Bah, millennial coat tail riders*. It was us Gen X ITers who made it happen. If anyone wanted to get off the phones and onto the web they had to accept that we weren’t going to bother with their asinine, waste-of-fucking time rules of “professional appearance”.
And then the truth started to spread over all the lands.
*No owners of actual coats with tails allowed to take any credit
Marketing for an Online Education business
Stubble is fine and some even have full beards. We aren’t (or at least very very rarely) customer facing, so management doesn’t care too terribly much, as long as we don’t look homeless it’s pretty much golden.
Futures trade desk. I don’t have any client contact so, unless there are VIPs in the office, it doesn’t matter. Occasionally, l assist with education forums or attend trade shows, so that would be another exception.
GenX? You young whippersnapper! It was me and the other baby boomers who made the world safe for stubble! We had to take the risks of going into work without a tie on. I could have been fired for wearing sneakers to work! We broke through the monkey suit barrier so you guys wouldn’t have to wear white shirts with starched collars. Get off my lawn you ingrates!
University research laboratory
Literally anything goes here unless you are a director. I’m not a director, not even close. I haven’t shaved all week.
I’m a Solutions Architect in the telecoms industry. Basically, I design IT solutions for our customers and then help the salespeople sell them. We all work from home, but in the office the near universal dress code is jeans, a dress shirt and a jacket. There are a few who go more casual than that and no-one minds. If we’re meeting customers we wear suits. Ties are usually reserved for formal presentations.
Facial hair is no problem. Stubble is common and has been for years. I often meet with and present to C-Suite level clients, and many of them have stubble.
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We’re really casual here, jeans and tee shirt is my daily attire, but I shave every morning.
Engineer
Pretty much anything short of a ZZ Top beard goes. My facial hair grows in slow, so I generally don’t worry about it.
Waiter on the weekends
Clean shaven, no excuses
Engineer in IT.
Have never regularly shaved (except for 15 months in the military), always have 1-3 days stubble, have never worn anything other to work than jeans and t-shirt/sweater in more than twenty years in many different jobs, never was anything of that any problem at all. This is in Germany, maybe that makes a difference.
I always wear pants, so no one can tell whether I’ve shaved or not.
-Whats your profession
I’m a stagehand (I do lighting for corporate events, trade shows, television, concerts, etc.).
Yes.
Stubble, goatees (I sport one), beards, lumberjack beards, crazy Russian hermit monk beards, etc. are all fine.
Facial hair has always been acceptable in my industry.
No, we are not big on formality except as required by the job. Appearances vary wildly and include tattoos, piercings, mohawk haircuts, etc. Basically, no one cares what you look like as long as you can do your job.
The only uniformity of dress is what we call “show blacks” which just means wearing all black clothing for performances so that we aren’t easily seen by the audience. We do this even if we are sitting front of house or backstage where the audience could not possibly ever see us because that’s just what we do (i.e.: “it’s traditional”).
You do that too?
In my lawyer workplace, stubble is not worn. Clothes have got more informal, like slacks and a golf shirt, but if meeting clients or going to court, jacket and tie is required. (Some courts, full court gear.)
Product engineering manufacturing oil drilling tools.
When I entered the industry (1980), facial hair was not common. Mustaches were acceptable (I haven’t shaved my upper lip since I was 18, I kept cutting myself), but if you had anything else, your options for advancement was severely limited. Stubble was viewed as something only a drunk would have. The first “business meeting” I attended (between engineers & production managers) had 8-10 participants and another engineer and I were the only ones with mustaches; other than that everyone was clean shaven.
Fast forward 35 years and I attended another business meeting, with 10 participants (engineers and production managers) and 6 had “below the lip” facial hair (myself included, with a full beard; I haven’t shaved in about 10 years). The other 4 had a genetic condition that prevented facial hair growth (i.e., they were female). In 1980, one woman in this type of meeting would have seemed novel, or unusual. Four out of ten would have been unheard of, at least in the oil patch. Not only this, but in 1980, we would have taken at least a half-dozen meetings to deal with what we took care of in 2.5 hours.
Yeah, things have changed.
Self employed home Inspector. I keep a neatly trimmed beard and shave my non beardy parts when I’m working, so 2-3 times a week. Back when I was a constuction manager, twice a week.
I work for a US government agency. Wear chinos and collared shirts in the office and stubble is perfectly acceptable. I currently sport a 3 day stubble look and it’s been no problem. Even when we go onsite and wear suits and ties, the stubble look is perfectly acceptable.
I love Santa Barbara so much. You can wear jeans and a tshirt to any restaurant in town. No one gives a shit about your facial hair. The general manager of my prestigious engineering company wears shorts and flip flops most days. I have a full beard these days but before that I could have any sort of stubble I wanted. I’m an engineer who frequently meets with clients.
Wow. East coast vs west coast. I started working at a large Si Valley corporation in 1978, and engineers probably dressed more casually than they do today. Flip-flops and T-shirts were not unusual (we weren’t that far removed in time from hippiedom). No one would have cared or said a thing about a beard or partial beard or stubble. One of my male work-mates had hair almost down to his waste.
I have my own consulting business now, working with a range of companies and I shave eery other day. I have a pretty heavy beard, so it’s noticeable. I’m thinking of trying out once per week this winter. Too hot in the summer, plus when I’m outside I put on sunscreen, and trying to do that on 4-day old stubble doesn’t work very well.
One hopes at least that his hair was already brown.
Drilling engineer - when I was in the office I shaved between once and twice a week since 2006 when my career started. Depending on the company my clothing has varied between slacks and a dress shirt and jeans and polos.
Distillery owner - I wore anything from suits when I was raising money to shorts, flip flops, and holey tee shirts. I generally shaved once a week although when I got busy I’d drop to once per month.