Taste Matters!

I was listening to the latest “This Developers Life” podcast called Taste and it stroke a chord with me.

I remember arguing whether appearance matters at work with some guy from my previous gigs. His point was that it should not matter, as the most important thing is one’s brain and ideas. Needless to say he looked like a bum.

Ultimately, he is right. Looks probably should not matter. It does not matter in two cases:

• email communication. The other guy might be flesh eating alien or even a girl. I don’t care.
• when your pal says: “This guy is genius! He sleeps in a garbage can, but he is brilliant!”

These two cases, you don’t care how the other person look like, in all other cases, however, you do care. 

While it is correct that well dressed person conveys a message, I think it is more important that sloppily dressed person not only does not transmits the same message, but he conveys a negative message. Being a bum is to tell your colleagues: “I don’t care about you. I can come with my pajamas, uncut fingernails and unwashed, but you STILL will listen to me!”

It is a very negative thing to say to your co-workers…