In an office setting, dress is better used as a signal than a driver. If your team isn't, over the years, picking up cues from one another then maybe there's a level of social bonding that you, as the manager, are neglecting to forment. (Or your team doesn't have to be that close to be effective.) Social psychology gives a lot away for free if you're halfway perceptive.

It would seem that as an American you refer to a white shirt - but what do you term that which I (as a Briton) would call a dress shirt? (Worn with evening, or the most formal of morning attire. That is, with your -ahem- tuxedo!)

I've been searching around (self-proclaimed) 'all American' clothing sites - it seems 'shirt' -> 'dress shirt', and 't-shirt' -> 'shirt'.

I suppose it makes sense that as a new garment starts to dominate it adopts the shorter name - I haven't really noticed it over here though, except with polo shirts, but even there I'd say the more common contraction is 'polo'.

If that's true then dressing well is pretty damn rational in general, and especially if money's on the line.

He never got OK with my habit of wearing jeans and T-shirts even as an adult because he couldn't grasp how different my experience was from his.

Also, over dressing can be as much of a problem as underdressing. If you came to a def interview at say Facebook in a suit, it could get awkward.

Black pants, white shirts. Works everywhere.

For example, people giving their talk wearing a suit at a scientific conference? Very high chance of bad science. If you do amazing research you don't need a suit to impress anyone, the ideas you present will be more than enough.

Fir myself, I don't know if I see it as that, but I certainly see it as an indicator that they might be the kind of person who judges /other people/ based on how they dress.

I don't care how you dress, but if you care how other people dress, I'm definitely judging you for that.

I work from home. I don't need effort and products to look like I just woke up.

As often as not, a well-cut sport coat and trousers play as higher status than a suit. It explicitly signals that you're dressing well by choice rather than diktat. Many semi-formal flourishes can carry this connotation - brown dress shoes, a knit tie, an oxford shirt or a flamboyant pocket square.

But the problem with a very strict dress code is that you don't feel being respected, you feel coerced.

There's some historical precedence there. Up until ~10-15 years ago the fakers and know-nothings used to always wear suits. They were the guys who pulled the purse strings, but had no clue.

Unfortunately, since then they've learnt to mimic the dress of their prey. So now instead of the "empty suit" you have an "empty hoodie".

When I was younger, I chafed. Now, I enjoy getting seated at that restaurant table before you.

It's just an observation that the more professional you look, the better you'll be treated. Yes, that's a fact. Yes, it's probably a sad commentary. And I rarely wear dress clothes - but I know when to, and I don't complain.

Anecdotally, I have worked at restaurants where we wouldn't seat people who were wearing denim, no matter how expensive it was.

In that situation, voluntarily following a dress code that you don't enjoy following is illogical. As illogical as taking a voluntary pay cut.

Too many people makes it about conformism or morality. But really it's giving too much credit to it: we are just making animal behavior very sophisticated. It's no use to blame or get angry, or it's good to just do like everyone else. Just make the best of it, it's the reality you live in. And if you want to change it, you need to see it for what it is anyway so starting by that is always a good step.

[1] https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/03/06/to-serve-wall-street...

But if a company needs to use technics from the military, something is wrong. Life is not war.

Schools and sports teams also have uniforms, if that helps set your mind at ease...

Thanks for your opinion, but you are completely wrong. The military and commercial worlds have been cross-pollinating each other's organisational ideas for centuries. The fundamental problem is the same: one of coordinating large groups of people to achieve a common goal via a hierarchical structure.

It does still remain on of the US's largest jobs programs, though I'm not sure this is the goal of the military. It does make reducing military spending rather tricky since so many livelihoods depend on it.

Honestly, one of the things I absolutely love about tech/Silicon Valley is nobody cares at all how you dress.

Although, I noticed the sale force offices unofficial uniform:

Brown shoes brown belt designer jeans and some dry-cleaned blue shirt and a blazer...

"Look at how casually uniquely I conform to the office uniform!"

Not judging, I just thought it was funny...

LOL the "hoodie code" is 10x stronger than any suit code.

If you're even the slightest bit concerned with anything anyone is wearing, then you need to focus on something else.

Tell a suit wearer that they should dress casual tomorrow and they'll say OK. Tell a geek they have to wear a suit tomorrow and they'll freak out. Now tell me who cares more about clothes?

The suit wearer also has a closet full of casual clothes

The casual wearer will not have a line of suits - thus his freak out

What is the payscale between the both vs type of work and hours?

Would be great to get a map of all this

A hoodie-wearer at FB or Apple probably out-earns the majority of suit-wearers at Goldman - it is definitely not about money, just about attitude.

Sorry but it's highly unlikely.

Almost every VP I know in NYC/LDN makes less than a fresh grad at Google in the bay area.

I think it's mostly tribal signalling, " I am not a suit" kind of thing. Although never having to deal with dry cleaning is an incentive, too.

Things aren't quite as loose as you seem to think. If you want to see where the boundaries are, start gradually dressing more and more informally, and note when you start drawing criticism from your manager and senior coworkers. I expect you'll get more attention than you want if you were to come to work shirtless, say.

A team that includes everyone else outside the company in similar cloths?