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I wore a suit and tie to my first job at Sperry 1985. In the day, it was important to designate that you were of an appropriate class of person, to hold a job that made good money.
There was competition for job slots, and the better-dressed would win those competitions. Considered essential was the color, width, and pattern of your tie. The culture was that if you had a good degree and a good tie, you were golden.
And then, over the next four years, the company would lay off 100,000 people. (Including me. Twice.)
All the work done at Sperry and IBM moved to California, along with half the top tech people, where they wore t-shirts and jeans to work.
It never actually made sense to wear wool suits on super hot summer days, where part of your job was to fish cable under dusty raised floors in computer rooms. But what truly made no sense was judging tech workers by what they wore, instead of what knowledge was in their heads and what kind of job they did. Silicon Valley emphasized more correct values, and within a decade, felled the giants of the industry and became the center of the tech universe.
Make me wear a tie? I'll do it, but it's your funeral.
(Literally, that is when I will wear a tie. To a funeral.)
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