What do you think of the convention of wearing suits and ties to work and to job interviews?
I think its absolutely silly and a huge inconvenience.
Western society prides itself for being a very pragmatic, scientific, and advanced society and yet the custom of the suit and tie does nothing but inconvenience the individual needlessly.
The tie especially serves no bloody purpose. NO BLOODY PURPOSE (I'm not exaggerating).
The only function of this whole suit and tie thing at job interviews and work is to try and screw over the people who are less dress-etiquette conscious. And WHY the hell does it have to be a WHITE shirt? A WHITE shirt is the easiest color for employers to notice stains and wrinkles and then judge you that's why! A WHITE shirt is the easiest color for interviewers to pass judgment on you that's why (increased probability they'll see an undershirt if you're not ''man enough'' to stand the cold in the interview room)!
See what I mean? This whole suit and tie routine is designed to root people out pointlessly. Does someone's ability to handle and wear his shirt the ''appropriate way'' have any bearings on his actual ability to connect with clients, analyze problems, or churn out productive papers? No. And once again... WHY does it have to be WHITE (Does that have anything to do with racism by any chance)?
While we're on that topic, I also want to bring a colonial angle to this. A lot of good and bad came from European global domination but this suit and tie custom thingy is decidedly on the bad side. I UNDERSTAND why countries like India, Madagascar, and the Middle East may WISH to pick up on the more productive, pragmatic, and useful aspects from their former colonial rulers. Picking up things like the common law system, the Western scientific method, and infrastructure technology/practices MAKES SENSE. They objectively improve things. What upsets me though, is that this bloody impractical and annoying suit and tie routine has spread worldwide.
WHY do we have to wear suits and ties? They are a pain to maintain, put on, and present. Why can't we wear something else? Why does ''formal'' have to mean annoying? This clearly isn't the only way to go. Look at the Lannisters in Game of Thrones, no one scoffs at them for not being ''formal.'' All Lord Tywin has to do is put on a simple leather top (its expensive leather I'm sure but it doesn't look like it needs to be pressed free of wrinkles every bloody day). Why can't we just pick up that tradition? Why are we stuck with the annoying suit and tie thing? Why can't we just follow the Tyrell-Lannister model of formal dress? There are some things medieval people do better I tell you.
Why's this suit and tie thing gone global? Its partly an unfortunate consequence of colonialism I tell you. Now I can't even escape this annoying thing by flying off to Egypt or some other non-Western country, or to China or Japan for example. They ALL BLOODY HAVE IT because they all want to be in good concert with the British and the Americans. Now if CHINA had been the world's most powerful country, I bet we wouldn't be stuck with this suit and tie routine. Maybe then we'd all get to wear really simple robes or just slap a jacket on.
We should change formal dress. There are three ways you could go instead.
1. The first is obviously to get rid of this concept of ''formal dress.'' Its inherently judgemental and promotes superficial appearance-based judging. Like I said, its ridiculous to dismiss people from interviews or judge them because they ''failed'' your little dressing test. Focus on the actual skills please.
2. The second approach is where you could change the formal dress requirements so they are a little less onerous. My suggestion about wearing the simple Lannister brown/black leather tops or the Tyrell colored top jackets (look at what Loras Tyrell was wearing in Season 4, it looks so beautiful and yet so SIMPLE to maintain and wear). PLEASE be pragmatic about this. Let's not all fuss about how to maintain white shirts and ties and work with these incredibly clunky requirements.
3. There's a third way. The law steps in. On ALL INTERVIEW days people are allowed to wear whatever the hell they want and if someone discriminates on that basis, the law can step in.
Personally, I like the second idea. We can still have formal dress, but it can be less cumbersome and annoying on everyone and less stressful (a Lannister-Tyrell style leather/silk top is harder to stain and you don't need to tie some ridiculous knot).
What do you think about the suit and tie tradition? What do you think accounts for their prevalence? Does it annoy you? What should be done about it?
