What do you do for a living?

[upflup]

I'm a financial advisor. I'm one of three advisors at a privately owned practice that contracts through a nationwide broker/dealer. My style varies by day, depending on whether or not I have client meetings and what clients I'm meeting with. I started spending more time on SF because I've been a member over at Reddit's MFA for years and now that I'm just short of 30, I'm starting to feel a bit old for that crowd.

 

[letsgofire]

Strategy Consultant

 

[Moose22]

Software.

I wear a sport coat over ratty jeans and a t-shirt and people at the office think I'm dressed up. God help me if I wear a tie. I almost never go to the office. I work remotely so only travel in a week at a time, two or three times a year, but nobody in development in my company dresses nicely with only a few exceptions. My coworkers are almost univerally jeans and T shirts people. I have been known to show up for meetings at the office in a sport coat, trousers, and a tie anyway just to freak out my coworkers, but have literally never worn my suits to work.

Oddly, within a few months of first buying nice clothes I started working from home full time in non customer-facing jobs. Go figure. I wear my suits socially, though, at the Opera, Symphony, some higher end parties, charity events, or an occasional wedding. There's a little jazz club downtown where we'll sneak in for a drink some Friday nights where people dress and most men will at least have a coat. Where I live even the Opera is pretty informal, but there are all ranges from casual to tuxedos. Others will dress nicely at these events so my friends and I fit in. So I dress two or three times a month, sometimes more during the winter. You just have to find places like that if you want to dress up, though I am sure in less urban areas that will be harder to do.

 

[kammerer66]

From folks' openness around it in the past, I'd hazard this forum's population is:

Lawyers (at a firm): 35%
General business function (including in-house counsel): 30%
Medical field: 15%
Academia: 12%
Retired: 5%
Military: 2%
Other: 1%

I'm in the 1%... which means software. There are five of us here already, how odd.

 

[heelguy]

In the 35%. Commercial real estate attorney at a big firm.

 

[Window]

I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me.

That's no quite true; what I work for is an autonomous public authority, although I was a civil servant until about a year-and-a-half ago. My official title is, "Management Analyst," which I think is pretty self-explanatory.

I'm kidding, of course; with a title that amorphous I could be anything from a janitor to some kind of special advisor to the grand high muckety-muck of the organization that I work for. (At my previous job, I was an Analyst of some genus or another, but was later rebranded as a 'Specialist' for reasons so obscure and bureaucratic that even an obscure bureaucrat like me couldn't be bothered to find out)

My actual job is writing grant applications, both competitive and formula, managing the budgets of those grant funds and various ancillary supporting functions, along with, "other duties as assigned." I seem to have a knack for finding my way into positions that are part-time junk drawers for whatever somebody needs done and has been convinced by everybody else that their to busy to do it.

I wear a white dress shirt, necktie*, waistcoat, wool trousers and cap-toe oxfords, alternating black and oxblood, every day**. I have recently taken to wearing a sport coat to the office, but I put it on a hook shortly after I get there, but usually after I've put my hat on a shelf. This makes me the most egregiously overdressed person in the building. Hardly anybody even wears a necktie, much less suits, although I have been told that it wasn't always so. My immediate supervisor's usual dress compares unfavorably in formality to that of the manager of a sporting goods store. I by no means really disdain him or anybody for dressing that way, but it emphasizes how out of place, or touch, I look. Of course, I also think that people who dress that way are missing out on some good fun.

*Except for Fridays, on which I wear a bowtie. Bowfriday, y'all!
**I also unfailingly wear underwear and socks, which I suspect most of you would have inferred, but better safe than sorry.

+1 for the invader Zim reference

 

[NickInTO]

Former business/finance journalist, currently working in corporate communications and public relations at a mid-sized agency.

 

[johng70]

Business Analyst

 

[IJReilly]

Economist, writer and failed entrepreneur.

 

[Justang]

I work for my parent's company doing financial planning and business brokerage during the day, and run my own woodworking business at night and on weekends!

 

[tailoredtech]

Software engineer in the Bay Area. Decided that with no dress code I can wear whatever I want, including sport coats and dress shoes. Keeping it tie-less for the most part and sticking to casual fabrics/patterns.

 

[dfagdfsh]

I've moved through quite a few professions. Right now I spend my days as a part time Etsy artist working with an exotic medium (probably not appropriate to say more here).

 

[g transistor]

I've moved through quite a few professions. Right now I spend my days as a part time Etsy artist working with an exotic medium (probably not appropriate to say more here).

Are you a furry artist? What do you wear?

 

[dfagdfsh]

Let's just say filling a certain physical, custom shaped niche is a great way to get money to buy clothes.

 

[ValidusLA]

I work in operations for a private label clothing company catering to big box stores.... unfortunately everyone but me dresses horribly all the time.

To the point where if I wear a sport coat and jeans I am "wearing a suit" to them. Doesn't help I'm in Los Angeles.