Fuck Today (Part 1)

Heh, I’ll have to dig up some photos in my “Cats” t-shirt some day. I was pretty ripped, and rocked a skin tight shirt about a Broadway musical starring magical felines.

People either swooned, or crossed the street when they saw me :sunglasses:

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One last one, and I’ll get to work. This was right before I bleached my hair platinum blonde. Unfortunately I know of no existing copies of those photos, which is a travesty. So fuck today for not saving more photos.

(Just look at those pudgy cheeks, so punchable pinchable :upside_down_face: )

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I will no longer wear any kind of hat. No baseball caps, fedoras, not even a toboggan when it gets cold out. Hats don’t suit me… but I’ve only learned that after years of trying to wear hats.

As for the tie, I like it. It has character. I’m a bowtie wearer myself, because I physically have the build for such a thing, but nobody really looks good in a bowtie. I’ve also got a fair amount of neckties that other people like but I don’t, so I should either trust my own instincts on ties or everyone’s instincts but my own… I can’t tell.

As for everything else, I’ve been there, I can totally relate. In a box of photos in a landfill somewhere, there’s a picture of me with a fedora, thin goatee, wire rim glasses, bowtie, and a suit made for someone six inches shorter and 50 pounds heavier than me. You and I could have been the same person at that age. Styles change, and people change, but the type of person who would choose to dress like that is more appealing to me than someone who wants to look like everyone else. In my late teens and early twenties, I was trying to find my own style, but really wasn’t sure what that would be.

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I would like to say we all would have been. Then again, it’s a lot easier to be a quirky adult than a kid who’s just fucking weird. But on the other hand, communities like this one are self-selecting, and we’re not forced to share the same physical space with people who actively hate us.

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My condolences. It must have been a shock for everyone in his life. He sounds like a great guy, based on what you’ve said here and earlier. He will be missed.

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Well, sometimes we are, when trollies manage to get some mind share here. But on the whole, even people here I often disagree with are still worth being around.

That’s true. He was a great person.

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Bowties rock. Anyone that says otherwise doesn’t know what they are talking about.

I never want to look like other people. Which often gets me into trouble. When I showed up to an office the other day, dressed in tailor made clothes that could have come from saville–to discuss engineering, in silicon valley–two people audibly gasped.

Honestly it put me at a disadvantage. A polo and khakis would have gained me more rapport much quicker. But I am who I am. A piece of feedback I got from an exec was I seemed Aloof. My response was, yep, this is me. I make no apologies for wanting to look like myself, and not wear a hoodie to an engineering meeting.

It cost me in a couple ways. But they will warm up to me, as most do. It’ll just take time. So fuck that day, but I wouldn’t change it.

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I don’t mind a little healthy disagreement here or there. I don’t even mind a heated argument once in a while, as long as there’s some mutual respect. What I won’t stand is actual violent hatred and bigotry. That has no place here or anywhere else, even if I’ve had to share physical space with the literal KKK at times in my life.

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Seriously? Jeez. Maybe it is because Boeing is so lax but I have had managers who were suit and tie every day and ones who were decent shirt and jeans most days when I was direct with Boeing and they were all great managers. Coworker dress was not quite suit and tie but it ran the spectrum from a bit nicer than business casual to casual and nobody there was shocked or put off by any of it.

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Dressing for these sorts of things is always a fine balance. You want to look important, but not more important than people think you are. Dressing down shows lack of respect, unless you’re important enough to be above it all. Hence, abominations like khakis, for people not important enough for slacks but who can’t get away with wearing jeans.

As for being aloof, maybe I am. Trying to pretend like I’m everyone’s buddy will just wear thin real quick. It doesn’t suit me. I’m someone to whom it takes time to warm up. That’s just who I am.

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Most places I’ve worked have been casual to business casual, unless we were meeting with customers directly, in which case it was suit and tie.

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As a server support monkey I never had to worry about that.

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It was the faux pas equivalent of wearing cargo shorts to Goldman Sachs.

Ironically, on two different occasions now, people have seen the makers mark in one of my suits. One said, “I really like their cut, they make great clothes”. The second was a top tier VC, who simply said, “yeah, we invested and own a stake in them”.

Fuck today, I have so much serious work which I’m procrastinating that I’m talking fashion. I need a minder.

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Exactly.

I used my situation a few years ago for general education purposes: after having gained some weight in the process of multiple surgeries, chemo, radiation, and various medications, I dropped it again rather quickly (which happens to me: medical stress, including pregnancy, makes me gain quickly but then lose it again quickly when the circumstances change) and people were coming up to me and saying “wow, you look great! you really lost some weight!” to which I would reply, very seriously, “yes, but don’t worry, it doesn’t seem to be related to the cancer so my oncologist isn’t concerned.” Almost everyone looked like they’d seen a ghost, and a few would admit that it made them think about how they ASSUMED losing weight (especially for a woman) was always seen as something to be commented on and celebrated.

If you’re not someone’s doctor, it’s probably not your place to comment on someone’s weight and size. Period.

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Made me look for it.

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I’ve always found in those cases (and, indeed, much of the time in general for me…) that I do best when I wear the suit (or odd jacket, or tie, or whatever is being considered “over dressing”) with no regard whatsoever to the fact I’m wearing it. My mannerism between wearing a suit and a hoodie hardly change.
The act of wearing the suit and showing no regard for wearing the suit takes much of the edge off for people, and is, in fact, much of who I am. I’ll club a tie and roll up sleeves if there’s labor to be done, but I’m not taking the tie off.

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…I has my shirt sleeves pre-rolled up. So when we had a whiteboard session, I’d take off my jacket and immediately be dressed down.

Perhaps I think about these things too much.

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Fuck today. Day 96 of the job search. Applied to the few dozen job openings in this podunk city (Prince Albert), received zero responses. Tired of feeling useless, tired of couch surfing, tired of having to bum internet from cafés. Fuck everything.

I’m glad Canada has “strict” gun controls. I suspect I am not the only jobless youth, and that there are other far more angry and irrational ones who would otherwise take “direct action”.

Back to reading The Communist Manifesto and spending time in San Andreas…

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Need a hand? I’m no virtuoso, but I’m pretty good at getting my foot in the door.

Now I can’t promise you’ll like any of my answers, but I’m here to help.

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I’m gonna be losing one of my few IRL lifelines.

Fuck.

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