Re: The Results (Long)/Addendum

[Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>]

Quoting Michele Davis <michele -at- krautgrrl -dot- com>:

> But everyone should know that the clothes do not make the person. You 
> aren't hiring someone for their clothes. 
[snip]
> But I am usually much more tolerant of proclivities than 
> others would be because I've known some bizarre people who are highly 
> successful. > 

I agree with you about bizarre people. In fact, I've met so may brilliant 
eccentrics that I have to remind myself that eccentricity isn't always a mark 
of brilliance. After meeting and befriendng trans-gendered tarot readers, 
Gothic wicca with harps, Catholic monks with a fondness for brandy and Fats 
Waller, and writers who do sword exercises late at night when writers' block 
strikes, I don't imagine there's much that couldn't surprise or delight me.

All the same, meeting the standards expected by business does show both a 
certain flexibility and foresight. Everybody knows that people usually don't 
wear the same clothes to an interview that they do everyday at work; as people 
at one company where I worked used to say, if a man's wearing a suit, he either 
has a job interview or a fancy date. I would never discount anyone simply for 
the clothes they wore to an interview - although many people would - but I 
would wonder how serious they were about the job if they didn't make at least a 
token effort at being clean and presentable, especially in these days, when the 
standards have relaxed so much. In a way, a minimal effort is  a sign of 
respect, of showing that you're not just there to waste the interviewer's time.

The same goes for the interviewer, of course. If an interviewer greets me in 
ragged jeans and a torn T-shirt, then plants his sandalled feet on the desk so 
that I can see his filthy feet (which actually happened to me once at a 
reasonably large company), I think I have the right to be a little insulted.


-- 
Bruce Byfield bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com 604-421.7177