Thread by @QuinnyPig

I might get yelled at for this thread, but we'll give it a shot.

I'm not sure anyone needs to hear it as much as I needed to hear it myself a decade and change ago.

If you work in tech, either as an employee or as a consultant, most people you encounter *will not understand what you do*. "Something to do with the computers" is the best you can hope for.

They may be vaguely aware of a few additional facts. Such as "the company claims that people are their most important asset but pay the people who work on the computers three times what they pay the people who work in HR."

They will instead take shortcuts that you will dislike. They will judge you on things that are not directly relevant to your work.

'I have no idea what an "embedded systems programmer" might do, so I will instead judge them based upon their ability to do the things that I understand' is a very common pattern.

Forget "conduct yourself professionally in meetings;" that's table stakes. I'm talking things people may not be consciously aware of.

Two of them are:
Do you show up on time?
Can you manage your own appearance?

See, what you do is hard and beyond their understanding, so they'll form opinions based upon things that they consider to be easy.

Because if you can't handle the easy things, then you certainly shouldn't be trusted with the hard expensive things.

"Well screw them, I don't care what they think about me" is an understandable reaction, but many of these people affect things like promotions, raises, contract renewals, etc.

So when you rock in at noon thirty looking like a bag of smashed assholes, they don't *care* that you were working until 2AM on a site cutover or whatnot. It just reinforces their already poor opinion of you.

I'm not saying that this is right; I'm saying it's inescapable.

And now you know why, back when nobody had ever heard of me I showed up to give a talk at a DevOps Days wearing a full suit, looking like a salesperson who had gotten lost.

True, I opened my talk with "you've all heard about Docker because the first rule of Docker is never shut the fuck up about Docker." But until I opened my mouth, I fit into people's preconceived ideas of what they thought I was.

And now you know, and can plan accordingly.

When I wear a suit to meetings with engineers, two things happen.

1. I get made fun of. A lot.
2. People take me WAY more seriously. They defer to me constantly in ways they don't when I dress like The Phantom of the Expo Hall decked out in vendor swag.

Conversely, if I don't want to be taken seriously I'll wear some rando vendor shirt.

If I want to be viewed as a menace to technical progress I have to choose between an IBM "Cloud" t-shirt and a clown suit.