All of my dress shirts have no pocket; I think a dress shirt with pocket is almost as bad as a short sleeve dress shirt. 
I bet this guy wishes he had at least kept a blazer handy at work for customer meetings.
http://www.people.com/article/man-wears-polo-shirt-meeting-president-obama-photo
Free food may seem to be a perk, but it often exists so that people wonāt need as long a meal break to go out and get food.
Business casual can vary, it really depends on the business and those running it. For an intern coming into a new place, I would tend to go more conservative the first day. A pair of dress pants or dark colored khakis with a dress shirt and shoes would be fine. Most business casual I have encountered in tech fields tends to be no jeans and a collared shirt. Where I work now, in a tech area of a financial institution, lot of the developers and such wear jeans and sneakers (I happen to be wearing sneakers today, usually wear boat shoes). Usually, companies make the distinction if the area is āpublic facingā, where customers might see the employees, they tend to be a lot more strict with dress codes than tech centers. From what I know of Silicon Valley, most companies, especially start ups, donāt have rigid dress codes, but a more established company, like an HP, might be a lot more conservative. My prior job to this one we started out shirt, ties and suit jacket, I kind of created the trend of business casual (khakis, polo suits) back in the early 90ās, because I refused to wear a suit and tie with the kind of hours we worked routinely, and the company not long after went business casual. Funniest story was I went to a seminar in SF almost 20 years ago, and made friends with a woman who worked at a Silicon Valley firm (I think it was Silicon Graphics, who made/make the workstations used for movie CGI as well as other things), and she said someone suggested casual friday at a meeting, and someone replies āWhat the heck does that mean? You donāt wear underwear? Have you noticed what people wear to the office these days?ā.
Anyway, with an intern starting a job, go a bit conservative, wear a decent pair of slacks/khakis, shoes and a dress shirt (no tie, I donāt know of many places that consider a tie business casual), and then see what others are wearing and adjust from there.
Both are acceptable in engineering, and a pocket is almost a requirement. How else would I store my mechanical pencils?
The whole issue of what I wear to work is one of my pet peeves.
We can wear jeans on Friday and no one can articulate a rational reason why we canāt wear them every day.
We are business casual the rest of the week and we have strict guidelines about what that means.
My outfits are remarkably boring. Dockers and button down LL Bean plaid dress shirt in the winter and dockers and polo shirts all summer.
The places Iāve worked with free lunches have provided it to encourage socializing among professionals who would not otherwise socialize. Taking a plate of the free food back to your desk is explicitly discouraged, if not outright banned, so the purpose was unequivocally NOT to make people more efficient or productive. In fact, we would regularly get memos saying that taking a plate back to your desk is not in keeping with the spirit of the lunch program.
And, also, to avoid having to report the value of lunch as income to the recipients, the lunches technically had to be business meetings so we would have either internal or outside speakers, so it would generally take longer to go to lunch in the dining room than it would take to grab a sandwich and bring it back to your desk.
And the in-office cocktail parties on Friday afternoons definitely are inconsistent with productivity and efficiency. (Taxi vouchers provided, by the way.)
So, based on my personal experience, I disagree with the conclusion that the reason for free food in all or most environments is efficiency or productivity.
(Iāve just accepted a new job that will not have these perks ā Iāll miss them!)
@Magnetron wellā¦for the engineersā¦no pocket? Where would you put the pocket protector?? :))
ā(Iāve just accepted a new job that will not have these perks ā Iāll miss them)ā
Congrats!!!
This is where sometimes people on CC lose common sense!
If you donāt know exactly what the menās business casual at a particular place entails, gosh, you have two choices:
- Stock up on button-downs / oxfords / shirts as well as khakis / Dockers / similar pants that will be entirely appropriate whether it turns out to be on the casual side or on the dressy side of business casual; or
- Stock up on dark jeans / pants cut like jeans and polo tops that may or may not be appropriate.
It seems like a no-brainer that youād go with the always-appropriate choices versus the only-sometimes-appropriate choices. What am I missing?
If you are budget conscious I think Van Heusen has no-wrinkle button down shirts in a range of sizes. You can usually find sales on them in dept stores or there might be an outlet nearby.
I never said engineers were the harbingers of fashion.
We really like LL Bean fitted mens oxfords. They keep a crease in the arms forever right out of the dryer.
Or ask the particular employer what ābusiness casualā means there before buying a lot of clothes.
First day pointers are correct - dress almost as you would for an interview, except with the advice ābusiness casualā, Iād say a dress shirt or oxford and dress pants or freshly bought khakis instead of a suit. I have always dressed up for the first day of work because often they walk you around and introduce you, or maybe even have lunch with superiors (not true as much for an intern in my experience).
Wow, so many people have never heard of Casual Fridays! I know the first times I heard of it, you could NOT wear something casual unless you did donate to the charity of the week. Like, they went around with a coffee can (remember those?) with a slot in the plastic top and you put in your contribution.
The issue became when someone went to a new company that did not have it, and naturally dressed down on Fridays.
I have worked places where men and women were expected to wear suits every day. A dress was only okay if it had a blazer over it - no dress or skirt and blouse without a jacket of some sort. And I have worked at places where we wore a work uniform shirt, kind of like a button down but more worker style, and could wear jeans or carpenter pants or whatever we wanted as pants.
I have friends who work in offices where that would just. not. be. cool.
Probably a minority of businessplaces out there, sure, but still.
(And like @ucbalumnus said, why not just ask?)
Where on earth would khakis and a shirt be inappropriate in an office where most are wearing jeans and polo shirts? Itās still casual. Itās not like a tuxedo.
Well I think the simplest thing to do is ask, but where would be the fun in that? Otherwise I pretty much agree with Pizzahut, buy the slightly dressier version. If it turns out the office is really casual, roll up the sleeves and pull out your jeans (which you probably have in your closet anyway.) Iām not a big fan of polo shirts so to me the less I see of them the better anyway!
Pizzagirl has a new name? 
Arenāt there places where khakis are still too casual for ābusiness casualā, where they take that to mean dressy slacks and dress shirt, but tie and suit coat not required? So buying a pile of khakis may miss the target on the wrong end.
Better to just ask rather than guess.