Dress the Part

I try not to write about my job very often… But the fact is, my career has grown to where I now have a great deal of responsibilities.

I’m one of the more technical people in the I.T. department… So my job has morphed away from taking helpdesk phone calls and server setups being second (I still set up servers, yes). But now my time is spent managing the network, managing email, managing SAN storage, managing blackberries, basically I’m the “go to guy” for all high level technical stuff…

So, i’ve pretty much committed to being more professional at work. For instance I regularly interface with top executives, and I don’t really know if I like the image I portray. I think one of the biggest parts of that has been my wardrobe. I do wear a shirt and tie to work everyday, yes… But they don’t necessarily look “professional”. Some of my clothes had a quirky “I.T. guy” kind of feel. So, last week I invested like 300 dollars into an updated wardrobe. And not the total number of ‘dress clothes’ that I own are pretty shocking for me…

I now own 20 neck ties. I now own 15 different dress shirts (coutning collared long sleeve tie shirts – not counting polo, short sleeve, business casual), I now own 12 different pairs of dress pants, and finally I now own 6 different pairs of dress shoes. The only thing left for me are “suits”. As of right now, I only own one actual two piece suit… But after the next pay check that’s going to change. I’m going to at least buy two new suits (for staff meetings, etc.).

I’m trying to dress the part of a more professional person, because I could easily see somebody working underneath me very soon… and now Hopefully that keeps me on par for this course.

4 thoughts on “Dress the Part

  1. Adam

    Oddly enough, starting this week, I’ve been dressing up more. I worked from home for my last job, which meant that when I didn’t work from a coffee shop, ‘dressing up’ was actually putting on pajamas. (Conference calls in your underpants: enjoyable).

    My current job allows me to interact with more people (I have a desk an office, several mousetraps about my desk, etc) but nobody in the “SysAdmin” department dresses up. Well, now I kinda do. The best dressed I’ve been so far was khakis and a nice long-sleeved shirt. I settled for long-sleeved shirts and jeans the rest of this week, but I don’t mind dressing up more. It’d help if they didn’t keep the office around 80 degrees Fahrenheit…

    I am far less professional than you. But I also live in Alaska. We have dogsleds and beard contests. By simply not smelling like fish, I put myself above most Alaskans.

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