Dressing for summertime

It's the same fucking problem year after year after year. As the warmer days of springs knock on our doors, there is this uncontrollable tendency especially in young men and woman to dress with questionable pieces of clothing in the office.

And each year, as we move closer to the summer equinox, HR feels obligated to remind the youngsters that summer dresses, camis, and Hawaiian shorts are not precisely compatible with our line of business and could potentially impact our financial quarter. If we don't do anything, the whole office will look like the set of a Daytona spring break.

Can you imagine the conservative CIO of one of our client, let's say in the financial services industry with billions in assets, watching with horror as unshaved consultants dressed in a Tommy Bahamas fashion troll in the hallway with their flip-flops making squeaky sounds?

Holy Mackerel, I thought for a second that I was back in the Hamptons in July. Who are those guys anyway? Consultants? They wear yellow bermudas for Pete sake. I can't believe it, what is the name of the consulting firm? See jee what? Well I'll be damned if I don't sack them right now, Charlene hold my calls for an hour, I need to blow some steam.

Next thing you know, we miss earning estimates by 10 cents because of a single individual's inappropriate choice of wardrobe.

I once thought of imposing a corporate uniform but HR told me this might lead to unions, so I dropped the ball. But I kept some sketches on file just in case.

Nevertheless, I strongly advise you to dress for business, and business does not mean renting umbrellas on the beach.

Wearing a 3-piece suit is never overdressed no matter what line of work you do, even during blistering hot summer days in downtown Montreal where women stilettos leave deep dents in the asphalt on St-Denis.

The conservative CIO will be highly impressed to see you reviewing the firewall rules if you're dressed sharply without being provocative.

This young man here reminds me of myself when I was in my 20's, boy does this bring back fond memories when I was working for RBC. A tie every day, starched collar. Charlene, what is the daily rate of this gentleman here? How much? Sweet Mary, this is so cheap it is insulting. Call the consulting firm and say we'll pay 40% more for keeping this sharply-dressed lad. And we're extending him, we can't afford to lose previous resources like him. I should present him to my daughter too.

So ditch your North Face wardrobe today and get yourself some decent summer clothes that will speak for you and the firm. Call Harry, tell him I send you. And please don't act like some of your friends who buy shirts 4 size too small, you need to breathe.

Roach out.

The Secret Dress Code

There are many unwritten rules inside an organization, but there is one at CGI that we constantly remind our members of.

Thou shall dress like the manager at the client site.

It means that if the manager wears a suit and tie, you must be dress in a suit and tie. Even if lower-ranking employees wear dirty jeans and sneakers, you must dress in a suit if the manager wears one.

I’ve been heavily criticized for this rule. Some members with little education on personal finance and money management claim something along of line of How can I dress like a manager doing $200 000 base salary plus $75 000 in bonus when I only make $35 000 with a $780 bonus?

Here’s a few ideas for clueless members. For one thing, a manager raking a quarter million dollar a year doesn’t mean he wears expensive clothing. You’d be surprised how many individuals favor cheap polyester shirts and bought most of their ties at a thrift store in 1982 (now closed). Sure, the manager is loaded and you feel frustrated that his level of competence is not in line with his salary package, but you have to focus on yourself.

So if the manager wears a cheap suit, you should wear a cheap suit yourself. Never overdress though. Ask for advice so that your clothes color do not clash with your client’s favorites ones. He enjoys beige and brown? Never wear a red or gold-colored tie, the client will feel inferior and castrated. He favors highly flammable fabrics that are now verboten for public safety? Check eBay for vintage clothes that were popular when Eric Estrada was at the top of his game. You should blend in like a chameleon.

If the manager looks like a hobo and sips from a bottle in a paper bag, wait a few days as he should be replaced by someone else. If the next one also looks like a hobo, it sends the signal that depravity is part of the organizational culture. So take a visual cue from the guys playing trombone at Place Ville-Marie and enjoy the world of ripped clothing for the duration of the project. What can I say, business is business.

If you client enjoys the good life and wears expensive stuff, like off-the-scale, do yourself a favor and go talk to Mario at Harry Rosen. He’ll get you a nice suit that will speak for you without having to milk your RESP account, you will be so well dressed that your deliverables will get a speedy approval. Sure, it’s more expensive than the stuff at Sears, but brown bag a sandwich for a few years and the suit will pay itself just like magic.

What if the manager is a woman? Do guys need to wear pantyhose?

Absolutely. And if the manager has a kinky fetish and she wants all her contractors to wear lingerie, you must take all necessary steps to make her happy so that our business relation is not impacted. Profitable growth will ensue.

A Matter of Style

Maybe it's because I'm a guy in his late 50's and there's this natural gap between my generation and the one starting their career, but I'm dumbfounded by the dress code and consumption patterns of some of our youngest members at the company.

Don't get me wrong, I know it's a natural thing for youngsters to dress differently from their parents. When I started my career in the early 70's, it was okay to wear a tie as large as a small pizza and grow sideburns thick enough for a squirrel to be able to hide inside. Nevertheless, we were dressing for business and regardless of what hues were considered trendy, tasteful choices could help your career greatly. When we were meeting with a client to force a mainframe maintenance contract down his throat, we were not dressed like we were about to climb the Kilimanjaro. Ross Perot had a similar dilemma at EDS back in the days, he could barely tolerate men who dressed with shirts other than white and growing a beard raised suspicions about your political viewpoint.

Which brings me to my point, guys and gals in their early 20's have no dress code boundaries. They tend to dress at work pretty much the way they dress at home. Shirts from The North Face, Merrell sandals, the only thing missing from their outfit is climbing gear. Horrible haircuts are now back for young men where you can barely see their eyes, therefore impeding their visual perception of nonverbal signals during important meetings. What are they thinking? What happened to decency? And don't get me started about piercing, whenever I see a perforated gal or guy in the office, I try to imagine the top career level that this person will ever achieve and the level is usually quite low.

If you want to have a chance in life, keep your skin intact and distance yourself from your grungie friends. Start shaving, and by shaving I mean shaving, not a 3-day look. Go shop at Harry Rosen, if you're not sure about how to wear a tie just google it. And for god sake make an effort to speak in complete sentences, life is not a MSN chat room. I don't care if your job is to maintain a SAN, you should dress like a CEO. Do yourself a favour and ditch that Hyundai shit box and get yourself an old Mercedes for the same price, you can get today a clean 190 for an astonishing price. Larry Ellison from Oracle did exactly that when we was a young stud, and now check what his net worth is.

All this of course won't give you more money from me, but you'll score higher in my mind and that's what's important.