[clue-talk] Socks with Sandals?

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 09-01 20:16, Jed S. Baer wrote:
> Well hey, as long as we're being controversial ...
> 
> Do you think Bill Gates wears sandals with socks?
> 
> Well, Linus Torvalds does.
> 
>   http://www.sandalandsoxer.co.uk/linus+andrew.jpg


I used to rock that look at work - well, minus the shorts.  Used to drive a
fellow co-worker/friend/roommate up the wall. All the more so when it
started to catch on in the workplace...a few other nerds started doing the
same thing. I wasn't aware I had that much influence, but it was a small
workplace. I was doing it more to annoy the one guy, and as sort of an
anti-fashion statement.

Then I reverted back to Docs. :) The copycats were sort of left wondering
what they should do. Ah, good times.



As far as Bill goes, I think everything about his look is cultivated, every
bit as much as Steve's is. When you're being a ruthless capitalist, all the
better to have a sort of bowl-looking haircut, glasses, and a Mr. Rodgers
sweater on - they'll never see ya comin'. He was also the frontman for
years, so that became the "image" of MS. The "harmless" nerdy guy, not some
80's power-tie-and-suspenders wearing Master of the Universe, and not some
pin-stripe wearing Wall Street guy. When people see Steve, they probably
think Sprockets-arty-guy, and "think different" and all that jazz. 



BTW, I've been saying for years what I recently was reading in WSJ about
wearing suits, and that is that people that do it, at least in the tech
world, are doing it from a position of weakness:

http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB121806871823918831.html 

""The suit is a signal that something's going on that I'm nervous about,"
says the 38-year-old Mr. Kaufman. "A suit has become something you wear when
you're asking for money."

There was a time when a CEO in a dark business suit was safely dressed.
That's still true in many fields: Lawyers, financiers and bridegrooms are
largely expected to arrive suited up. But at creative or high-tech
businesses today, a suit can feel as out-of-sync as a pair of denim
overalls. It signals old-fashioned inflexibility when what's called for is
casual authority."

I've been saying it since I left uni, and that's well over a decade now. It
raised eyebrows back then, I can tell you, but it seemed so *obvious* to
me...anyway, there were (are?) still outfits that are extremely button-down
when it comes to their consultants...does a suit convey, even
subconsciously, the sense of power that it once supposedly did? It didn't
and doesn't for me...except in certain situations, but tech is definitely
not one of them. 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at comcast.net
http://sean-leblanc.blogspot.com
In Denver it is unlawful to lend your vacuum cleaner to your next-door
neighbor.