Dress for success

This is something which I read over a forum, over something I wrote:

I got criticism for wearing just T-shirt and shorts, even in hot Singapore.

"Is this the way you are going to dress to meet us?" (referring to meeting a friend)

The reply, in fact the most blunt but sensible one:

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Kids are wearing stuff a lot different from that. They're back to tight jeans for boys & young men (tight is not something I go for), and gothic-printed T-shirts (tighter fitting). I don't mean to sound belligerent, but it sounds like you are judging that there's something wrong with how someone chooses to dress.

I've always hated that term; "Dress for success". The only people I know who wear golf shirts, or wear a suit and tie to work, are attempting to achieve a financial status which I have already achieved (and which I bet they never will, with the attitude I feel them showing)..... In my T-shirt and jeans.

I don't need to impress anyone with my appearance, other than always being freshly showered and clean-shaven. I don't have a PhD, but I certainly am quite well educated, and a member of society in good standing, and pay a heck of a lot of taxes. A good friend of mine; a nuclear physicist, highly successful oil lease investor, and chairman at Cal Tech, wears an old K-Mart sweat suit with stains on it.

Below are photos of me; age 43: Baggy shorts, Skin Industries motocross shirt, heavy gauge earrings, motorcycle chain necklace, and baseball cap.... Bottom photo is another example of how I typically dress. I'm not quite the punk kid that some people might think of in those clothes, I guess. To some, I guess, I wouldn't look like the co-owner and operator of a major southern California avocado ranch.... Own and manage several rental homes and apartments; built and sold another business before age 30, member in good standing of the Mayflower Compact Society, and taxpayer of unreasonable proportions. Also happily married to a highly successful, well-educated businesswoman...... Who is attending a meeting to negotiate an oil lease in Dallas, in a football shirt and jeans with holes. One of my wife's and my favorite ways to "mess with people", is when we call on a real estate ad for a property we might be interested in buying.... We go to meet a broker in a 3-piece suit, who usually shows up in a BMW with a huge wheels (and a likely a huge loan), and we clatter and rattle up in a 1984 Corolla Diesel with lousy paint. It really blows the broker away if, when asked how we intend to finance, we hand them our accountant's card, and tell them it's going to be cash on a 1031 exchange. It's amazing to me, how many wrong impressions can be taken by outward appearance.

If anyone is going to accept and be supportive of a person, they will need to accept individualized style of dress first.

Maybe some food for thought...........

No offense intended; just asking for consideration.

Charles

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Does Charles remind me of somebody I know? Lol

I bet this will never, ever happen in Singapore, unless there is drastic societal change.