not the kind that hang off your rear), and a comfortable shirt, usually a t-shirt. It was a safety thing, mostly. We had to be comfortable, with covered feet. The ceilings of our public schools are blistering hot and paper flimsy. The basements of our public schools are dark and cluttered. We spent a fair enough amount of time on ladders and in ceilings and basements to require that dress code every day.

Now I'm a very lucky undergrad in my department's graduate student research office, with air conditioning and clean carpet (more than one of us is inclined to drop our sandals under the desk and go barefoot). Most of the time I can wear whatever I please, and most people here wear jeans and a comfortable shirt. But I am being paid by a big and powerful grant, so on days I know I'll be in a meeting, it's a long skirt, nice blouse and hair pulled back. Though I still might wear my flip flops. :P

I found a gloriously relaxed atmosphere joining this team. Awesome stuff.

As for non-techie jobs--I spent over two years a newspaper where we were supposed to have a dress code, but the newsroom never followed it. During this last school year I refilled printer paper as a "lab monitor" for my department. Pretty lame. No dress code.

Like many of the people posting, I never know if I will be pulling cable, opening a server, racking a server, or doing OS related things from my desk.

My job requires getting dirty some of the time, and nice clothes have no place in my line of work. I'm not going to spend good money on clothes to see them get ripped or stained.

I don't deal with external customers, and I don't have a problem meeting an internal customer wearing jeans and polo. If I meet with a vendor, it doesn't matter what I wear.

Just my $0.02

Short-sleeved shirt, tie, trousers (slacks) and black shoes.

If I know we've a messy job on (i.e. office move, computer room work) then I'll go for jeans and polo shirt.

I started off my career in a high-street bank and the dress code was mental. We weren't allowed to wear short-sleeved shirts, but could roll up our long sleeves on a hot day (as long as we didn't roll them up past the elbow). If we were wearing a three-piece suit and took the jacket off, we had to take the waistcoat off too. We weren't allowed to wear anything but black leather shoes (hence the reason I always wear black shoes; it's been drummed into me). I remember a colleague had an operation to correct ingrowing toenails on his big toes and had to get a doctor's certificate so he could wear sandals!

Some customer-facing male staff weren't allowed moustaches (talking late 70s here), but a full set (i.e. moustache and beard) was OK. None of the haircuts the "younger generation" sport today would have been allowed.

However, female staff could wear anything; blue jeans, tee shirts, you name it.

... the VP and CFO of the firm had gotten the job by being the owner's former mistress. She wore a tailord business suit in to the office every day, including weekends when she was just there for a few hours.

I don't care how people dress. I have found over the years that if a person is distracting, they are distracting regardless of how they dress. At my company, there is one woman who habitually wears low cut (but not too low cut by about a millimeter) blouses on a regular basis. They are very borderline blouses, and she has the figure to pull it off. Honestly it doesn't matter what she wears, she turns heads. Ironically, she is our HR person.

On the other end of the spectrum, there is a very nice lady here who always dresses well within the dress code, but her very large beer belly often drapes over her belt and out of her shirt. It is very distracting, but she is following our dress code.

It doesn't really matter what people wear. If a guy thinks he looks good dressed like Neil Diamond, more power to him. At least he'll give most of the office a much needed chuckle. If a lady wants to dress like Charo (or Phyllis Diller), have at it. It is very likely that each of them looks pretty much the same in a vampish pants suit as they do in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.

It is possible to get powerful paying jobs designing behind a desk, helping in the lab, meeting with internal and external customers and the executive board without wearing a suit. It is a matter of chemistry and expectations between you and the party. If you get the job done, and done well, the "look" means squat. I often find people who "dress to kill" underperform, while a person in the same position without all the fancy makeup just simply delivers and performs. In another situation I was asked to not wear jeans in a R&D division by the director because of the dress code. I negotiated a renewal of the dress code and in a few week everyone was wearing jeans daily, including the director. In my land, it is about function and performance, not "kissing up".

It seems everyone working in the industry has the same challenges. If you wear decent clothes, you have to crawl through cable alleys, if you wear grubbies, you discover a meeting with your boss's boss.

I divide my time between internal IT and field service, so I have to prepare for anything. We have no defined dress code, but the customers will walk through the tech shop several times a day, so a certain level of neatness is required.

My office dress code is modified business casual (for our industrial environment) neat blue jeans (no holes, no paint marks, fitted properly), long sleeved shirts (not denim, but similar weight of cloth) and steel toed work boots with a decent coat of polish (the military taught me how).

I find that with this "standard" and a couple of extras I can go anywhere and fit in.

A business meeting with the boss or a client means rolling down the shirt sleeves, grab the black sports coat from the hanger and run a cloth over my boots.

Moving equipment or running cable calls for the dark blue lab coat with lots of pockets for tools and stuff. It also works well for visits to the shop floor as it doesn't show dirt well.

Field service calls to industrial plant sites often require fire proof coveralls and I use the blue and yellow ones from my oilfield days.

As I am never going to work in sales again and I am not interested in the management career track, I see no reason to adopt their dress code.

I do have some limits to "casual" as I will not show up at the office in shorts, sandals or baseball caps. I also vet my t-shirts and golf shirts to avoid anything which does not present a reasonably professional profile (my collection of band t-shirts stays home).

On those occasions where clients have commented on my somewhat casual dress while working, I observed that I could wear business suits and expensive shoes while trying to do service work. As I would destroy these items quite often while doing my work, I would have to increase my hourly rates to cover the added expense of replacing good clothing. I would then ask if they wanted the service rates to increase so that they could define my dress standard. So far every client (legal firms, banks, accounting firms, etc.) have agreed that it was not worth the extra expense for the formal clothing.

Not the only approach to a dress code, but one that works for me in my industry.

it's also because you are tall.

At 6'5", I also have the height problem; I can't walk into WalMart, Target, Sears, or Penneys and buy clothes off the shelf (Although Penneys does occasionally have the right size shirts if I want Oxfords). What's even worse is that looking at the size options, you get the feeling that it's OK in our society to be short & skinny, short & fat, or tall & skinny, but not tall & fat.

When I have to buy slacks, my options are mail order big & tall or big & tall stores at the same 50% price premium I'm sure you are used to paying.

For jeans, I go to Tractor Supply and have no problem finding my size.

I recently heard of a company (corporation/office jobs) making it against the rules for women to wear pants. I've seen women walking into work wearing skirts while its 10 degrees outside. Besides the weather factor, I think its insulting to be made to only wear skirts! Maybe I took too many women's lib. classes, but I think a nice pair of slacks is fine for women to wear to work. Why is this even an issue? Seems terribly out dated to me. I get that skirts are more "dressy", but even Hillary Clinton wears pant suits! If I wanted to show leg, I would, but don't make it mandatory!
http://www.nexteve.com/