23rd
Can Google Sales People Dress Like Engineers?
Last week I was in New York to meet my new manager face-to-face for the first time.
The last time I was in NY was three years ago, before Google moved to its new office in Chelsea.
Three years ago when I first walked into the old Google Times Square office, I realized that I was underdressed in my old J. Crew jeans and Gap corduroy blazer.
All the other sales folk were in suits, sleek black slacks and heels, and I felt like a total noob — a rube from Denver. A country mouse. An alien from another planet.
After work that day I immediately walked down to Banana Republic, bought a pair of black slacks, heels, and a surplice top, and finally felt relieved that I wouldn’t stick out again tomorrow.
This behavior of mine (wanting to fit in) has deep roots. When my family moved from Minnesota’s Iron Range (hick country) to the Twin Cities, I was seven years old.
We moved in the middle of the school year, in February, and when I joined my 1st grade class that first day, I was wearing an eye patch (the day prior my brother had accidentally pegged me in the eye with a snowball and scratched my cornea), and carrying my beloved Dark Crystal lunch box.
Because of the eye patch, no one wanted to talk to me. Jenny Bell, the girl in my class that my teacher assigned to show me around, was teased because she was tasked with me.
At lunch, as I took out my peanut butter sandwich from my lunch box, I was snidely informed by one of boys at the table that the Dark Crystal was stupid and hadn’t I seen Return of the Jedi? No, I hadn’t. I looked around the table, and just about everyone had a Return of the Jedi lunchbox.
The next day, I tearfully refused to take my Dark Crystal lunchbox, and my mom gave me her brown Tupperware one. But that didn’t make things better. No one would risk talking to me, and I spent the rest of the school year isolated from my peers, taking comfort only in the company of adults.
Being the noob is a terrible feeling. Not because it’s inherently shameful or wrong, it’s because there are experienced bullies out there that have no patience for noobs, for people who don’t know as much as they do, and they use their insider status to make you feel shitty about yourself because it makes them feel powerful.
I hate bullies. I think bullies should be public enemy number one because they kill (or repress) what is good and creative and thoughtful and earnest and lovely in people and make them scared to be themselves.
This is not to say that the Googlers in the NY office have ever bullied me, but once you’ve been the target of bullies consistently, throughout grade school, junior high and high school, it’s too late to think of new people as anyone but potential bullies.
I nervously enter new situations inconspicuously, absorb all the details I can about the environment, and assimilate as quickly as possible so I’m not a target. So, just about all my life, I’ve been Zelig.
But I’m tired of being Zelig. Especially in a place like New York, where the number of details to take in is infinite and overwhelming.
As usual, prior to this most recent NY trip, I shopped for new clothes, trying to quell the anxiety I have about fitting in and not looking stupid, while maintaining a personal sense of style, and ensuring that everything that I wore would be comfortable and unfussy.
(The next time your wife/girlfriend/fiance/sister is frantically trying on outfits in the morning before work, don’t think her vain. There’s just a lot of variables she needs to think about to make a decision.)
I wanted to make sure I didn’t underdress my first day, so I chose a skirt and heels, but I also didn’t want to overdress, so I wore a short-sleeve blouse. I curled my hair, put on eyeliner.
Unfortunately, it rained that day in New York, which a noob doesn’t realize throws a major monkeywrench into city life.
When it rains, it’s really hard to hail a cab. They’re all filled. So I stood out on 8th avenue for about 20 minutes in the wind and rain until a cab finally stopped, and by the time I got to the Google office, I looked like a drowned cat.
My new manager, Lexi (who’s very kind and honest and not at all a bully), took one look at me at said, “Don’t you know when it rains in NY you wear your jeans?”
She was wearing jeans and a pair of worn Merrells. I was immediately envious.
“No,” I said, “I’m a little bit out of the loop.”
I guess the moral of this story is: be yourself. Wear what you like. Fly your freak flag no matter what the naysayers say.
But that’s harder said than done. Image matters in business, and especially sales. What you wear is highly symbolic. If you underdress for a meeting, you lack credibility and seriousness, but if you overdress you look like a stuffy fucktard.
I’ve always envied the engineers at Google. They seem to have license to wear whatever they want, whenever they want.
We Google sales folk who meet with customers every day have to be conscious of the image we give of the company. We have to walk the fine line between fitting in with the rest of the corporate world and being ourselves.
