>I could tell you a funny story about a Stanley Tool Co. manager,
>an engine lathe, and a tie left to dangle near the feed screw of
>the machine.... but I'd best not... It's an ugly picture...
:) Reminds me of a story a former HR exec at Crouse Hinds told me when I
was interviewing him. He'd been laid off, but they'd let him keep his
office while he was searching for a new job. So, we had the interview
there, in the factory -- well, in the glass enclosed offices high above the
factory floor. Having worked in the catering biz, I've seen the bowels of
many factories in my life.
HR exec sang the praises of casual Fridays for exactly this reason. For one thing, there was the safety issue. Then there was the ruined tie issue. You already look like a real ass when you hit the shop floor [1], he said. You like a bigger ass when you lean over and get your tie caught in something or, heavens!, get your tie greasy. But most of all, former HR exec said, it was about getting down with the peeps or somesuch horse hockey. Something about flattening those organizations, better managerial/labor relations, yadda yadda. Though I have to say, wrt the recent announcement for a book about managerial ideologies, no one understood better what a crock of donkey dung such rhetoric was than most of these managers.
>A guy with NO TIE and a "name on his shirt" saved
>him from a fate worse than... embarrasment.
>
>I do my best organizing, convincing and conciousness raising when
>dressed like, and preferably, am like, the people I am addressing.
*grin* Howie Hawkins from the Green Party came to speak to my class one day. It was a plenary debate between Howie and a guy from the Chamber of Commerce type. Now, the CofC guye had on a wrinkled, frympy looking gray suit and it was def. off the rack -- and not a very good rack. (Syr was seen as a 'blue-collar' town b/c there wasn't a place to buy a good suit.)
Anyhoo, in the sessions after the debate, the students obsessed about the way Howie dressed -- jeans and t-shirt and messy hair, IIRC. They couldn't believe he'd dress like such a schlumpf. As far as any of us could tell --it was team taught course--no one really paid attention to Howie's message because of his clothes. No one noticed the C of C guy's wrinkled suit or his frumpy look -- but they sure noticed Howie's!.
I remember when people were trying to organize factory workers at a place I was working. There was a lot of grumbling about the way the organizers condescended to the workers. They weren't terribly impressed with attempts to get down with the peeps -- no more than they would have been impressed by casual Fridays (which hadn't b/c popular yet). There was some leftover resentment, too: stories told about people from Ithaca coming to the area to get down with the peeps and work, side by side, in the factories -- as a way of organizing.
I'm not saying they were right in their judgements or that their judgments were widespread. I guess what I'm saying is: know your audience.
Howie Hawkins might have done a little better with a less schlumpfy outfit. ORganizers might have done a little better to simply acknowledge these sub-cultural differences and not try to pretend to be one of the unwashed masses.
Justin needs to be less sensitive about suits, I think. OTOH, I can understand. After reading some of the trashing of people's looks and clothes purchased at Walmart, etc. on the list, I'd pretty much figured I'd probably rather not ever meet anyone in person on this list unless I had some finery to wear for the occasion. sheesh.
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling