I've never been forced to wear one in my professional life, so I dunno about that. But I'll wear one by choice on occasion. Even when I was working a day job I'd just wear a suit some days. My boss would think I was interviewing (I wasn't, usually), but it's really just because it is an easy, straightforward confidence boost.

"on occasion" being the keyword. It's good to be able to leverage a suit as a tool or for pleasure. Many people rejecting formal dressing miss that.

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

Good to keep your boss on his or her toes too

Ehh. Every boss I've ever worked for after my initial out-of-college gig has known that I interview regularly, once every quarter at least; it was never anything personal or because of dissatisfaction, just "I like networking and I like seeing how the trends in the market are evolving". I usually didn't wear a suit to those, though, for the other reason: tech people get weird about well-dressed people and think they're "fakes" or whatever.

> tech people get weird about well-dressed people and think they're "fakes" or whatever.

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".

Here in Australia, it is only sales people (cars, real estate, finanicial products), politicians and the CEO in front of the press. There is a very good reason not to trust anyone in a suit anymore.

You can either chafe, or acknowledge reality and use it to your advantage.

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

And the presence of a load of suits is a good indicator for the rest of us that it's not the sort of restaurant atmosphere we'll enjoy...

Hahaha oh man it's hard to tell on the internet but I hope this is facetious and you genuinely don't think restaurants are going to ever move you ahead in the queue.

I'm kind of being facetious.

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.

When everyone is wearing a suit, how does one differentiate?

Same way you differentiate between different stuff in the same class--quality, style, that sort of thing. I've never worried about that part of things, though, because the jump from "no suit" to "well-fitted suit" feels bigger to me than "well-fitted suit" to "well-fitted, expensive suit", and I mostly wear one because I like them, so I haven't indulged.

By comparing the quality of your respective business cards of course.

Watch I guess, Patek trumps Rolex and so on...

There's few things that make a worse first impression on me faster than someone wearing a watch as a status symbol.

How would you know, unless you were making an effort yourself to check out their watch? And knew which watches were status symbols?

Depends how expensive the watch is. If it's a $100K watch, you can be fairly sure they have money.

Watches. Tag < Rolex < Audemars < Patek. Or shoes, or quality of suit, style, age, companion, car, etc...

No one recognises the higher end. Sure people notice a Rolex, TAG or Breitling but, in 10 years I can not remember anyone commenting on my AP.

jokes on you. i don't go to restaurants that cater to image over quality of food.

aka selling out.

Not everyone is built for success. At least you recognize that in yourself.

Funny, I read the comment as meaning "I get plenty of social deference, and any more would be just be annoying".

success? what does that even mean?