Doesn't seem that weird to me. Since landing in tech I haven't had to buy a single t-shirt- I just wear whatever they hand out.

I find it socially acceptable. It's quite normal to jump from one tech company to another, and wearing a t-shirt from a previous employer is an artifact of that lifestyle.

My hot take: I've always interpreted it as "street cred" thing. Getting a job at Google is difficult, for example, and wearing a t-shirt from your Google days could show intellectual pride.

> I've always interpreted it as "street cred" thing. Getting a job at Google is difficult, for example, and wearing a t-shirt from your Google days could show intellectual pride.

Pride here isn't a good thing.

To each their own. Pride in my decisions and my hard work is an important part of my self esteem.

It's also a way to flex. Same way people tend to wear alumni sweaters from Ivy League, Stanford level schools. I doubt you'd see anyone wearing an Infosys (or similarly viewed company) shirt in that kind of environment.

Right, but no matter what your past is, you are still at $currentCompany, not $prevCompany, so in that most important of ways you are exactly the same as all these other people you are trying to flex on. Why would I care that you used to get paychecks from a more prestigious company if yours are signed by the same guy as me now?

I do this all the time and nobody cares.

(stops wearing my JPL t-shirt to work)